Two Lovers

BY GEORGE ELIOT.

Two lovers by a moss-grown spring:
They leaned soft cheeks together there,
Mingled the dark and sunny hair,
And heard the wooing thrushes sing.
O budding time!

O love's blest prime!

Two wedded from the portal stept:
The bells made happy carolings,
The air was soft as fanning wings,
White petals on the pathway slept.
O pure-eyed bride!

O tender pride!

Two faces o'er a cradle bent:

Two hands above the head were locked; These pressed each other while they rocked, Those watched a life that love had sent. O solemn hour!

O hidden power!

Two parents by the evening fire:
The red light fell about their knees
On heads that rose by slow degrees

Like buds upon the lily spire.

O patient life!

O tender strife!

The two still sat together there,

The red light shone about their knees;
But all the heads by slow degrees
Had gone and left that lonely pair.
O voyage fast!

O vanished past!

The red light shone upon the floor

And made the space between them wide; They drew their chairs up side by side, Their pale cheeks joined, and said,

"Once more!"

O memories!
O past that is!

A Deed and a Word

BY CHARLES MACKAY.

A little stream had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern;
A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care.
A ladle at the brink;

He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that all might drink.

He passed again, and lo! the well
By summer never dried,

Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,
And saved a life beside.

A nameless man, amid a crowd

That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied, from the heart;
A whisper on the tumult thrown,
A transitory breath-

It raised a brother from the dust,

It saved a soul from death.

O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!

Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.

A Holy Nation

BY RICHARD REALF.

Let Liberty run onward with the years,
And circle with the seasons; let her break
The tyrant's harshness, the oppressor's spears;
Bring ripened recompenses that shall make
Supreme amends for sorrow's long arrears;
Drop holy benison on hearts that ache;
Put clearer radiance into human eyes,
And set the glad earth singing to the skies.

Clean natures' coin-pure statutes. Let us cleanse
The hearts that beat within us; let us mow
Clear to the roots our falseness and pretense,
Tread down our rank ambitions, overthrow
Our braggart moods of puffed self-consequence,
Plow up our hideous thistles which do grow
Faster than maize in Maytime, and strike dead
The base infections our low greeds have bred.

To-Day

BY THOMAS CARLYLE.

So here hath been dawning another blue day; Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?

Out of eternity this new day is born;
Into eternity at night will return.

Behold it aforetime no eye ever did;
So soon it forever from all eyes is hid.

Here hath been dawning another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it slip useless away?

The Fool's Prayer

BY EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

The royal feast was done; the king
Sought some new sport to banish care,
And to his jester cried: "Sir Fool,
Kneel now, and make for us a prayer!"

The jester doffed his cap and bells,
And stood the mocking court before:
They could not see the bitter smile
Behind the patient grin he wore.

He bowed his head, and bent his knee
Upon the monarch's silken stool;
His pleading voice arose, "O Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

"No pity, Lord, could change the heart
From red with wrong to white as wool;
The rod must heal the sin; but, Lord,
Be merciful to me, a fool!

""Tis not by guilt the onward sweep Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay; 'Tis by our follies that so long

We hold the earth from heaven away.

"These clumsy feet still in the mire,

Go crushing blossoms without end; These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust Among the heartstrings of a friend.

"The ill-timed truth we might have keptWho knows how sharp it pierced and stung? The word we had not sense to say

Who knows how grandly it had rung?

"Our faults no tenderness should ask,

The chastening stripe must cleanse them all;

But for our blunders-oh, in shame

Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

"Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;

Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,

Be merciful to me, a fool!"

The room was hushed; in silence rose
The king, and sought his garden cool,
And walked apart, and murmured low:
"Be merciful to me, a fool!"

His Second Wife

A collector called on a French-Canadian to inquire about the financial responsibility of a neighbor. Felix chose to give a favorable, and somewhat lengthly opinion, but he was interrupted by his wife who said: "Felix, what for you lie lack dat for 'im?"

Felix went on serenely, paying no attention to the interruption, but when his wife repeated her question he said to the caller:

66

Pay no 'tension to her. She my second wife. She don't count."

Motor Goose Rhyme

Sing a song of motors,
Whizzing a la mode;
Four and twenty victims

Killed on the road.
When the copper hails him,

The chauffeur speeds his pace;

Isn't that a pretty way

To treat the human race!

-Metropolitan Magazine.