"There is no wind but soweth seeds

Of a more true and open life,

4

Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds With wayside beauty rife.

"We find within these souls of ours

Some wild germs of a higher birth,
Which in the poet's tropic heart bear flowers

Whose fragrance fills the earth.

"Within the hearts of all men lie
These promises of wider bliss,
Which blossom into hopes that cannot die,
In sunny hours like this.

"All that hath been majestical
In life or death, since time began,
Is native in the simple heart of all,
The angel-heart of man.

"And thus, among the untaught poor,
Great deeds and feelings find a home,
That cast in shadow all the golden lore
Of classic Greece and Rome."

O mighty brother-soul of man, Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O'er-roof infinity!

All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole:

In his broad breast the feeling deep

That struggled on the many's tongue, Swells to a tide of Thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of Wrong.

All thought begins in feeling,-wide
In the great mass its base is hid,

And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified,
A moveless pyramid.

Nor is he far astray who deems

That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of GOD.

GOD wills, man hopes: in common souls
Hope is but vague and undefined,

Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls,
A blessing to his kind.

Never did Poesy appear

So full of heaven to me, as when

I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear

To the lives of coarsest men.

It may be glorious to write

Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century;—

But better far it is to speak

One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men;

To write some earnest verse or line,

Which, seeking not the praise of art,

Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart.

He who doth this, in verse or prose,
May be forgotten in his day,

But surely shall be crowned at last with those
Who live and speak for aye.

George Lunt.

THE LYRE AND SWORD.

HE freeman's glittering sword be blest

THE

Forever blest the freeman's lyre—

That rings upon the tyrant's crest ;

This stirs the heart like living fire:

Well can he wield the shining brand,
Who battles for his native land;

But when his fingers sweep the chords,
That summon heroes to the fray,
They gather at the feast of swords
Like mountain-eagles to their prey!

And mid the vales and swelling hills
That sweetly bloom in Freedom's land,
A living spirit breathes and fills

The freeman's heart and nerves his hand,
For the bright soil that gave him birth,
The home of all he loves on earth-

For this, when Freedom's trumpet calls,
He waves on high his sword of fire-
For this, amidst his country's halls,
Forever strikes the freeman's lyre!

His burning heart he may not lend
To serve a doting despot's sway—
A suppliant knee he will not bend
Before these things of "brass and clay :"
When Wrong and Ruin call to war,
He knows the summons from afar;

On high his glittering sword he waves,
And myriads feel the freeman's fire,
While he, around their fathers' graves,
Strikes to old strains the freeman's lyre!

Amelia B. Welby.

THE OLD MAID.

HY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart

WHY

Seems melting in her eyes' delicious blue;
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart,
As if to let its heavy throbbings through;
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,

Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore;
And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells
The rich, fair fruit is ripened to the core.

It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sigh

Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuriant bowers,

And her heart taken up the last sweet tie

That measured out its links of golden hours! She feels her inmost soul within her stir

With thoughts too wild and passionate to speak; Yet her full heart-its own interpreterTranslates itself in silence on her cheek.

Joy's opening buds, Affection's glowing flowers,
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track;
Oh, life was beautiful in those lost hours!
And yet
she does not wish to wander back;
No! she but loves in loneliness to think

On pleasures past, though never more to be;
Hope links her to the future-but the link
That binds her to the past is memory.

From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,

She seems to soar and beam above them all.

Not that her heart is cold-emotions new

And fresh as flowers are with her heart-strings knit ;
And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through
Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it.

For she hath lived with heart and soul alive
To all that makes life beautiful and fair;

Sweet thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their hive
Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there.

Yet life is not to her what it hath been

Her soul hath learned to look beyond its gloss;

And now she hovers, like a star, between

Her deeds of love, her Saviour on the cross!