O'REILLY. JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY. PEACE AND PAIN. THE day and night are symbols of creation, And each has part in all that God has made: There is no ill without its compensation, And life and death are only light and shade. There never beat a heart so base and sordid But felt at times a sympathetic [ed, glow; There never lived a virtue unrewardNor died a vice without its meed of woe. And as we wade, the darkness closing o'er us, The hungry waters surging to the chin, Our deeds will rise like steppingstones before us The good and bad use the sin. for we may given, A sin of youth, atoned for and for Takes on a virtue, if we choose to find: are driven, When clouds across our onward path We still may steer by its pale light behind. In this brief life despair should never A sin forgotten is in part to pay for, reach us; The sea looks wide because the shores are dim; The star that led the Magi still can teach us The way to go if we but look to Him. A sin remembered is a constant gain: Sorrow, next joy, is what we ought to pray for, As next to peace we profit most from pain. The air of the valley has felt the chill: The workers pause at the door of the mill; The housewife, keen to the shivering air Arrests her foot on the cottage stair, Instinctive taught by the motherlove, And thinks of the sleeping ones above. A monster in aspect, with shaggy front, Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt Of the homes they shatter-whitemaned and hoarse, The merciless Terror fills the course Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves, With Death on the first of its hissing waves, [mill Till cottage and street and crowded Of the mill-stream widen ? Is it a Are crumbled and crushed. Why start the listeners? Why does the course horse But die ere spoken, fail to play their And claim a merit that is not their The kindly word unspoken is a sin, And tells the heart that, doubting, looks within, That not in speech, but thought, the virtue lies. Poor banished Hagar!-prayed a well From out the sand to save her And loving eyes that cannot see the Will watch the expected movement Ah! can ye let its cutting silence Around that heart, and scathe it Unspoken words, like treasures in the mine, Are valueless until we give them birth: ties shine, Like unfound goid their hidden beau Which God has made to bless and gild the earth. How sad 'twould be to see a master's hand Strike glorious notes upon a voiceless lute! But oh! what pain when, at God's own command, A heartstring thrills with kindness, but is mute! Then hide it not, the music of the soul, Dear sympathy, expressed with kindly voice, To deserts dry, to hearts that But let it like a shining river roll would rejoice. Oh! let the symphony of kindly words Sound for the poor, the friendless, and the weak; And He will bless you, - He who struck these chords Will strike another when in turn you seek. HIDDEN SINS. But 'tis not so: another heart may FOR every sin that comes before the thirst For that kind word, as Hagar in the wild light, And leaves an outward blemish on the soul, |