SERENITY.

When toil is over and work is done

And the World looks out on a Sabbath's sun

Give me Oh! God! that hope serene

That calm and happy life,

You send sometimes to all mankind
Where envy makes no strife.

Oh! make my life both calm and kind
Let surge like ripples be

No mental storms to craze the mind
And set the tongue too free,
To strive to do by torment then
What justice would decree.

Give me Oh! God! that peacefulness
That brings the happy day

And adds to life much comfortness
Though homely be the way,

Where ignorance has no tactfulness
And cares for no display.

DUTY.

Meanness, deception, and strife,
They grow in the ignorance way
A good hope may come at last
If we know our duty to-day.

You whose way leads you
Through trial and pain

To travel your journey alone

You may have the fruit of hope at last

When the truth shines over your way.

And other hope may be at hand
We cannot know to-day

Our souls think only of bodily wants

So we grope through the dark our way
Let hope shine for you to-day.

Our minds and souls shall grow by care
To see the truth on our way

The thorns, and bruises shall keep us right
To travel on life's high way

When we wander from duty to-day.

If we traveling life's way do the right
Soon hope will show us the way,

And from the region of truth

We shall see a ray

To cheer us on a tedious to-day.

Those who hope only for money and fame

Shall find a hard road in the rock road of gain Where to-day may be loss and to-morrow no fame Till the life is all gone where peace seldom came.

HONESTY.

Insults, hatred, deception and strife,

Bodily pain, and physical want,

Are the bane and bother of human life;
We may merge from the shadow over our day
When we learn that dishonesty will not pay
For the law of the soul is supreme in it's sway.

Beyond the dark vistas of sorrow, or pain,
There is knowledge to garner it will pay to gain'
The sharper may rob you and leave you in want
The crazy insult you by word, or in deed,
And physical force make honesty bleed.

If the getting of money is difficult
In the good old, tried, usual ways,

Fidelity offers its service, in kindness essay,

Honesty without kindness is a desert without rain, Or the green corn where the early frost came.

LIFE.

Learn to know just all that's needed,

When the wants the means exceed.
Try to live and be contended,
Then the melancholy day,
Has less sadness in its stay.

This is wisdom worth the seeking
Foolishness can never find it
Simpletons may deride it.

Enjoy your pleasures as you can,
Shall they be like downy feathers,
Torn from you by unseen tethers,
Great deceit and meek duplicity
Hide cruel dangers we do not see;
For those who do, and those who don't
For those who will, and those who won't,
Speak the truth.

ENVY.

Do you envy mighty monarchs?
Do you envy millionaires?

Do you envy those who treat you
With a mean disdainful air?

Learn to look at starry planets
They are far above all these,
And the people, who are on them
Do they know of mighty deeds?

Have they heard of our great nations?
Scattered here and clustered there,
On the outside of this planet

As the wars have left them there.

Most they see of us from planets
Is the sunshine that surrounds us,
Earth is such a small affair

Just a mote spot seen from there.

VIOLENCE.

Violence is like the billowy sea
That does not fling itself,

But it strikes a crazy blow
Then sinks away again
To where it was before,
And all seems calm,
And smooth, and mild,
Along a peaceful shore.

Where rests the sore

The wounded and the dead,

And misery like eagle violence

With wide wings spread,

Soars over victor and vanquished

And cares not for the dead,

But feeds itself

Upon the wounded and sore.

THE SOUL.

The soul is whence thought comes
Bidden or unbidden to the mind,
If from one or more directions

Who can look beyond to find?
It grows from life's existence
Building up the fountain spring,
Where the soul in truth existeth,
And partitions cannot screen.

With only selfesh motives

As the ladder up to fame,

Could you beat Jehovah's calculations
If you played the smartest game?
Are we for kindly truth, for all theories?

Do we burning elements change the air and seas?
With small care within our minds

To save for those of future times.

REVENGE.

When France was filled with riot, and her cities fair to see,
Were no more busy markets, for jest and joyous glee;
Then in the reign of terror, Paris, sought for revenge to be.
Those who seek for vengence like drunkards with their fill,
Must face the wreckage after, and lean on others will.

They marched them off to Lodi, to the heights at Wagram's plain,

To die on Jena's meadows, and fill Sahara's rills

With the blood from soldier heros as their hearts kept beating still;

They froze in Russian forests, and died on Spain's dry hills; So Napoleon brave should conquer, with France to pay the

bills.