This roof star-fretted crowning all,—
Ah, yes! but man delights not me,
And woman's love brings respite brief
To older and outliving grief.

Why have we wisdom to perceive
That breath and motion are not life,
Yet when these lower things we leave
To seek the nobler, find but strife?
Eternal life is life alone;

Eternal life, to us unknown!

Why own we this heaven-rolling ball,
And rule it with supreme command,
And force their hidden treasures all

From blustering sea and stubborn land;
Why eagerly all riches claim,

Yet know not what to do with them?

Why do we leave the woodland shade,
And from the acorn turn away,
To live in homes our hands have made
And make the rugged soil obey,
And marshal dense brigades of wheat
To keep off want from our retreat;

Then to ourselves turn fiercer foes,

And mar the work ourselves have wrought, With our own race in conflict close,

Then boast the strength with which we fought,

Sowing in joy to reap in woe?
Must this last ever, I would know ?

Or must that so just-seeming boast,
That we alone in cities live,
Assembled in confederate host

To law and right their dues to give,
Yield to confession not less just
That law at length gives place to lust?

And why alone of all the kinds

Know we the love that conquers time,
And through the union of two minds
Beyond the years and periods climb,
If envious disuniting death

Leaves rottenness for sense and breath?

Why do the wanderers of the wild,

Hating their horns and painted hide,

Envy our aspect calm and mild,

The woman's grace and manhood's pride,

If we by pain and sickness may

Be made far uglier than they?

Mine is not all a vain complaint,

And something in that heaven hath ears,

Nor yet I feel my spirit faint,

Nor dry my fount of hopeful tears,

I feel my faith still mounting higher
Upon the gale of strong desire.

Wide, mighty heaven, inscrutable!
Show us the link 'twixt us and thee;
At length thy close-kept secret tell

Of what we are and what shall be ;
Does Death in slaying cause to live,
And in dividing union give?

And does the vanity we own,

The power that still in weakness ends, That show we are not yet full-grown,

This show to what our being tends?
We ask thee then to let us see
The man that we were meant to be.

He shall confound the fiendish voice
That bids us use our gifts for bread,
Or make the conqueror's selfish choice,
And steal a diadem for our head,
Or trifle with our God-given powers,
As though they were not God's but ours.

Then social peace shall stand revealed,
And God's Jerusalem appear,
When each dividing discord healed

The elements again cohere,
Nor pride usurp, nor fraud betray,

Nor sluggards grudgingly obey.

The wasting ills that we endure,

And death that severs heart from heart,

Not to prohibit but to cure

Should be the heaven-sent Angel's part;
Nor should he be exempt from death,
But should recal his parted breath.

That none may dream that griefs bygone
Have been endured and cured in vain ;
That none 'neath present ills may groan

As those that hope no term of pain;
Then when men step into the grave,
There may be light in that dark cave.

Enough! enough! I know not well

E'en what it is which I would know;

But this too must that Angel tell,

Answer and question both must show;
But not by dreaming will this be;
Almost my dream had cheated me.

Yet, while from this lone height I gaze

On that cold heaven and those cold fires,

Oh, might some kindly sudden blaze

But send me one of two desires,

Or flash me death and solve it so,

Or guide to that which I would know!

J. R. S.

SAY, ye celestial guards, who wait

In Bethlehem, round the Saviour's palace gate, Say, who are these on golden wings,

That hover o'er the new-born King of kings,

Their palms and garlands telling plain
That they are of the glorious martyr train,

Next to yourselves ordained to praise

His Name, and brighten as on Him they gaze?