AN INCIDENT IN A RAILROAD CAR. HE E spoke of BURNS: men rude and rough Pressed round to hear the praise of one Whose heart was made of manly, simple stuff, As homespun as their own. And, when he read, they forward leaned, His brook-like songs whom glory never weaned Slowly there grew a tender awe, It was a sight for Sin and Wrong A sight to make our faith more pure In high humanity. I thought, "These men will carry Promptings their former life above, And something of a finer reverence For beauty, truth, and love, "GOD scatters love on every side, and strong hence And always hearts are lying open wide, Wherein some grains may fall. "There is no wind but soweth seeds Of a more true and open life, Which burst, unlooked-for, into high-souled deeds With wayside beauty rife. "We find within these souls of ours Same wild germs of a higher birth, "Within the hearts of all men lie "All that hath been majestical "And thus, among the untaught poor, O mighty brother-soul of man, Where'er thou art, in low or high, Thy skyey arches with exulting span O'er-roof infinity! All thoughts that mould the age begin Deep down within the primitive soul, And from the many slowly upward win To one who grasps the whole: In his broad breast the feeling deep That struggled on the many's tongue, Svells to a tide of Thought, whose surges leap O'er the weak thrones of Wrong. All thought begins in feeling,-wide And, narrowing up to thought, stands glorified, Nor is he far astray who deems That every hope, which rises and grows broad In the world's heart, by ordered impulse streams From the great heart of GOD. GOD wills, man hopes: in common souls Till from the poet's tongue the message rolls, Never did Poesy appear So full of heaven to me, as when I saw how it would pierce through pride and fear To the lives of coarsest men. It may be glorious to write Thoughts that shall glad the two or three High souls, like those far stars that come in sight Once in a century ; But better far it is to speak One simple word, which now and then Shall waken their free nature in the weak And friendless sons of men; To write some earnest verse or line, Which, seeking not the praise of art, Shall make a clearer faith and manhood shine In the untutored heart. He who doth this, in verse or prose, But surely shall be crowned at last with those George Lunt. THE LYRE AND SWORD. THE HE freeman's glittering sword be blest― That rings upon the tyrant's crest; But when his fingers sweep the chords, And mid the vales and swelling hills The freeman's heart and nerves his hand. For this, when Freedom's trumpet calls, His burning heart he may not lend On high his glittering sword he waves, Amelia B. Welby. THE OLD MAID. HY sits she thus in solitude? Her heart WHY Seems melting in her eyes' delicious blue; Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore; It is her thirtieth birthday! With a sigh Her soul hath turned from youth's luxuriant bowers, |