Each of the Four Numbers of "100 Choice Selections" contained in this volume is paged separately, and the Index is made to correspond therewith. See EXPLANATION on first page of Contents. The entire book contains nearly 1000 pages. 100 CHOICE SELECTIONS. No. 16. CLEAR THE WAY.-CHARLES MACKAY. Men of thought, be up and stirring night and day: There's a fount about to stream, There's a light about to beam, There's a warmth about to glow, There's a midnight blackness changing into gray. Once the welcome light has broken, who shall say Aid it, for the hour is ripe, And our earnest must not slacken into play. Men of thought and men of action, CLEAR THE WAY! Lo! a cloud's about to vanish from the day; And a brazen wrong to crumble into clay. Enter smiling at the door; That for ages long have held us for their prey. Men of thought and men of action, CLEAR THE WAY! JANE CONQUEST. About the time of Christmas (Not many months ago), When the sky was black With wrath and rack, And the earth was white with snow, When loudly rang the tumult Could tell of the ship, To lighten her heart's despair. Was all but still, And the brow was chill, And pale as the white sea mist. Jane Conquest's heart was hopeless; The night was dark and darker, And dreamless sleep Lay the hamlet under the hill. The fire was dead on the hearthstone And still sat she, With her babe on her knee, At prayer amid the gloom. When, borne above the tempest, A sound fell on her ear, Thrilling her through, For well she knew 'Twas the voice of mortal fear. And a light leaped in at the lattice, Sudden and swift and red; Crimsoning all, The whited wall, And the floor, and the roof o'erhead. For one brief moment, heedless And through the quaint old casemout Thank God that the sight So rare a sight should be! Hemmed in by many a billow Where the fierce fire did not burn: Till the night was like a sunset, And the sea like a sea of blood, Were bathed all o'er And drenched with the gory flood. She looked and looked, till the terror And her sight grew dizzy and dim; No channel of sound Once more that cry of anguish Thrilled through the tempest's strife, And it stirred again In heart and brain And the light of an inspiration And on lip and brow Was written now A purpose pure and high. Swiftly she turns, and softly And faltering not, In his tiny cot She laid the babe she bore. And then with a holy impulse, She sank to her knees, and made In the silence there, And this was the prayer she prayed: "O Christ, who didst bear the scourging, And who now dost wear the crown, I at thy feet, O True and Sweet, Would lay my burden down. "And lo! my boy is dying! Yea, greater than I can bear! O Lord, Thou know'st what peril Most weak and human, Do plead for their waiting wives. Of this terrible death And let Thy power, And so her prayer she ended, Gave one long look At the cradle nook Where the child's faint pulses beat; And then with softest footsteps Retrod the chamber floor, And noiselessly groped For the latch and oped |