MARGARET J. PRESTON. MARGARET J. PRESTON. [U. S. A.] READY. I WOULD be ready, Lord, My house in order set, None of the work thou gavest me To do, unfinished yet. I would be watching, Lord, I would be waiting, Lord, Because I cannot know If-in the night or morning watch, I may be called to go. I would be working, Lord, Each day, each hour, for thee; Assured that thus I wait thee well, Whene'er thy coming be. I would he living, Lord, As ever in thine eye; For whoso lives the nearest thee A BIRD'S MINISTRY. FROM his home in an Eastern bungalow, "I had travelled far From the Afghan towers of Candahar, Through the sand-white plains of SindeSagar; "And once, when the daily march was o'er, As tired I sat in my tented door, Hope failed me, as never it failed before. “In swarming city, at wayside fane, By the Indus' bank, on the scorching plain, I had taught, and my teaching all seemed vain. "No glimmer of light (I sighed) appears; I SAW a man, by some accounted wise, The Moslem's Fate and the Buddhist's For some things said and done before fears their eyes, "Some pray for wealth, and seem to pray aright; They heap until themselves are out of sight; Yet stand, in charities, not over shoes, And ask of their old age As an old ledger page, What is the use?.... "The strife for fame and the high praise of power, Is as a man, who, panting up a tower, Bears a great stone, then, straining all his thews, Heaves it, and sees it make What is the use?... "Should some new star, in the fair evening sky, Kindle a blaze, startling so keen an eye "Who'll care for me, when I am dead and gone? Not many now, and surely, soon, not one; "Spirit of Beauty! Breath of golden lyres! Perpetual tremble of immortal wires! "Doth not all struggle tell, upon its brow, That he who makes it is not easy now, But hopes to be? Vain hope that dost abuse! Coquetting with thine eyes, What is the use? "Go pry the lintels of the pyramids; Lift the old kings' mysterious coffin-lidsThis dust was theirs whose names these stones confuse, These mighty monuments UNKNOWN. "Did not he sum it all, whose Gate of Pearls Blazed royal Ophir, Tyre, and Syrian girls, The great, wise, famous monarch of the Though rolled in grandeur vast, What is the use? "O, but to take, of life, the natural good, "Give me a hermit's life, without his beads, His lantern-jawed, and moral-mouthing creeds; Systems and creeds the natural heart abuse. What need of any book, What is the use? "I love, and God is love; and I behold Man, Nature, God, one triple chain of gold, Nature in all sore oracle and muse. What is the use?" Seeing this man so heathenly inclined,- Thou dost amaze me that thou dost mistake The wanderingrivers for the fountain lake. Plainly, this world is not a scope for bliss, What man is, in desires, 323 Souls on a globe that spins our lives away, A multitudinous world, where Heaven and Hell, Strangely in battle met, Dust though we are, and shall return to dust, Yet being born to battles, fight we must; Then since we see about us sin and dole, Come, here is work-and a rank fieldbegin. But what and where are we? what now Put thou thine edge to the great weeds -to-day? of sin; So shalt thou find the use of life, and see | To make me own this hind of princes Thy Lord, at set of sun, Approach and say, "Well done!" peer, This rail-splitter a true-born king of but such trees large | And with the martyr's crown crownest a Rough culture, If but their stocks be of right girth and So he grew up, a destined work to do, And lived to do it; four long-suffering years' Ill-fate, ill-feeling, ill-report, lived through, And then he heard the hisses change to cheers. E'en through the awful gloom, That light of love our guiding star shall be; Our spirits shall not dread Whate'er its grounds, stoutly and nobly Friend! Guardian! Saviour! which doth striven; lead to thee! |