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207

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

They show the banners taken,
They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,
While peals the minute-gun.

Amid the noblest of the land
We lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honoured place,
With costly marble drest,

In the great minster transept,

Where lights like glories fall,

And the organ rings and the sweet choir sings
Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the truest warrior
That ever buckled sword-
This the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen,

On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honour—
The hill-side for a pall,

To lie in state while angels wait,
With stars for tapers tall?

And the dark rock-pines, like tossing plumes,

Over his bier to wave,

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave?

In that strange grave without a name,

Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, O wondrous thought!
Before the Judgment Day;

And stand with glory wrapt around
On the hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life,
With the Incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land !
O dark Beth-Peor's hill!
Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.
God hath His mysteries of grace,
Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep
Of him He loved so well.

Mrs. C. F. Alexander.

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW.

DON'T tell me of to-morrow;
Give me the man who'll say
That, when a good deed's to be done,
"Let's do the deed to-day."
We may all command the present,
If we act and never wait,
But repentance is the phantom
Of a past that comes too late!

Don't tell me of to-morrow,
There is much to do to-day
That can never be accomplished
If we throw the hours away.
Every moment has its duty;
Who the future can foretell?
Then why put off till to-morrow
What to-day can do as well?

Don't tell me of to-morrow;
If we look upon the past,
How much that we have left to do
We cannot do at last!
To-day, it is the only time

For all on this frail earth:

It takes an age to form a life,

A moment gives it birth!

-J. E. Carpenter.

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THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming with purple and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen;
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed,
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever were still.

And there lay the steed with his nostrils all wide,

But through them there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beaten surf.

And there lay the rider, distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail,
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpets unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal,
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

-Byron.

THE THREE FISHERS.

THREE fishers went sailing away to the West-
Away to the West as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,
And the children stood watching them out of the town;
For men must work, and women must weep,

And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbour bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down: They looked at the squall and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden and waters deep, And the harbour bar be moaning.

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands,

In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands, For those who will never come home to the town. For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner 't is over, the sooner to sleep, So good bye to the bar and its moaning.

-Kingsley

ENIGMA.-PROGRESS.

ENIGMA.

211

"T WAS in heaven pronounced, and 't was muttered in hell, And echo caught faintly the sound as it fell;

On the confines of earth 't was permitted to rest,
And the depths of the ocean its presence confessed.
'T will be found in the sphere when 't is riven asunder,
Be seen in the lightning and heard in the thunder;
'T was allotted to man with his earliest breath,
Attends him at birth and awaits him at death,
Presides o'er his happiness, honour, and health,
Is the prop of his house and the end of his wealth;
In the heaps of the miser 't is hoarded with care,
But is sure to be lost on his prodigal heir.

It begins every hope, every wish it must bound;
With the husbandman toils, and with monarchs is crowned;
Without it the soldier, the seaman may roam,

But woe to the wretch who expels it from home!

In the whispers of conscience its voice will be found,
Nor e'en in the whirlwind of passion be drowned.

'T will not soften the heart; but though deaf be the ear, It will make it acutely and instantly hear.

Yet in shade let it rest, like a delicate flower-
Ah! breathe on it softly—it dies in an hour.

C. Fanshawe.

PROGRESS.

PROGRESS! progress! all things cry;
Progress, Nature's golden rule;
Nothing tarries 'neath the sky;

Learn in Nature's wondrous school.
Earth from chaos sprang sublime,
Broad-armed oaks from acorns grow,

Insects, labouring, build in time
Mighty islands from below.
Press we on through good and ill,
Progress be our watchword still.
Rough may be the mountain-road
Leading to the heights of Mind;
Climb, and reach Truth's bright abode:
Dull the souls that grope behind.

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