But, begone! regret, bewailing,
Ye but weaken at the best;
I have tried the trusty weapons
Resting erst within my breast;
I have wakened to my duty,

To a knowledge strong and deep,
That I dreamed not of aforetime,
In my long, inglorious sleep;
For to live is something awful,
And I knew it not before;
And I dreamed not how stupendous
Was the secret that I bore-
The great, deep, mysterious secret
Of a life to be wrought out
Into warm, heroic action,

Weakened not by fear or doubt. In this subtle sense of living, Newly stirred in every vein, I can feel a throb electric, Pleasure half-allied to pain. 'Tis so great-and yet so awfulSo bewildering, yet so brave, To be a king in every conflict, When before I crouched a slave; 'T is so glorious to be conscious Of a growing power within, Stronger than the rallying forces

Of a charged and marshalled sin; Never in those old romances,

Felt I half the sense of life,

That I feel within me stirring,

Standing in the place of strife.
Oh, those olden days of dalliance,
When I wantoned with my fate,
When I trifled with a knowledge
That has wellnigh come too late ;
Yet, my soul, look not behind thee,
Thou hast work to do at last;
Let the brave toil of the Present
Overarch the crumbling Past;
Build thy great acts high, and higher,
Build them on the conquered sod
Where thy weakness first fell bleeding,
And thy first prayer rose to God.

Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

1823.

VESTIS ANGELICA.

[It was a custom of the early English Church for pious laymen to be carried in the hour of death to some monastery, that they might be clothed in the habit of the religious order and might die amid the prayers of the brotherhood. The garment thus assumed was known as the Vestis Angelica.-See Moroni: "Dizionario di Erudizione Storico-Ecclesiastica,” ii., 78; xcvi., 212.]

O gather, gather! Stand
Round her on either hand!
Ye shining angel-band

More pure than priest;

A garment white and whole
Weave for this passing soul,
Whose earthly joy and dole
Have almost ceased.

Weave it of mothers' prayers,
Of sacred thoughts and cares,
Of peace beneath gray hairs,
Of hallowed pain;
Weave it of vanished tears,
Of childlike hopes and fears,
Of joys, by saintly years
Washed free from stain.

Weave it of happy hours,
Of smiles and summer flowers,
Of passing sunlit showers,
Of acts of love,

Of pathways that did go
Amid life's work and woe;
-Her eyes still fixed below,
Her thoughts above.

Then, as those eyes grow dim,
Chant ye her best-loved hymn,

While from yon church tower's brim
A soft chime swells.

Her freed soul floats in bliss
To unseen worlds from this,

Nor knows in which it is

She hears the bells.

Unknown.

HAST THOU WITHIN A CARE SO DEEP?

Hast thou within a care so deep,
It chases from thine eyelids sleep?
To thy Redeemer take that care,
And change anxiety to prayer.

Hast thou a hope with which thy heart
Would almost feel it death to part?
Entreat thy God that hope to crown,
Or give thee strength to lay it down.

Hast thou a friend whose image dear
May prove an idol worshipped here?
Implore the Lord that naught may be
A shadow between Heaven and thee.

Whate'er the care that breaks thy rest,
Whate'er the wish that swells thy breast,
Spread before God that wish, that care,
And change anxiety to prayer.

Adeline D. T. Whitney.
1824.

EQUINOCTIAL.

The sun of life has crossed the line;

The summer-shine of lengthened light

Faded and failed, till where I stand 'Tis equal day and equal night.

One after one, as dwindling hours,

Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away, And soon may barely leave the gleam That coldly scores a winter's day.

I am not young; I am not old;

The flush of morn, the sunset calm, Paling and deepening, each to each, Meet midway with a solemn charm.

One side I see the summer fields

Not yet disrobed of all their green; While westerly, along the hills

Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.

Ah, middle point, where cloud and storm
Make battle-ground of this; my life!
Where, even matched, the night and day
Wage round me their September strife!

I bow me to the threatening gale:
I know when that is over past,
Among the peaceful harvest days,
An Indian Summer comes at last!

UP IN THE WILD.

Up in the wild, where no one comes to look,
There lives and sings a little lonely brook:
Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines,
Yet creepeth on to where the daylight shines.