Chapter III: Preface (2)

At first the mind cannot project itself outward, if we may so speak, even so far as the eye can reach. A child may see with the eye the outlines of a distant mountain long before his mind can, as it were, leap over the intervening space. But soon the mind attains a power of flight compared with which the space traveled by the keenest eye, aided by the best telescope, is nothing. The eye, indeed, can see the remote star, whose light, traveling since its creation at the rate of two hundred thousand miles a second, has but just reached the earth; but all this is only a hand-breadth compared with the depths in the abysses of space into which the adventurous mind plunges itself.

A BIRD’S MINISTRY.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

From his home in an eastern bungalow,
In sight of the everlasting snow
Of the grand Himalayas, row on row,
Thus wrote my friend:

“I had traveled far
From the Afghan towers of Candahar,
Through the sand-white plains of Sinde-Sagar;

“And once, when the daily march was o’er,
As tired I sat in my tented door,
Hope failed me, as never it failed before.

“In swarming city, at wayside fane,
By the Indus’ bank, on the scorching plain,
I had taught,—and my teaching all seemed vain.

“‘No glimmer of light [I sighed] appears;
The Moslem’s fate and the Buddhist’s fears
Have gloomed their worship this thousand years.

“‘For Christ and His truth I stand alone
In the midst of millions; a sand-grain blown
Against yon temple of ancient stone.

“‘As soon may level it!’ Faith forsook
My soul, as I turned on the pile to look;
Then rising, my saddened way I took

“To its lofty roof, for the cooler air;
I gazed, and marveled;—how crumbled were
The walls I had deemed so firm and fair!

“For, wedged in a rift of the massive stone,
Most plainly rent by its roots alone,
A beautiful peepul-tree had grown;

“Whose gradual stress would still expand
The crevice, and topple upon the sand
The temple, while o’er its work would stand

“The tree in its living verdure!—Who
Could compass the thought?—The bird that flew
Hitherward, dropping a seed that grew,

“Did more to shiver this ancient wall
Than earthquake,—war,—simoon,—or all
The centuries, in their lapse and fall!

“Then I knelt by the riven granite there,
And my soul shook off its weight of care,
As my voice rose clear on the tropic air:

“‘The living seeds I have dropped remain
In the cleft; Lord, quicken with dew and rain,
Then temple and mosque shall be rent in twain!’”

EXTRACT FROM A LETTER.

WILLIAM WIRT.

I want to tell you a secret. The way to make yourself pleasing to others, is to show that you care for them. The world is like the miller at Mansfield, “who cared for nobody, no, not he, because nobody cared for him.” And the whole world will serve you so if you give them the same cause. Let every one, therefore, see that you do care for them, by showing them what Sterne so happily calls “the small, sweet courtesies,” in which there is no parade; whose voice is to still, to ease; and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks and little kind acts of attention, giving others the preference in every little enjoyment at the table, in the field, walking, sitting, or standing.

THE COAST-GUARD.

EMILY HUNTINGTON MILLER.

Do you wonder what I am seeing,
In the heart of the fire, aglow
Like cliffs in a golden sunset,
With a summer sea below?
I see, away to the eastward,
The line of a storm-beat coast,
And I hear the tread of the hurrying waves
Like the tramp of the mailèd host.

And up and down in the darkness,
And over the frozen sand,
I hear the men of the coast-guard
Pacing along the strand,
Beaten by storm and tempest,
And drenched by the pelting rain,
From the shores of Carolina
To the wind-swept bays of Maine.

No matter what storms are raging,
No matter how wild the night,
The gleam of their swinging lanterns
Shines out with a friendly light.
And many a shipwrecked sailor
Thanks God, with his gasping breath,
For the sturdy arms of the surfmen
That drew him away from death.

And so, when the wind is wailing,
And the air grows dim with sleet,
I think of the fearless watchers
Pacing along their beat.
I think of a wreck, fast breaking
In the surf of a rocky shore,
And the life-boat leaping onward
To the stroke of the bending oar.

I hear the shouts of the sailors,
The boom of the frozen sail,
And the creak of the icy halyards
Straining against the gale.
“Courage!” the captain trumpets,
“They are sending help from land!”
God bless the men of the coast-guard,
And hold their lives in His hand!

A TURKISH TRADITION.

’Tis said the Turk, when passing down
An Eastern street,
If any scrap of paper chance
His eyes to greet,

Will never look away, like us,
Unheedingly,
Or pass the little fragment thus
Regardless by,

But stop to pick it up because,
Oh, lovely thought!
The name of God may thereupon
Perchance be wrought.

In every human soul remains,
However dim,
Some image of the Deity,
Some trace of Him.

And how can we, then, any scorn
As foul and dark,
That bear, though frail and lowly, still
That holy mark?

And since His impress is upon
All nature seen,
How can we aught disdain as common
Or unclean?

_Interior._

“EYES THAT SEE NOT.”

ELLA JEWETT.

They tell us in the land of song,
Where stately tower and palace rise,
Though marbles breathe and canvas glows,
Though tall cathedrals kiss the skies,
The peasant, without thought or care,
Walks on, nor heeds the beauty rare.

We murmur, “Oh, how blind is he!
How destitute of mind and heart!
’Twere worth a fortune _once_ to view
Italia’s treasured gems of art!”
Behold the landscape at our feet!
Was ever painting more complete?

No need to search for noble souls,
Boccaccio’s tale, or Petrarch’s song;
A hundred heroes in our midst
Have learned to suffer and be strong,—
Martyrs whose names will ne’er be known,
Princes without a crown and throne.

Ah, blind and dull! Let us not chide
The dwellers in far Italy,
But rather draw the veil aside
From our own eyes, that we may see,
Lo! all that seemed but commonplace,
Adorned with beauty and with grace!

LAMENTATION OF THE LUNGS.

Alas! has winter come again? Oh, how we dread the day!
The sufferings we undergo the bravest might dismay.
It is not that we fear the cold: had we a good supply
Of proper nourishment, the blasts of Greenland we’d defy;
But these poor bodies where we dwell have so impatient grown
That, heedless of the common good, they’ve learned to slight their own.
Not thinking that with fuel we our office would perform,
And take in oxygen to keep the blood and all the body warm.
So _down_ the window-sashes go and _up_ the _stoves_, until
We starving lungs must labor hard our duty to fulfill.
Perhaps our tabernacle moves to pitch its roving tent
Within some crowded hall or church—no doubt with good intent;
But little good the sweetest songs or best of sermons do
To those who vainly strive to keep awake within their pew.
For in that place of peace a deadly conflict we must wage,
And friends sit calmly while their lungs in fiercest war engage.
We struggle for a little air, while clamoring for more
The surging flood each moment rolls like waves upon the shore.
Clogged by impurities, in vain to us for help it cries,
And then the brain and nerves grow dull, and dim the drooping eyes.
But should a sufferer chance to rise and from the topmost raft
Let in a little air, forthwith somebody _feels a draught_.
And so we’re forced to get along the very best we can;
Nor do the good that we might do for blundering, headstrong man.

_Phrenological Journal._

* * * * *

To read the English language well, to write with dispatch a neat, legible hand, and be master of the first rules of arithmetic, so as to dispose of at once, with accuracy, every question of figures which comes up in practice—I call this a good education. And if you add the ability to write pure grammatical English, I regard it as an excellent education. These are the tools. You can do much with them, but you are helpless without them. They are the foundation; and unless you begin with these, all your flashy attainments, a little geology, and all other ologies and osophies are ostentatious rubbish.—EDWARD EVERETT.

THE LIGHT-HOUSE.

High o’er the black-backed Skerries, and far
To the westward hills and the eastward sea,
I shift my light like a twinkling star,
With ever a star’s sweet constancy.
They wait for me when the night comes down,
And the slow sun falls in his death divine,
Then braving the black night’s gathering frown,
With ruby and diamond blaze—I shine!

There is war at my feet where the black rocks break,
The thunderous snows of the rising sea;
There is peace above when the stars are awake,
Keeping their night-long watch with me.
I care not a jot for the roar of the surge,
The wrath is the sea’s—the victory mine!
As over its breadth to the furthest verge,
Unwavering and untired—I shine!

First on my brow comes the pearly light,
Dimming my lamp in the new-born day,
One long, last look to left and right,
And I rest from my toil—for the broad sea-way
Grows bright with the smile and blush of the sky,
All incandescent and opaline.
I rest—but the loveliest day will die—
Again in its last wan shadows—I shine!

When the night is black, and the wind is loud,
And danger is hidden, and peril abroad,
The seaman leaps on the swaying shroud;
His eye is on me, and his hope in God!
Alone, in the darkness, my blood-red eye
Meets his, and he hauls his groping line.
“A point to nor’ard!” I hear him cry;
He goes with a blessing, and still—I shine!

While standing alone in the summer sun
Sometimes I have visions and dreams of my own,
Of long-life voyages just begun,
And rocks unnoticed, and shoals unknown;
And I would that men and women would mark
The duty done by this lamp of mine;
For many a life is lost in the dark,
And few on earth are the lights that shine!

_Good Words._

A SWEDISH POEM.

It matters little where I was born,
If my parents were rich or poor;
Whether they shrank at the cold world’s scorn,
Or walked in the pride of wealth secure;
But whether I live an honest man,
And hold my integrity firm in my clutch,
I tell you, my brother, as plain as I am,
It matters much!

It matters little how long I stay
In a world of sorrow and care;
Whether in youth I’m called away,
Or live till my bones and pate are bare;
But whether I do the best I can
To soften the weight of adversity’s touch
On the faded cheek of my fellow-man,
It matters much!

It matters little where is my grave,
On the land or on the sea;
By purling brook or ’neath stormy wave,
It matters little or naught to me;
But whether the angel Death comes down,
And marks my brow with his loving touch
As one that shall wear the victor’s crown,
It matters much!

THE DEMON ON THE ROOF.

JOSEPHINE POLLARD.

’Twas an ancient legend they used to tell
Within the glow of the kitchen hearth,
When a sudden silence upon them fell,
And quenched the laughter and noisy mirth:
That whenever a dwelling was building new,
There were demons ready to curse or bless
The noble structure, that daily grew
Perfect in shape and comeliness.

And when the sound of the tools had ceased,
Hammer and nails, and plane and saw,
Ere yet the dwelling could be released
From the evil spirits,—there was a law
No master-mechanic could be found
Able or willing to disobey—
That a ladder be left upon the ground
For their enjoyment, a night and a day.

And when the chimneys begin to roar,
And voices harsh as the wintry wind
Howl and mock at the outer door,
The ancient legend is brought to mind,
And we think, perhaps, that a careless loon,
Not fearing the master’s stern reproof,
Has taken the ladder away too soon
And left a demon upon the roof.

And in every dwelling where joy comes not,
And the buds of promise forget to bloom,
Be it a palace or be it a cot,
Amply splendid or scant of room,
We may be sure that a demon elf,
Fiendishly cruel and full of spite,
Is sitting and grinning away to himself
Up on the ridge-pole, out of sight.

But let it ever be borne in mind
By those who often this legend quote,
That with every evil some good we find,
For every ill there’s an antidote.
And if we use but the magic spell,
And hearts draw near that were kept aloof,
Good angels then in our homes will dwell,
Despite the demon upon the roof.

ONLY A LITTLE.

DORA GOODALE.

A bird has little—only a feather
Plucked, it may be, from a tender breast,
Only a thread to bind together
The delicate fabric of his nest;
Yet he sings, “The wide, free air is mine,
The dews of earth, the clouds of heaven!”
He sits and swings with the swinging vine,
And all he looks on to him is given.

A child has little—only a blossom
Caught at random from fields of bloom.
Only the love in a tender bosom,
Freed from the shadow of care and gloom;
Yet he laughs all day from the deeps of lightness,
And feels his joy in the joy of heaven,
He loses himself in a world of brightness,
And all he asks for to him is given.

A man has little—only a longing
Higher than labors of sword or pen,
Only a vision whose lights are thronging
Over the tumult and toil of men.
Yet wealth is his from the wealth of being,
His are the glories of Earth and Heaven,
He feels a beauty too deep for seeing,
And all he dreams of to him is given.

MY PORTION.

CARLOTTA PERRY.

Very little good have I,
Wealth and station have passed me by;
But something sweet in my life I hold
That I would not exchange for place or gold.
Beneath my feet the green earth lies,
Above my head are the tender skies;
I look between two heavens; my eyes
Look out to where, serene and sweet,
At the worlds fair rim the two heavens meet.

I hear the whispering of the breeze,
The sweet, small tumults amid the trees;
And many a message comes to me
On the wing of bird, in the hum of bee,
From the mountain peak and the surging sea.
E’en the silence speaks a voice so clear,
I lean my very heart to hear,
And all above me and all around
Light and darkness and sight and sound,
To soul and sense such meanings bring,
I thrill with a rapturous wondering.
And I know by many a subtle sign
That the very best of life is mine;
And yet, as I spell each message o’er,
I look and long for a deeper lore;
I long to see and I long to hear,
With a clearer vision, a truer ear;
And I pray with keenest of all desire
For lips that are touched by the altar fire.
Patience, O soul! From a little field
There cometh often a gracious yield;
Who touches His garment’s hem is healed.

SAXON GRIT.

REV. ROBERT COLLYER.

Worn by the battle, by Stamford town,
Fighting the Norman by Hastings bay;
Harold, the Saxon’s sun, went down
When the acorns were falling one autumn day.
Then the Norman said: “I am lord of the land,
By tenure of conquest here I sit;
I will rule you now with the iron hand;”
But he had not thought of the Saxon grit.

He took the land, and he took the men,
And burnt the homesteads from Trent to Tyne;
Made the freemen serfs by a stroke of the pen;
Ate up the corn and drank the wine.
From the Saxon heart rose a mighty roar,
Our life shall not be by the king’s permit,—
We will fight for the right; we want no more.
Then the Norman found out the Saxon grit.

For slow and sure as the oaks had grown
From the acorns falling that autumn day,
So the Saxon manhood in thorpe and town
To a nobler nature grew alway.
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,
Standing by law and the human right;
Many times failing, never once quailing,
So the new day came out of the night.

Then rising afar in the western sea
A new world stood in the morn of the day,
Ready to welcome the brave and free,
Who would wrench out the heart, and march away
From the narrow, contracted, dear old land,
Where the poor are held by a cruel bit,
To ampler spaces for heart and hand;
And here was a chance for the Saxon grit.

Steadily steering, eagerly peering,
Trusting in God, your fathers came,
Pilgrims and strangers, fronting all dangers,
Cool-headed Saxons, with hearts aflame,
Bound by the letter, but free from the fetter,
And hiding their freedom in holy writ,
They gave Deuteronomy hints in economy,
And made a new Moses of Saxon grit,

They whittled and waded through forest and fen,
Fearless as ever of what might befall,
Pouring out life for the nurture of men
In the faith that by manhood the world views all.
Inventing baked beans and no end of machines,
Great with the rifle, and great with the ax,
Sending their notions over the oceans
To fill empty stomachs and straighten bent backs;

Swift to take chances that end in the dollar,
Yet open of hand when the dollar is made;
Maintaining the meeting, exalting the scholar,
But a little too anxious about a good trade.
This is young Jonathan, son of old John,
Positive, peaceable, firm in the right.
Saxon men all of us, may we be one,
Steady for freedom and strong in her might.

Then slow and sure, as the oaks have grown
From the acorns that fell on the dim old day,
So this new manhood, in city and town,
To a nobler stature will grow alway.
Winning by inches, holding by clinches,
Slow to contention and slower to quit,
Now and then failing, but never once quailing,
Let us thank God for the Saxon grit.

THE LITTLE LIGHT.

The light shone dim on the headland,
For the storm was raging high;
I shaded my eyes from the inner glare,
And gazed on the wet, gray sky.
It was dark and lowering; on the sea
The waves were booming loud,
And the snow and the piercing winter sleet
Wove over all a shroud.

“God pity the men on the sea to-night!”
I said to my little ones,
And we shuddered as we heard afar
The sound of the minute-guns.
My good man came in, in his fishing-coat
(He was wet and cold that night),
And he said, “There’ll lots of ships go down
On the headland rocks to-night.”

“Let the lamp burn all night, mother,”
Cried little Mary then;
“’Tis but a little light, but still
It might save drowning men.”
“Oh, nonsense!” cried her father
(He was tired and cross that night),
“The Highland light-house is enough,”
And he put out the light.

That night, on the rocks below us,
A noble ship went down;
But one was saved from the ghastly wreck,
The rest were left to drown.
“We steered by a little light,” he said,
“’Till we saw it sink from view:
If they’d only left that light all night,
My mates might be here, too!”

Then little Mary sobbed aloud,
Her father blushed for shame,
“’Twas our light that you saw,” he said,
“And I’m the one to blame.”
’Twas a little light—how small a thing!
And trifling was its cost;
Yet, for want of it a ship went down,
And a hundred souls were lost.

WIND AND SEA.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

The sea is a jovial comrade,
He laughs wherever he goes;
His merriment shines in the dimpling lines
That wrinkle his hale repose;
He lays himself down at the feet of the sun,
And shakes all over with glee;
And the broad-backed billows fall faint on the shore
In the mirth of the mighty sea.

But the wind is sad and restless,
And cursed with an inward pain;
You may hark as you will by valley or hill,
But you hear him still complain.
He wails on the barren mountains,
And shrieks on the watery sea;
He sobs in the cedar and moans in the pine,
And quakes through the aspen tree.

Welcome are both their voices;
And I know not which is best,
The laughter that slips from ocean’s lips,
Or the comfortless wind’s unrest.
There’s a pang in all rejoicing,
A joy in the heart of pain;
And the wind that saddens, the sea that gladdens,
Are singing the self-same strain.

HAPPINESS.

MAGGIE B. PEEKE.

I followed a bird to the north and south,
I followed it east and west,
With the longing to call it at last my own,
And hide it within my breast:
But the bird flew on, and I sought in vain,
Through sunshine and wind, through the storm and rain.

I went to the city, to find it, where
The restless crowd surged by;
But the bird I sought, with its snowy wings
Had flown to the upper sky,—
And the crowds surged on, with their ceaseless din,
Their waves of sorrow and folly and sin.

I went to the forest, where all day long
A hush that was sweet fell down,
And I watched for my bird with its magical song,
But the shadows gave only a frown;
So I knew that I never should find it there,
And I gave up the chase in sullen despair.

I entered the lists of the busy world:
I took up its burden of care,
Its wrongs to be righted, its sorrows to lift,
Its mountains of trouble to bear;
And wearied, I laid me at last to rest.
I awoke,—and the bird was within my breast.

AN ILLUMINED TEXT.

The gray monk, rising, with a loving pride
Laid the long task of patient months aside,
The simple story of the gospels told
In lettering of crimson and of gold;
On its rich pages streamed the setting sun,
And now his life waned and his work was done.

He pushed away the heavy oaken door,
And stood within the sunset calm once more.
Above the narrowing round of life he knew
A sense of beauty and of wonder grew.
The text his art had copied, “God is Love,”
Came to him like the home-returning dove.

As the wind whistled in the bearded grain;
The tender words made music in his brain;
The green leaves whispered of it, everywhere
He read it on the blue scroll of the air,
As if more clearly and in fairer guise
The Lord Himself inscribed it for men’s eyes!

_Christian at Work._

* * * * *

Older than all preached gospels was this unpreached, inarticulate, but ineradicable, for-ever-enduring gospel: work, and therein have well-being. Man, Son of Earth and of Heaven, lies there not, in the innermost heart of thee, a spirit of active method, a force for work;—and burns like a painfully smouldering fire, giving thee no rest till thou unfold it, till thou write it down in beneficent facts around thee? What is immethodic, waste, thou shalt make methodic, regulated, arable, obedient and productive to thee. Wheresoever thou findest disorder, there is thy eternal enemy: attack him swiftly, subdue him; make order of him, the subject not of chaos, but of intelligence, divinity, and thee! The thistle that grows in thy path, dig it out that a blade of useful grass, a drop of nourishing milk, may grow there instead. The waste cotton-shrub, gather its waste white down, spin it, weave it; that, in place of idle litter, there may be folded webs, and the naked skin of man be covered.—THOMAS CARLYLE.

THE KING’S BELL.

EBEN E. REXFORD.

“No perfect day has ever come to me,”
An old man said;
“A perfect day for us can never be
Till we are dead.”

The young king heard him, and he turned away
In earnest thought.
Did men ne’er find on earth the perfect day
For which they sought?

A day all free from care?—so running o’er
With life’s delight
That there seemed room or wish for nothing more
From dawn to night?

“It _must_ be that such days have come to man,”
The young king said.
“Go search—find one who found them—if you can!”
Ah, wise gray head!

“I trust that some time such a day will come
To even me,”
The king said. But the old man’s lips were dumb—
A doubter he.

“That you, and those about you all may know
My perfect day,
A bell shall ring out when the sun is low,
And men shall say—

“‘Behold! this day has been unto the king
A day replete
With happiness. It lacked not anything—
A day most sweet!’”

In a high tower, ere night, the passers saw
A mighty bell,
The tidings of a day without a flaw
Some time to tell.

The bell hung silent in its lofty tower,
Days came and went;
Each summer brought its sunshine and its flower,
Its old content;

But not the happy day he hoped to see.
“But soon or late
The day of days,” he said, “will come to me.
I trust—and wait.”

The years, like leaves upon a restless stream,
Were swept away,
And in the king’s dark hair began to gleam
Bright threads of gray.

Men, passing by, looked upward to the bell,
And smiling said,
“Delay not of the happy time to tell
Till we are dead.”

But they grew old and died. And silent still
The great bell hung;
And the good king, bowed down with age, fell ill
His cares among.

At dusk, one day, with dazed brain, from his room
He slowly crept
Up rattling tower-steps, in dust and gloom,
While watchers slept.

Above the city broke the great bell’s voice,
Silent so long.
“Behold the king’s most happy day! Rejoice!”
It told the throng.

Filled with strange awe, the long night passed away.
At morn men said,
“At last the king has found his happy day—
The king is dead!”

NOBLESSE OBLIGE.

CARLOTTA PERRY.

If I am weak and you are strong,
Why then, why then,
To you the braver deeds belong;
And so, again,
If you have gifts and I have none,
If I have shade and you have sun,
’Tis yours with freer hand to give,
’Tis yours with truer grace to live,
Than I, who giftless, sunless, stand,
With barren life and hand.

We do not ask the little brook
To turn the wheel;
Unto the larger stream we look.
The strength of steel
We do not ask from silken bands,
Nor heart of oak in willow wands;
We do not ask the wren to go
Up to the heights the eagles know;
Nor yet expect the lark’s clear note
From out the dove’s dumb throat.

’Tis wisdom’s law, the perfect code,
By love inspired;
Of him on whom much is bestowed
Is much required.
The tuneful throat is bid to sing,
The oak must reign the forest’s king;
The rushing stream the wheel must move,
The beaten steel its strength must prove.
’Tis given unto the eagle’s eyes
To face the midday skies.

USES OF ADVERSITY.

If none were sick and none were sad,
What service could we render?
I think if we were always glad,
We scarcely could be tender.

Did our beloved never need
Our patient ministration,
Earth would grow cold, and miss, indeed,
Its sweetest consolation.

If sorrow never claimed our heart,
And every wish were granted,
Patience would die and hope depart,
Life would be disenchanted.

THE VALUE OF LITERATURE.

The literature of the world is in a very deep sense the direct and most beautiful outcome of its life. Men have had but a partial success in shaping their external life, but their ideals, their aspirations, their highest thoughts of themselves are to be found in books. It is only as we unite the actual which we find in its history with the ideal which we find in its literature, that we are able to get any true understanding of an age. The value and vitality of great books lie not so much in their art as in the fidelity and completeness with which they represent human life. Literature is, in a word, the best that has been thought or dreamed in the world, and must therefore remain to the very end of time the most fascinating and the most fruitful study to which men can give themselves.—HAMILTON W. MABIE.

TRUE HEROISM.

Let others write of battles fought
On bloody, ghastly fields,
Where honors greet the man who wins,
And death the man who yields;
But I will write of him who fights
And vanquishes his sins,
Who struggles on through weary years
Against himself and wins.

He is a hero, stanch and brave,
Who fights an unseen foe,
And puts at last beneath his feet
His passions base and low;
Who stands erect in manhood’s might
Undaunted, undismayed—
The bravest man that drew a sword
In foray or in raid.

It calls for something more than brawn
Or muscle, to overcome
An enemy who marcheth not
With banner, plume, and drum—
A foe, forever lurking nigh,
With silent, stealthy tread,
Forever near your board by day,
And night beside your bed.

All honor, then, to that brave heart,
Though poor or rich he be,
Who struggles with his baser part—
Who conquers and is free!
He may not wear a hero’s crown,
Nor fill a hero’s grave;
But truth will place his name among
The bravest of the brave.

THE BURIAL OF THE OLD FLAG.

MARY A. BARR.

There is not in all the north countrie,
Nor yet on the Humber line,
A town with a prouder record than
Newcastle-upon-the-Tyne.
Roman eagles have kept its walls;
Saxon, and Dane, and Scot
Have left the glamour of noble deeds,
With their names, on this fair spot.
From the reign of William Rufus,
The monarchs of every line
Had a grace for loyal Newcastle,
The city upon the Tyne.

By the Nuns’ Gate, and up Pilgrim Street,
What pageants have held their way!
But in seventeen hundred and sixty-three,
One lovely morn in May,
There was a sight in bonnie Newcastle!
Oh, that I had been there!
To hear the call of the trumpeters
Thrilling the clear spring air,
To hear the roar of the cannon,
And the drummer’s gathering beat,
And the eager hum of the multitudes
Waiting upon the street.

Just at noon was a tender hush,
And a funeral march was heard;
With arms reversed and colors tied
Came the men of the Twenty-third.
And Lennox, their noble leader, bore
The shreds of a faded flag,
The battle-flag of the regiment,
Shot to a glorious rag;
Shot into shreds upon its staff,
Torn in a hundred fights,
From the torrid plains of India
To the cold Canadian heights.

There was not an inch of bunting left;
How could it float again
Over the faithful regiment
It never had led in vain?
And oh, the hands that had carried it!
It was not cloth and wood:
It stood for a century’s heroes,
And was crimson with their blood;
It stood for a century’s comrades.
They could not cast it away,
And so with a soldier’s honors
They were burying it that day.

In the famous old North Humber fort,
Where the Roman legions trod,
With the roar of cannon and roll of drums
They laid it under the sod.
But it wasn’t a tattered flag alone
They buried with tender pride;
It was every faithful companion
That under the flag had died.
It was honor, courage, and loyalty
That thrilled that mighty throng
Standing bare-headed and silent as
The old flag passed along.

So when the grasses had covered it
There was a joyful strain;
And the soldiers, stirred to a noble thought,
Marched proudly home again.
The citizens went to their shops once more,
The collier went to his mine;
The shepherd went to the broomy hills,
And the sailor to the Tyne;
But men and women and children felt
That it had been well to be
Just for an hour or two face to face
With honor and loyalty.

THE OLD STONE BASIN.

SUSAN COOLIDGE.

In the heart of the busy city,
In the scorching noontide heat,
A sound of bubbling water
Falls on the din of the street.

It falls in a gray stone basin,
And over the cool wet brink
The heads of thirsty horses
Each moment are stretched to drink.

And peeping between the crowding heads
As the horses come and go,
“The Gift of Three Little Sisters”
Is read on the stone below.

Ah, beasts are not taught letters,
They know no alphabet;
And never a horse in all these years
Has read the words; and yet

I think that each toil-worn creature
Who stops to drink by the way,
His thanks in his own dumb fashion
To the sisters small must pay.

Years have gone by since busy hands
Wrought at the basin’s stone;
The kindly little sisters
Are all to women grown.

I do not know their home or fates,
Or the name they bear to men,
But this sweetness of their gracious deed
Is just as fresh as then.

And all life long, and after life,
They must the happier be,
For the cup of water given by them
When they were children three.

BESIDE THE RAILWAY TRACK.

On its straight iron pathway the long train was rushing,
With its noise, and its smoke, and its great human load;
And I saw a wild rose that in beauty was blushing,
Fresh and sweet, by the side of the hot, dusty road.

Untrained were its branches, untended it flourished,
No eye watched its opening or mourned its decay;
But its leaves by the soft dews of heaven were nourished,
And it opened its buds in the warm light of day.

I asked why it grew there where none prized its beauty,
For of thousands who passed none had leisure to stay.
And the answer came sweetly, “I do but my duty;
I was told to grow here by the side of the way.”

There are those on life’s pathway whose spirits are willing
To dwell where the busy crowd passes them by;
But the dew from above on their leaves is distilling,
And they bloom ’neath the smile of the All-seeing Eye.

They are loved by the few—like the rose, they remind us,
When tempted from duty’s safe pathway to stray;
We, too, have a place and a mission assign’d us,
Though it be but to grow by the side of the way.

A SONG FOR THE CONQUERED.

WILLIAM W. STORY.

I sing the Hymn of the Conquered, who fell in the battle of life;
The hymn of the wounded, the beaten, who died overwhelmed in the strife.
Not the jubilant song of the victors, for whom the resounding acclaim
Of nations was lifted in chorus, whose brows wore the chaplet of fame.
But the hymn of the low and the humble, the weary, the broken in heart,
Who strove and who failed, acting bravely a silent and desperate part;
Whose youth bore no flower in its branches, whose hopes burned in ashes
away;
From whose hands slipped the prize they had grasped at; who stood at the
dying of day
With the work of their life all around them, unpitied, unheeded, alone,
With death swooping down o’er their failure, and all but their faith
overthrown.

While the voice of the world shouts its chorus,—its pæan for those who
have won,—
While the trumpet is sounding triumphant, and high to the breeze and
the sun
Gay banners are waving, hands clapping, and hurrying feet
Thronging after the laurel-crowned victors, I stand on the field of
defeat,
In the shadow ’mongst those who are fallen, and wounded and dying, and
there
Chant a requiem low, place my hand on their pain-knotted brows, breathe
a prayer,
Hold the hand that is hapless, and whisper, “They only the victory win
Who have fought the good fight, and have vanquished the demon that tempts
us within;
Who have held to their faith unseduced by the prize that the world holds
on high;
Who have dared for a high cause to suffer, resist, fight—if need be to
die.”

Speak, History! Who are life’s victors? Unroll thy long annals, and say—
Are they those whom the world called the victors who won the success of
the day?
The martyrs, or Nero? The Spartans who fell at Thermopylæ’s tryst,
Or the Persians of Xerxes? His judges, or Socrates? Pilate, or Christ?

THE AMEN OF THE ROCKS.

CHRISTIAN GELLERT.

The Venerable Bede, with age grown blind,
till went abroad to preach the new evangel.
From town to town, village to village, journeyed
The saintly elder, with a lad for guide,
And preached the word with youthful zeal and fervor;
And once the lad led him along a vale,
All scattered o’er with mighty moss-grown bowlders.

More thoughtless than malicious quoth the urchin,
“Here, reverend father, many men have come,
And all the multitude await thy sermon.”
The blind old man stood upright at his speech,
And spake his text, explained it, thence digressed,
Exhorted, warned, reproved, and comforted,
So earnestly that tears of love and joy
Ran down his cheeks, and on his long gray beard;

Then, as was meet, he ended with “Our Father,
Thine is the kingdom, Thine the power, and Thine
The glory is forever and forever.”
Then came a thousand, thousand answering voices—
“Yea, reverend father, amen and amen.”
Then, terrified, the boy fell down repentant,
Confessing to the saint his ill behavior.

“Son,” said the holy man, “didst thou read never
That stones themselves shall cry if man is silent?
Play thou no more, my son, with things divine.
God’s word is powerful, and cuts more sharp
Than any two-edged sword. And if it be
That man toward the Lord is stony-hearted,
A human heart shall wake in stones, and witness.”

ONLY A LITTLE THING.

MRS. M. P. HANDY.

It was only a tiny seed,
Carelessly brushed aside;
But it grew in time to a noxious weed,
And spread its poison wide.

It was only a little leak,
So small you might hardly see;
But the rising waters found the break,
And wrecked the great levee.

It was only a single spark,
Dropped by a passing train;
But the dead leaves caught, and swift and dark
Was its work on wood and plain.

It was only an unsound nail
That the workman used—ah me!
But the ship that else had weathered the gale
Went down in the deep, dark sea.

It was only a thoughtless word,
Scarce meant to be unkind;
But it pierced as a dart to the heart that heard,
And left its sting behind.

It may seem a trifle at most,
The thing that we do or say;
And yet it may be that at fearful cost
We may wish it undone some day.

THE LITTLE MESSENGER OF LOVE.

’Twas a little sermon preached to me
By a sweet, unconscious child—
A baby girl, scarce four years old,
With blue eyes soft and mild.
It happened on a rainy day;
I, seated in a car,
Was thinking, as I neared my home,
Of the continual jar
And discord that pervade the air
Of busy city life,
Each caring but for “number one,”
Self-gain provoking strife.
The gloomy weather seemed to cast
On every face a shade,
But on one countenance were lines
By sorrow deeply laid.
With low bowed head and hands clasped close,
She sat, so poor and old,
Nor seemed to heed the scornful glance
From eyes unkind and cold.
I looked again. Oh, sweet indeed
The sight that met my eyes!
Sitting upon her mothers lap,
With baby face so wise,
Was a wee child with sunny curls,
Blue eyes, and dimpled chin,
And a young, pure, loving heart
Unstained as yet by sin.
Upon the woman poor and sad
Her eyes in wonder fell,
Till wonder changed to pitying love;
Her thoughts, oh, who could tell?
Her tiny hands four roses held;
She looked them o’er and o’er,
Then choosing out the largest one,
She struggled to the floor.
Across the swaying car she went
Straight to the woman’s side,
And putting in the wrinkled hand
The rose, she ran to hide
Her little face in mother’s lap,
Fearing she had done wrong,
Not knowing, baby as she was,
That she had helped along
The up-hill road of life a soul
Cast down, discouraged quite,
As on the woman’s face there broke
A flood of joyous light.

Dear little child! she was indeed
A messenger of love
Sent to that woman’s lonely heart
From the great Heart above.
This world would be a different place
Were each to give to those
Whose hearts are sad as much of love
As went with baby’s rose.

_Harper’s Young People._

* * * * *

I’d rather be right than to be President of the United States.—HENRY CLAY.

ORIGINAL MAXIMS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON.

[_Recitations for Twelve Students._]

I.

Commerce and industry are the best mines of a nation.

II.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one.

III.

Ingratitude, I hope, will never constitute a part of my character, nor find a place in my bosom.

IV.

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.

V.

To persevere is one’s duty, and to be silent is the best answer to calumny.

VI.

I never wish to promise more than I have a moral certainty of performing.

VII.

I shall never attempt to palliate my own foibles by exposing the error of another.

VIII.

It is a maxim with me not to ask what, under similar circumstances, I would not grant.

IX.

Be courteous to all, but intimate with few; and let those be well tried before you give them your confidence.

X.

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation, for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

XI.

A good character is the first essential in a man. It is, therefore, highly important to endeavor not only to be learned, but virtuous.

XII.

I am resolved that no misrepresentations, falsehoods, or calumny shall make me swerve from what I conceive to be the strict line of duty.

THE WORK OF A SUNBEAM.

NATHAN G. SHEPHERD.

I have read in old tales of the buried past,
Of two armies which met on the battle-plain;
Roman and Cymbric, in numbers vast,
How they fought till the field was heaped with slain;
And how through all day the crimson tide
Of battle favored the Cymbric side,
Though their dead bestrewed the plain,

Till at length, from out of the clouded skies,
A sunbeam darted across the world,
Blinding the Cymbrian warrior’s eyes;
And backward their conquering hosts were hurled.
And thus in the record of years is told
How a sunbeam, back in the days of old,
Decided the fate of the world.

THE SILVER BIRD’S NEST.

A stranded soldier’s epaulet
The waters cast ashore,
A little wingèd rover met,
And eyed it o’er and o’er;
The silver bright so charmed her sight,
On that lone idle vest,
She knew not why she should deny
Herself a silver nest.

The shining wire she pecked and twirled,
Then bore it to her bough,
Where on a flowery twig ’twas curled,
The bird can show you how;
But when enough of that bright stuff
The cunning builder bore,
Her house to make, she would not take,
Nor did she covet, more.

And when the little artisan—
While neither pride nor guilt
Had entered in her pretty plan—
Her resting-place had built,
With here and there a plume to spare,
About her own light form,
Of these, inlaid with skill, she made
A lining soft and warm.

But do you think the tender brood
She fondled there, and fed,
Were prouder when they understood
The sheen about their bed?
Do you suppose they ever rose,
Of higher powers possessed,
Because they knew they peeped and grew
Within a silver nest?

LUTHER.

JOAQUIN MILLER.

Valiant, defiant, and free,
Majestic, impressive, and lone,
He looms like that isle of the sea
That rose to an emperor’s throne.

Honor where manhood is found,
Glory where valor has led,
To priest or not priest, the world round;
To white man, or black man, or red.

Honor to manhood and worth,
Glory to action and deed,
To manhood, not priesthood, on earth;
For man is the master of creed.

ORIGINAL MAXIMS OF JAMES A. GARFIELD.

[_Recitations for Ten Students._]

I.

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.

II.

Poets may be born, but success is made.

III.

Be fit for more than the one thing you are now doing.

IV.

I would rather be beaten in right than succeed in wrong.

V.

Luck is an _ignis fatuus_. You may follow it to ruin, but not to success.

VI.

If the power to do hard work is not a talent, it is the best possible substitute for it.

VII.

I would rather be defeated than make capital out of my religion.

VIII.

Things don’t turn up in this world unless somebody turns them up.

IX.

Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and its valleys are its soil, its spirit, and its life.

X.

The privilege of being a young man is a great privilege, and the privilege of growing to be an independent man, in middle life, is a greater.

* * * * *

It is a strange fancy of mine, but I cannot help wishing we could move for returns—as their phrase is in parliament—for the suffering caused in any one day, or other period of time, throughout the world, to be arranged under certain heads; and we should then see what the world has occasion to fear most. What a large amount would come under the heads of unreasonable fear of others, of miserable quarrels amongst relations upon infinitesimally small subjects, of imaginary slights, of undue cares, of false shames, of absolute misunderstandings, of unnecessary pains to maintain credit or reputation, of vexation that we cannot make others of the same mind with ourselves! What a wonderful thing it would be to see set down in figures, as it were, how ingenious we are in plaguing one another!—ARTHUR HELPS.

THE ANGEL OF DAWN.

J. S. CUTLER.

One morn an angel stopped beside my door,
Clad in the shining garments of the dawn;
Upon his brow a starry crown he wore;
In his right hand a flaming sword was drawn.
With terror filled, I prayed with piteous cry
The angel-presence then to pass me by.

“I am not death,” the angel said, and smiled;
“Thy soul shall have the answer to thy prayer.
Drive from thy breast this fearful anguish wild;
I am the Angel of the Dawn—beware!
I place a priceless jewel in thy hands;
The day is thine, waste not its running sands.

“Therefore mark well—thy duty waiteth thee,
Beside the morning’s swiftly opening gate;
The new day dawns—its hours will quickly flee;
Stamp them with honor ere it be too late;
Thy deed may lift thee higher than thy prayer.
The day is thine, remember and beware!”

And then the angel took his shining way,
On silent wings, out to the shadowy west;
And swiftly onward came the new-born day,
The priceless jewel of my angel-guest.
The birds awoke and filled the world with song,
And made my burden light the whole day long.

And now, when morning throws its early beams
In golden rays across the ocean’s floor,
And I awake from slumbering and dreams,
I know an angel waiteth at the door;
I hear again that kindly voice declare—
“Thy deed may lift thee higher than thy prayer.”

QUESTIONS.

KATE LAWRENCE.

Can you put the spider’s web back in its place that once has been swept
away?
Can you put the apple again on the bough which fell at our feet to-day?
Can you put the lily-cup back on the stem, and cause it to live and grow?
Can you mend the butterfly’s broken wing that you crushed with a hasty
blow?
Can you put the bloom again on the grape, or the grape again on the vine?
Can you put the dew-drops back on the flowers and make them sparkle and
shine?
Can you put the petals back on the rose? If you could, would it smell as
sweet?
Can you put the flour again in the husk, and show me the ripened wheat?
Can you put the kernel back in the nut, or the broken egg in its shell?
Can you put the honey back in the comb, and cover with wax each cell?
Can you put the perfume back in the vase, when once it has sped away?
Can you put the corn-silk back on the corn, or the down on catkins—say?
You think that my questions are trifling, then? Let me ask you another
one:
Can a hasty word ever be unsaid, or a deed unkind undone?

THE LANDING OF THE PILGRIMS.

FELICIA HEMANS.

Plymouth (Dec. 21, 1620).

The breaking waves dashed high
On a stern and rock-bound coast,
And the woods against a stormy sky
Their giant branches tossed;

And the heavy night hung dark
The hills and waters o’er,
When a band of exiles moored their bark,
On the wild New England shore.

What sought they thus afar?
Bright jewels of the mine?
The wealth of seas, the spoils of war?—
They sought a faith’s pure shrine!

Ay, call it holy ground,
The soil where first they trod;
They have left unstained what there they found—
Freedom to worship God.

THE TWENTY-FIRST OF FEBRUARY.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

Pale is the February sky,
And brief the mid-day’s sunny hours;
The wind-swept forest seems to sigh
For the sweet time of leaves and flowers.

Yet has no month a prouder day,
Not even when the summer broods
O’er meadows in their fresh array,
Or autumn tints the glowing woods.

For this chill season now again
Brings, in its annual round, the morn
When, greatest of the sons of men,
Our glorious Washington was born.

Lo, where, beneath an icy shield,
Calmly the mighty Hudson flows!
By snow-clad fell and frozen field,
Broadening, the lordly river goes.

The wildest storm that sweeps through space,
And rends the oak with sudden force,
Can raise no ripple on his face,
Or slacken his majestic course.

Thus, ’mid the wreck of thrones, shall live
Unmarred, undimmed, our hero’s fame,
And years succeeding years shall give
Increase of honors to his name.

FOREFATHERS’ DAY.

HELEN HUNT JACKSON.

Find me the men on earth who care
Enough for faith or creed to-day
To seek a barren wilderness
For simple liberty to pray.

Despise their narrow creed who will;
Pity their poverty who dare:
Their lives knew joys, their lives wore crowns,
We do not know, we cannot wear.

And if so be that it is saved,
Our poor Republic, stained and bruised,
’Twill be because we lay again
Their corner-stones which we refused.

A TRUE STORY.

“Where is the baby, grandmamma?”
The sweet young mother calls
From her work in the cosy kitchen,
With its dainty whitewashed walls.
And grandma leaves her knitting,
And looks for her all around;
But not a trace of baby dear
Can anywhere be found.

No sound of its merry prattle,
No gleam of its sunny hair,
No patter of tiny footsteps,
No sign of it anywhere.
All through house and garden,
Far out into the field,
They search each nook and corner;
But nothing is revealed.

And the mother’s face grew pallid;
Grandmamma’s eyes grew dim;
The fathers gone to the village;
No use to look for him.
And the baby lost! “Where’s Rover!”
The mother chanced to think
Of the old well in the orchard
Where the cattle used to drink.

“Where’s Rover? I know he’d find her?
Rover!” In vain they call,
Then hurry away to the orchard;
And there by the moss-grown wall,
Close to the well, lies Rover,
Holding to baby’s dress;
She was leaning over the wall’s edge
In perfect fearlessness!

She stretched her little arms down;
But Rover held her fast,
And never seemed to mind the kicks
The tiny bare feet cast
So spitefully upon him,
But wagged his tail instead,
To greet the frightened searchers,
While naughty baby said: