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Wet was the grass beneath our tread, Thick-dewed the bramble by the way; The lichen had a lovelier red,

The elder-flower a fairer gray.

And there was silence on the land,
Save when, from out the city's fold,
Stricken by Time's remorseless wand,
A bell across the morning tolled.

The beeches sighed through all their boughs;

The gusty pennons of the pine
Swayed in a melancholy drowse,
But with a motion sternly fine.

One gable, full against the sun,
Flooded the garden-space beneath
With spices, sweet as cinnamon,

From all its honeysuckled breath.

Then crew the cocks from echoing farm3, The chimney-tops were plumed with smoke,

The windmill shook its slanted arms,
The sun was up, the country woke!
And voices sounded mid the trees

Of orchards red with burning leaves, By thick hives, sentinelled by bees, From fields which promised tented sheaves;

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bread;

TWO MOODS.

I PLUCKED the harebells as I went

Put me, where it will tell, of me, lying Singing along the river-side ;

dead,

How It called, and I rose and went.

MARY N. PRESCOTT.

[U. S. A.]

WORK.

SWEET Wind, fair wind, where have you been?

I've been sweeping the cobwebs out of the sky;

I've been grinding a grist in the mill hard by;

I've been laughing at work while others sigh;

Let those laugh who win!"

Sweet rain, soft rain, what are you doing? "I'm urging the corn to fill out its cells; I'm helping the lily to fashion its bells; I'm swelling the torrent and brimming the wells;

Is that worth pursuing?".

The skies above were opulent
Of sunshine. "Ah! whate'er betide,
The world is sweet, is sweet," I cried,
That morning by the river-side.

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The curlews called along the shore;
The boats put out from sandy beach;
Afar I heard the breakers' roar,
Mellowed to silver-sounding speech;
And still I sang it o'er and o'er,
"The world is sweet forevermore!"

Perhaps, to-day, some other one,
Loitering along the river-side,
Content beneath the gracious sun,
May sing, again, "Whate'er betide,
The world is sweet. I shall not chide,
Although my song is done.

ARTHUR O'SHAUGHNESSY.

SONG OF A FELLOW-WORKER.

Redbreast, red breast, what have you done? I FOUND a fellow-worker when I deemed "I've been watching the nest where my

fledgelings lie; I've sung them to sleep with a lullaby; By and by I shall teach them to fly, Up and away, every one!"

Honey-bee, honey-bee, where are you going?

"To fill my basket with precious pelf; To toil for my neighbor as well as myself; To find out the sweetest flower that grows, Be it a thistle or be it a rose,

A secret worth the knowing!"

Each content with the work to be done,
Ever the same from sun to sun:
Shall you and I be taught to work
By the bee and the bird, that scorn to
shirk?

Wind and rain fulfilling His word!
Tell me, was ever a legend heard
Where the wind, commanded to blow,
deferred;

Or the rain, that was bidden to fall, demurred?

I toiled alone:

My toil was fashioning thought and

sound, and his was hewing stone; I worked in the palace of my brain, he in the common street,

And it seemed his toil was great and hard, while mine was great and sweet.

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"And yet for days it seems my heart shall | That while they nobly held it as each

blossom never more,

And the burden of my loneliness lies on me very sore:

Therefore, O hewer of the stones that pave base human ways, How canst thou bear the years till death, made of such thankless days?"

Then he replied: "Ere sunrise, when the pale lips of the day

Sent forth an earnest thrill of breath at warmth of the first ray,

A great thought rose within me, how, while men asleep had lain, The thousand labors of the world had grown up once again.

"The sun grew on the world, and on my soul the thought grew too,

A great appalling sun, to light my soul the long day through.

I felt the world's whole burden for a moment, then began

With man's gigantic strength to do the labor of one man.

"I went forth hastily, and lo! I met a hundred men, The worker with the chisel and the worker with the pen,

The restless toilers after good, who sow and never reap,

And one who maketh music for their souls that may not sleep.

"Each passed me with a dauntless look,

and my undaunted eyes Were almost softened as they passed with tears that strove to rise At sight of all those labors, and because

that every one,

Ay, the greatest, would be greater if my little were undone.

"They passed me, having faith in me, and in our several ways,

Together we began to-day as on the other days:

I felt their mighty hands at work, and, as the day wore through,

Perhaps they felt that even I was helping somewhat too:

"Perhaps they felt, as with those hands they lifted mightily

The burden once more laid upon the world so heavily,

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man can do and bear,

It did not wholly fall my side as though no man were there.

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Woe, woe!

STRIKE the loved harp; let the prelude That strength and virtue thus should pass

be,

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From men below!

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Truth hath decreed her joyous resurrec- There are who for thy last, long sleep

tion:

She shall arise, she must.

For can it be that wickedness hath power
To undermine or topple down the tower
Of virtue's edifice?

And yet that vice

Shall sleep as sweetly nevermore,
Shall weep because thou canst not weep,
And grieve that all thy griefs are o'er.

Sad thrift of love! the loving breast
On which the aching head was thrown,

Should be allowed on sacred ground to Gave up the weary head to rest,

plant

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But kept the aching for its own.

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