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O backward-looking thought! O pain! O tears!

For us there is not any silver sound Of rhythmic wonders springing from the ground.

Woe worth the knowledge and the bookish lore

Which makes men mummies; weighs out every grain Of that which was miraculous before, And sneers the heart down with the scoffing brain;

That dry the tender juices in the breast,

And put the thunders of the Lord to test, [praise, So that no marvel must be, and no Nor any God except Necessity. What can ye give my poor stained life in lieu

Of this dead cherub which I slew for ye!

renew

Take back your doubtful wisdom and [dunce, My early foolish freshness of the Woe worth the peering, analytic Whose simple instincts guessed the

days

heavens at once.

CHARLES F. RICHARDSON.

AMENDS.

THINK not your duty done when, sad and tearful,

Your heart recounts its sins, And praying God for pardon, weak and fearful,

Its better life begins,

Nor rest content when, braver grown and stronger,

Your days are sweet and pure, Because you follow evil ways no longer,

In Christ's defence secure.

Bethink you then, but not with fruitless ruing,

-That bids the past be still, But what your life has wrought to men's undoing,

By influence for ill.

Go forth, and dare not rest until the morrow,

But, lest it be too late, Seek out the hearts whose weight of sin and sorrow

Through you has grown more great.

Take gifts to all of love and reparation,

Or if it may not be,

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JUSTICE.

For Patience, stern and leaden-eyed,
Looks far where future joys abide;
Nor sees short sadness at her feet,
For sight of triumph long and sweet. A HUNDRED noble wishes fill my

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heart,

I long to help each soul in need of aid;

In all good works my zeal would have

its part,

Before no weight of toil it stands afraid.

But noble wishes are not noble deeds,

And he does least who seeks to do the whole;

Who works the best, his simplest duties heeds,

Who moves the world, first moves a single soul.

Then go, my heart, thy plainest work begin,

Do first not what thou canst, but what thou must;

Build not upon a corner-stone of sin, Nor seek great works until thou first be just.

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Six Poems entitled by the author, “Reflections." | Cost what they will, such cruel freaks

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are played;

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HEART SUPERIOR to head.

THE heart, the say, is wiser than the schools:

And well they may. All that is great in thought,

That strikes at once as with electric fire,

And lifts us, as it were, from earth to heaven,

Comes from the heart; and who confesses not

Its voice as sacred, nay, almost divine,

When inly it declares on what we do, Blaming, approving? Let an erring world Judge as it will, we care not while we stand

Acquitted there; and oft, when clouds on clouds

Compass us round and not a track

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And onward goes, humbly and cheerAssisting them that faint, weak fully, though he be,

And in his trying hours trusting in God,

Fair as he is, he shall be fairer still;

For what was innocence will then be virtue.

MAN'S RESTLESSNESS.

MAN to the last is but a froward child;

So

eager for the future, come what may,

And to the present so insensible! Oh, if he could in all things as he would,

Years would as days, and hours as moments, be;

He would, so restless is his spirit here,

Give wings to time, and wish his life away!

THE SELFISH.

Он, if the selfish knew how much they lost,

What would they not endeavor, not endure,

To imitate, as far as in them lay,
Him who his wisdom and his power
employs
In making others happy!

EXHORTATION TO MARRIAGE.

HENCE to the altar and with her thou lov'st,

With her who longs to strew thy way with flowers;

Nor lose the blessed privilege to give Birth to a race immortal as yourselves,

Which trained by you, shall make a heaven on earth, And tread the path that leads from earth to heaven.

[From Human Life.]

Tracing in vain the footsteps o'er the green;

THE PASSAGE FROM BIRTH TO The man himself how altered, not

AGE.

AND such is Human Life; so, gliding on,

It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!

Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,

As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,

As any that the wandering tribes require,

Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;

As any sung of old in hall or bower To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour!

Born in a trance, we wake, observe, inquire; And the green earth, the azure sky admire.

Of elfin-size,- for ever as we run, We cast a longer shadow in the sun! And now a charm, and now a grace is won!

We grow in stature, and in wisdom too!

And, as new scenes, new objects rise to view,

Think nothing done while aught remains to do.

Yet, all forgot, how oft the eyelids close,

And from the slack hand drops the

gathered rose!

How oft, as dead, on the warm turf we lie,

While many an emmet comes with curious eye;

And on her nest the watchful wren sits by!

Nor do we speak or move, or hear or see;

So like what once we were, and once again shall be!

And say, how soon, where, blithe as innocent,

The boy at sunrise carolled as he went,

An aged pilgrim on his staff shall lean,

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