Behold, the tears that soothed thy sister's woe Have washed thy Master's feet!

March 20, 1859.

AVIS

I MAY not rightly call thy name,
Alas! thy forehead never knew
The kiss that happier children claim,
Nor glistened with baptismal dew.

Daughter of want and wrong and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
By Mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

"Avis!" With Saxon eye and cheek,

At once a woman and a child,

The saint uncrowned I came to seek

Drew near to greet us,

spoke, and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
All wrong to shame, all souls to win, -
A heavenly sunbeam sent before

Her footsteps through a world of sin.

"And who is Avis?"-Hear the tale

The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell,The story known through all the vale Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild,
Strayed from the hand of human care,

They find one little refuse child

Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,

The chattel-stamp, the pariah-stain That follows still her hunted race,

The curse without the crime of Cain.

How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
The little suffering outcast's ail?
Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate

So turned the rose-wreathed revellers pale.

Ah, veil the living death from sight
That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
The children turn in selfish fright,
The white-lipped nurses hurry by.

Take her, dread Angel! Break in love
This bruised reed and make it thine!

No voice descended from above,

But Avis answered, "She is mine."

The task that dainty menials spurn

The fair young girl has made her own; Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn The toils, the duties yet unknown.

So Love and Death in lingering strife
Stand face to face from day to day,

Still battling for the spoil of Life
While the slow seasons creep away.

Love conquers Death; the prize is won;
See to her joyous bosom pressed

The dusky daughter of the sun,

L

The bronze against the marble breast!

Her task is done; no voice divine

Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame. No eye can see the aureole shine

That rings her brow with heavenly flame.

Yet what has holy page more sweet,

Or what had woman's love more fair, When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown,
The Angel of that earthly throng,

And let thine image live alone

To hallow this unstudied song!

THE LIVING TEMPLE

NOT in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,

Nor yet alone in earth below,

With belted seas that come and go,

And endless isles of sunlit green,

Is all thy Maker's glory seen:

Look in upon thy wondrous frame, —
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,

And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered crossing tides
The flood of burning life divides,
Then, kindling each decaying part,
Creeps back to find the throbbing heart.

But warmed with that unchanging flame
Behold the outward moving frame,
Its living marbles jointed strong
With glistening band and silvery thong,
And linked to reason's guiding reins
By myriad rings in trembling chains,
Each graven with the threaded zone
Which claims it as the master's own.

See how yon beam of seeming white
Is braided out of seven-hued light,

Yet in those lucid globes no ray

By any chance shall break astray.
Hark how the rolling surge of sound,
Arches and spirals circling round,

Wakes the hushed spirit through thine ear
With music it is heaven to hear.

Then mark the cloven sphere that holds
All thought in its mysterious folds;
That feels sensation's faintest thrill,
And flashes forth the sovereign will;
Think on the stormy world that dwells
Locked in its dim and clustering cells!
The lightning gleams of power it sheds
Along its hollow glassy threads!

O Father! grant thy love divine
To make these mystic temples thine!
When wasting age and wearying strife
Have sapped the leaning walls of life,
When darkness gathers over all,
And the last tottering pillars fall,
Take the poor dust thy mercy warms,
And mould it into heavenly forms!

AT A BIRTHDAY FESTIVAL

TO J. R. LOWELL

WE will not speak of years to-night,
For what have years to bring
But larger floods of love and light,
And sweeter songs to sing?