The Crooked Footpath.

Ан, here it is! the sliding rail

That marks the old remembered spot,-
The gap that struck our school-boy trail,—
The crooked path across the lot.

It left the road by school and church,
A pencilled shadow, nothing more,
That parted from the silver-birch

And ended at the farm-house door.
No line or compass traced its plan;
With frequent bends to left or right,
In aimless, wayward curves it ran,

But always kept the door in sight.
The gabled porch, with woodbine green,—
The broken millstone at the sill,-

Though many a rood might stretch between,
The truant child could see them still.

No rocks across the pathway lie,—

No fallen trunk is o'er it thrown,

And yet it winds, we know not why,
And turns as if for tree or stone.
Perhaps some lover trod the way
With shaking knees and leaping heart,—
And so it often runs astray

With sinuous sweep or sudden start.
Or one, perchance, with clouded brain
From some unholy banquet reeled,-
And since, our devious steps maintain
His track across the trodden field.
Nay, deem not thus,-no earth-born will
Could ever trace a faultless line;
Our truest steps are human still,—
To walk unswerving were divine !
Truants from love, we dream of wrath ;-
O, rather let us trust the more !
Through all the wanderings of the path,
We still can see our Father's door!

Fris, her Book.

I PRAY thee by the soul of her that bore thee,

By thine own sister's spirit I implore thee,

Deal gently with the leaves that lie before thee !

For Iris had no mother to infold her,

Nor ever leaned upon a sister's shoulder,

Telling the twilight thoughts that Nature told her.

She had not learned the mystery of awaking
Those chorded keys that soothe a sorrow's aching,
Giving the dumb heart voice, that else were breaking.

Yet lived, wrought, suffered. Lo, the pictured token!
Why should her fleeting day-dreams fade unspoken,
Like daffodils that die with sheaths unbroken?

She knew not love, yet lived in maiden fancies,—
Walked simply clad, a queen of high romances,
And talked strange tongues with angels in her trances.
Twin-souled she seemed, a two-fold nature wearing,--
Sometimes a flashing falcon in her daring,

Then a poor mateless dove that droops despairing.
Questioning all things: Why her Lord had sent her?
What were these torturing gifts, and wherefore lent her?
Scornful as spirit fallen, its own tormentor.

And then all tears and anguish: Queen of Heaven,
Sweet Saints, and Thou by mortal sorrows riven,
Shall I die forgiven?

Save me! O, save me!

And then-Ah, God!

But nay, it little matters:

Look at the wasted seeds that autumn scatters,

The myriad germs that Nature shapes and shatters!

If she had-Well! She longed, and knew not wherefore Had the world nothing she might live to care for?

No second self to say her evening prayer for?

She knew the marble shapes that set men dreaming,
Yet with her shoulders bare and tresses streaming
Showed not unlovely to her simple seeming.

Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher.
What if a lonely and unsistered creature
Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature,
Saying, unsaddened,―This shall soon be faded,
And double-hued the shining tresses braided,
And all the sunlight of the morning shaded?

-This her poor book is full of saddest follies,
Of tearful smiles and laughing melancholies,
With summer roses twined and wintry hollies.
In the strange crossing of uncertain chances,
Somewhere, beneath some maiden's tear-dimmed glances
May fall her little book of dreams and fancies.
Sweet sister! Iris, who shall never name thee,
Trembling for fear her open heart may shame thee,
Speaks from this vision-haunted page to claim thee.

Spare her, I pray thee! If the maid is sleeping, Peace with her! she has had her hour of weeping. No more! She leaves her memory in thy keeping

Robinson of Leyden.

HE sleeps not here; in hope and prayer
His wandering flock had gone before,
But he, the shepherd, might not share
Their sorrows on the wintry shore.
Before the Speedwell's anch swung,
Ere yet the Mayflower's sail was spread,
While round his feet the pilgrims clung,
The pastor spake, and thus he said :-
"Men, brethren, sisters, children dear!
God calls you hence from over sea;
Ye may not build by Haerlem Meer,
Nor yet along the Zuyder-Zee.
"Ye go to bear the saving Word

To tribes unnamed and shores untrod:
Heed well the lessons ye have heard
From those old teachers taught of God.
"Yet think not unto them was lent
All light for all the coming days,
And Heaven's eternal wisdom spent
In making straight the ancient ways:
"The living fountain overflows

For every flock, for every lamb,
Nor heeds, though angry creeds oppose
With Luther's dike, or Calvin's dam."
He spake with lingering, long embrace,
With tears of love and partings fond,
They floated down the creeping Maas,
Along the isle of Ysselmond.

They passed the frowning towers of Briel,
The "Hook of Holland's " shelf of sand,
And grated soon with lifting keel

The sullen shores of Fatherland.

No home for these !-too well they knew
The mitred king behind the throne ;-
The sails were set, the pennons flew,

And westward ho! for worlds unknown. -And these were they who gave us birth, The Pilgrims of the sunset wave,

Who won for us this virgin earth,

And freedom with the soil they gave.

The pastor slumbers by the Rhine,—
In alien earth the exiles lie,-
Their nameless graves our holiest shrine,
His words our noblest battle-cry!

Still cry them, and the world shall hear,
Ye dwellers by the storm-swept sea!
Ye have not built by Haerlem Meer,
Nor on the land-locked Zuyder-Zee!

St. Anthony the Reformer.

HIS TEMPTATION.

No fear lest praise should make us proud!
We know how cheaply that is won;
The idle homage of the crowd

Is proof of tasks as idly done.

A surface-smile may pay the toil

That follows still the conquering Right, With soft, white hands to dress the spoil

That sun-browned valour clutched in fight.

Sing the sweet song of other days,
Serenely placid, safely true,

And o'er the present's parching ways
The verse distils like evening dew.

But speak in words of living power,-
They fall like drops of scalding rain
That plashed before the burning shower
Swept o'er the cities of the plain!
Then scowling Hate turns deadly pale,—
Then Passion's half coiled adders spring,
And, smitten through their leprous mail,
Strike right and left in hope to sting.
If thou, unmoved by poisoning wrath,
Thy feet on earth, thy heart above,
Canst walk in peace thy kingly path,
Unchanged in trust, unchilled in love,-
Too kind for bitter words to grieve,
Too firm for clamour to dismay,
When Faith forbids thee to believe,
And Meekness calls to disobey,-

Ah, then beware of mortal pride!

The smiling pride that calmly scorns Those foolish fingers, crimson dyed

In labouring on thy crown of thorns!

The Opening of the Piano.

IN the little southern parlour of the house you may have seen, With the gambrel-roof, and the gable looking westward to the

green,

At the side toward the sunset, with the window on its right,
Stood the London-made piano I am dreaming of to-night!

Ah me! how I remember the evening when it came !
What a cry of eager voices, what a group of cheeks in flame,
When the wondrous box was opened that had come from over seas,
With its smell of mastic-varnish and its flash of ivory keys!
Then the children all grew fretful in the restlessness of joy ;
For the boy would push his sister, and the sister crowd the boy,
Till the father asked for quiet in his grave paternal way,
But the mother hushed the tumult with the words, "Now,
Mary, play."

For the dear soul knew that music was a very sovereign balm;
She had sprinkled it over Sorrow and seen its brow grow calm,
In the days of slender harpsichords with tapping tinkling quills,
Or carolling to her spinet with its thin metallic thrills.

So Mary, the household minstrel, who always loved to please,
Sat down to the new "Clementi," and struck the glittering keys.
Hushed were the children's voices, and every eye grew dim,
As, floating from lip and finger, arose the "Vesper Hymn.'

-Catherine, child of a neighbour, curly and rosy-red, (Wedded since, and a widow, -something like ten years dead,) Hearing a gush of music such as none before,

Steals from her mother's chamber and peeps at the open door.

Just as the "Jubilate " in threaded whisper dies,

"Open it! open it, lady!" the little maiden cries,

(For she thought 'twas a singing creature caged in a box she heard,)

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Open it! open it, lady! and let me see the bird !”

Midsummer.

HERE! sweep these foolish leaves away,
I will not crush my brains to-day!
Look! are the southern curtains drawn?
Fetch me a fan, and so begone!

Not that, the palm-tree's rustling leaf
Brought from a parching coral-reef!
Its breath is heated;-I would swing
The broad gray plumes, -the eagle's wing.