HYMN OF THE TRUE MAN.

PEACE to the True Man's ashes! Weep for those
Whose days in old delusions have grown dim;
Such lives as his are triumphs, and their close
An immortality: weep not for him.
As feathers wafted from the eagle's wings

Lie bright among the rocks they can not warm,
So lie the flowery lays that Genius brings,
In the cold turf that wraps his honored form.
A practical rebuker of vain strife,

Bolder in deeds than words, from beardless youth To the white hairs of age, he made his life A beautiful consecration to the Truth. Virtue, neglected long, and trampled down, Grew stronger in the echo of his name; And, shrinking self-condemned beneath his frown, The cheek of harlotry grew red with shame. Serene with conscious peace, he strewed his way With sweet humanities, the growth of love; Shaping to right his actions, day by day,

Faithful to this world and to that above. The ghosts of blind belief and hideous crime, Of spirit-broken loves, and hopes betrayed, That flit among the broken walls of Time, Are by the True Man's exorcisms laid. Blest in his life, who to himself is true,

And blest his death-for memory, when he dies, Comes, with a lover's eloquence, to renew

Our faith in manhood's upward tendencies. Weep for the self-abased, and for the slave, And for God's children darkened with the smoke Of the red altar-not for him whose grave Is greener than the misletoe of the oak.

PALESTINE.

BRIGHT inspiration! shadowing my heart
Like a sweet thing of beauty-could I see
Tabor and Carmel ere I hence depart,

And tread the quiet vales of Galilee,

And look from Hermon with its dew and flowers,
Upon the broken walls and mossy towers,
O'er which the Son of man in sadness wept,
The golden promise of my life were kept.

Alas! the beauteous cities, crowned with flowers,
And robed with royalty! no more in thee,
Fretted with golden pinnacles and towers,
They sit in haughty beauty by the sea:
Shadows of rocks, precipitate and dark,

Rest still and heavy where they found a grave;
There glides no more the humble fisher's bark,
And the wild heron drinks not of the wave.
But still the silvery willows fringe the rills,
Judea's shepherd watches still his fold;
And round about Jerusalem the hills

Stand in their solemn grandeur as of old; And Sharon's roses still as sweetly bloom

As when the apostles, in the days gone by, Rolled back the shadows from the dreary tomb, And brought to light Life's Immortality.

The East has lain down many a beauteous bride,
In the dim silence of the sepulchre,
Whose names are shrined in story, but beside
Their lives no sign to tell they ever were.
The imperial fortresses of old renown- [now?
Rome, Carthage, Thebés-alas! where are they
In the dim distance lost and crumbled down;

The glory that was of them, from her brow
Took of the wreath in centuries gone by,
And walked the Path of Shadows silently.
But Palestine! what hopes are born of thee-
I can not paint their beauty, hopes that rise,
Sinking this perishing mortality

To the bright, deathless glories of the skies:
Where the sweet Babe of Bethlehem was born-
Love's mission finished there in Calvary's gloom;
There blazed the glories of the rising morn,
And Death lay gasping there at Jesus' tomb!

OLD STORIES.

No beautiful star will twinkle
To-night through my window-pane,
As I list to the mournful falling

Of the leaves and the autumn rain.
High up in his leafy covert

The squirrel a shelter hath; And the tall grass hides the rabbit, Asleep in the churchyard path. On the hills is a voice of wailing

For the pale dead flowers again,
That sounds like the heavy trailing
Of robes in a funeral train.

Oh, if there were one who loved me-
A kindly and gray-haired sire,
To sit and rehearse old stories
To-night by my cabin fire:

The winds as they would might rattle
The boughs of the ancient trees-
In the tale of a stirring battle
My heart would forget all these.
Or if by the embers dying

We talked of the past, the while,
I should see bright spirits flying
From the pyramids and the Nile.
Echoes from harps long silent

Would troop through the aisles of time,
And rest on the soul like sunshine,
If we talked of the bards sublime.
But hark! did a phantom call me,
Or was it the wind went by?
Wild are my thoughts and restless,
But they have no power to fly.
In place of the cricket humming,
And the moth by the candle's light,

I hear but the deathwatch drumming-
I've heard it the livelong night.
Oh for a friend who loved me-
Oh for a gray-haired sire,
To sit with a quaint old story,
To-night by my cabin fire.

PICTURES OF MEMORY.

AMONG the beautiful pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,
Is one of a dim old forest,

That seemeth best of all:
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mistletoe;
Not for the violets golden

That sprinkle the vale below; Not for the milk-white lilies,

That lead from the fragrant hedge, Coquetting all day with the sunbeams, And stealing their golden edge; Not for the vines on the upland

Where the bright red berries rest, Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip, It seemeth to me the best.

I once had a little brother,

With eyes that were dark and deepIn the lap of that old dim forest

He lieth in peace asleep: Light as the down of the thistle,

Free as the winds that blow,

We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;

But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,

I made for my little brother

A bed of the yellow leaves.

Sweetly his pale arms folded

My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face :
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures

That hang on Memory's wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.

THE TWO MISSIONARIES. In the pyramid's heavy shadows, And by the Nile's deep flood, They leaned on the arm of Jesus, And preached to the multitude: Where only the ostrich and parrot Went by on the burning sands, They builded to God an altar, Lifting up holy hands. But even while kneeling lowly At the foot of the cross to pray, Eternity's shadows slowly

Stole over their pilgrim way: And one, with the journey weary, And faint with the spirit's strife, Fell sweetly asleep in Jesus,

Hard by the gates of life. Oh, not in Gethsemané's garden, And not by Genesareth's wave, The light, like a golden mantle,

O'erspreadeth his lowly grave;

But the bird of the burning desert
Goes by with a noiseless tread,
And the tent of the restless Arab
Is silently near him spread.
Oh, could we remember only,

Who shrink from the lightest ill, His sorrows, who, bruised and lonely, Wrought on in the vineyard stillSurely the tale of sorrow

Would fall on the mourner's breast, Hushing, like oil on the waters, The troubled wave to rest.

VISIONS OF LIGHT. THE moon is rising in beauty,

The sky is solemn and bright, And the waters are singing like lovers That walk in the valleys at night. Like the towers of an ancient city, That darken against the sky, Seems the blue mist of the river

O'er the hill-tops far and high.

I see through the gathering darkness
The spire of the village church,
And the pale white tombs, half hidden
By the tasselled willow and birch.
Vain is the golden drifting

Of morning light on the hill;
No white hands opens the windows
Of those chambers low and still.
But their dwellers were all my kindred,
Whatever their lives might be,
And their sufferings and achievements
Have recorded lessons for me.
Not one of the countless voyagers

Of life's mysterious main,

Has laid down his burden of sorrows, Who hath lived and loved in vain. From the bards of the elder ages

Fragments of song float by,

Like flowers in the streams of summer,
Or stars in the midnight sky.
Some plumes in the dust are scattered,

Where the eagles of Persia flew,
And wisdom is reaped from the furrows
The plough of the Roman drew.
From the white tents of the crusaders

The phantoms of glory are gone,
But the zeal of the barefooted hermit
In humanity's heart lives on.
Oh, sweet as the bell of the sabbath

In the tower of the village church,
Or the fall of the yellow moonbeams
In the tasselled willow and birch-
Comes a thought of the blessed issues
That shall follow our social strife,
When the spirit of love maketh perfect
The beautiful mission of life:
For visions of light are gathered
In the sunshine of flowery nooks,
Like the shades of the ghostly Fathers
In their twilight cells of books!

HELVA.

HER white hands full of mountain flowers,
Down by the rough rocks and the sea,
Helva, the raven-tressed, for hours

Hath gazed forth earnestly.
Unconscious that the salt spray flecks
The ebon beauty of her hair-
What vision is it she expects?
So meekly lingering there.

Is it to see the sea fog lift

From the broad bases of the hills,

Or the red moonlight's golden drift,
That her soft bosom thrills?

Or yet to see the starry hours

Their silver network round her throw,

That 'neath the white hands, full of flowers,
Her heart heaves to and fro ?

Why strains so far the aching eye?
Kind nature wears to-night no frown,
And the still beauty of the sky

Keeps the mad ocean down.
Why are those damp and heavy locks

Put back, the faintest sound to win?
Ah! where the beacon lights the rocks,
A ship is riding in!

Who comes forth to the vessel's side,

Leaning upon the manly arm

Of one who wraps with tender pride
The mantle round her form?

Oh Helva, watcher of lone hours,

May God in mercy give thee aid! Thy cheek is whiter than thy flowersThy woman's heart betrayed!

THE TIME TO BE.

I SIT where the leaves of the maple,
And the gnarled and knotted gum,
Are circling and drifting around me,
And think of the time to come.
For the human heart is the mirror

Of the things that are near and far; Like the wave that reflects in its bosom The flower and the distant star.

And beautiful to my vision

Is the time it prophetically sees,
As was once to the monarch of Persia
The gem of the Cyclades.

As change is the order of Nature,
And beauty springs from decay,
So in its destined season

The false for the true makes way.

The darkening power of evil,

And discordant jars and crime, Are the cry preparing the wilderness For the flower and the harvest-time. Though doubtings and weak misgivings May rise to the soul's alarm, Like the ghosts of the heretic burners, In the province of bold Reform.

And now, as the summer is fading,

And the cold clouds full of rain,
And the net in the fields of stubble
And the briars, is spread in vain—
I catch, through the mists of life's river,
A glimpse of the time to be,
When the chain from the bondman rusted,
Shall leave him erect and free-

On the solid and broad foundation,
A common humanity's right,

To cover his branded shoulder
With the garment of love from sight.

TO LUCY.

THE leaves are rustling mournfully,
The yellow leaves and sere;
For Winter with his naked arms
And chilling breath is here:
The rills that all the autumn-time
Went singing to the sea,
Are waiting in their icy chains
For Spring to set them free;
No bird is heard the live-long day
Upon its mates to call,
And coldly and capriciously

The slanting sunbeams fall.
There is a shadow on my heart
I can not fling aside-
Sweet sister of my soul, with thee
Hope's brightest roses died!
I'm thinking of the pleasant hours
That vanished long ago,
When summer was the goldenest,
And all things caught its glow:
I'm thinking where the violets
In fragrant beauty lay,
Of the buttercups and primroses
That blossomed in our way.

I see the willow, and the spring
O'ergrown with purple sedge;
The lilies and the scarlet pinks

That grew along the hedge;
The meadow, where the elm tree threw
Its shadows dark and wide,
And, sister, flowers in beauty grew

And perished side by side:
O'er the accustomed vale and hill
Now Winter's robe is spread,
The beetle and the moth are still,
And all the flowers are dead.

I mourn for thee, sweet sister,
When the wintry hours are here,
But when the days grow long and bright,
And skies are blue and clear-
Oh, when the Summer's banquet
Among the flowers is spread,
My spirit is most sorrowful

That thou art with the dead:
We laid thee in thy narrow bed,

When autumn winds were high-
Thy life had taught us how to live,
And then we learned to die.