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It is nothing now,

ELIZABETH LLOYD HOWELL. When heaven is opening on my sight

[U. S. A.]

MILTON'S PRAYER IN BLINDNESS.

I AM old and blind!

less eyes?

When airs from paradise refresh my

brow,

The earth in darkness lies.

In a purer clime

thought

Men point at me as smitten by God's My being fills with rapture,

frown;

Afflicted and deserted of my kind;

Yet I am not cast down.

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waves of

Roll in upon my spirit, - strains sublime Break over me unsought.

Give me my lyre!

I feel the stirrings of a gift divine: Within my bosom glows unearthly fire, Lit by no skill of mine.

C. F. ALEXANDER.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

By Nebo's lonely mountain
On this side Jordan's wave,

In a vale in the land of Moab
There lies a lonely grave.

And no man knows that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e'er,

For the angels of God upturned the sod,
And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
But no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes back when night is done,

And the crimson streak on ocean's cheek
Grows into the great sun.

Noiselessly as the spring-time
Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
Open their thousand leaves;
So without sound of music
Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain's crown
The great procession swept.

Perchance the bald old eagle
On gray Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie
Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion, stalking,
Still shuns that hallowed spot,

For beast and bird have seen and heard

That which man knoweth not.

But when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum, Follow his funeral car;

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed, While peals the minute-gun.

Amid the noblest of the land,
We lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place
With costly marble drest,
In the great minster transept
Where lights like glories fall,

And the organ rings and the sweet choir sings

Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the truest warrior

That ever buckled sword,

This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so

sage

As he wrote down for men.

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CHRISTMAS HYMN.

CALM on the listening ear of night

Come Heaven's melodious strains, Where wild Judæa stretches far

Her silver-mantled plains!

Celestial choirs, from courts above,
Shed sacred glories there;
And angels, with their sparkling lyres,
Make music on the air.

The answering hills of Palestine
Send back the glad reply;

And greet, from all their holy heights,
The dayspring from on high.

On the blue depths of Galilee

There comes a holier calm,

And Sharon waves, in solemn praise, Her silent groves of palm.

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Or he deserts us at the hour The fight is all but lost;

FREDERIC WILLIAM FABER. And seems to leave us to ourselves

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RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH.

241

ALL'S WELL.

SWEET-VOICED Hope, thy fine discourse
Foretold not half life's good to me :
Thy painter, Fancy, hath not force
To show how sweet it is to Be!
Thy witching dream

And pictured scheme

To match the fact still want the power;
Thy promise brave

From birth to grave
Life's boon may beggar in an hour.

Ask and receive, 't is sweetly said; Yet what to plead for know I not; For Wish is worsted, Hope o'ersped,

Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years,
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
His life's a hymn
The seraphim

Might hark to hear or help to sing,

And to his soul

The boundless whole
Its bounty all doth daily bring.

"All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith:
"The wealth I am, must thou become:
Richer and richer, breath by breath,
Immortal gain, immortal room!"
And since all his

Mine also is,

And aye to thanks returns my thought. Life's gift outruns my fancies far,

If I would pray,

I've naught to say

But this, that God may be God still;

For Him to live Is still to give,

And sweeter than my wish His will.

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And drowns the dream

In larger stream,

As morning drinks the morning star.

ROYALTY.

THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose eyes

Suffices not all worth the city knows To pay that debt which his own heart he owes;

For less than level to his bosom rise The low crowd's heaven and stars: above their skies

Runneth the road his daily feet have pressed;

A loftier heaven he beareth in his breast, And o'er the summits of achieving hies With never a thought of merit or of meed; Choosing divinest labors through a pride Of soul, that holdeth appetite to feed Ever on angel-herbage, naught beside; Nor praises more himself for hero-deed Than stones for weight, or open seas for tide.

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