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HORATIUS BONAR.

W. ALEXANDER.

247

HORATIUS BONAR.

THE INNER CALM.

CALM me, my God, and keep me calm,
While these hot breezes blow;
Be like the night-dew's cooling balm
Upon earth's fevered brow.

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm,

Soft resting on thy breast;
Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm,
And bid my spirit rest.

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm;
Let thine outstretched wing
Be like the shade of Elim's palm
Beside her desert spring.

Yes, keep me calm, though loud and

rude

The sounds my ear that greet,
Calm in the closet's solitude,
Calm in the bustling street;

Calm in the hour of buoyant health,
Calm in my hour of pain,
Calm in my poverty or wealth,
Calm in my loss or gain;

Calm in the sufferance of wrong,

Like Him who bore my shame, Calm mid the threatening, taunting throng,

Who hate Thy holy name;

Great Master, touch us with thy skilful

hand;

Let not the music that is in us die! Great Sculptor, hew and polish us; nor let,

Hidden and lost, thy form within us lie!

Spare not the stroke do with us as thou wilt!

Let there be naught unfinished, broken, marred;

Complete thy purpose, that we may be

come

Thy perfect image, thou our God and Lord!

W. ALEXANDER.

UP ABOVE.

Down below, the wild November whistling

Through the beech's dome of burning red, And the Autumn sprinkling penitential Dust and ashes on the chestnut's head.

Down below, a pall of airy purple Darkly hanging from the mountain-side; And the sunset from his eyebrow staring O'er the long roll of the leaden tide.

Calm when the great world's news with Up above, the tree with leaf unfading,

power

My listening spirit stir;

Let not the tidings of the hour

E'er find too fond an ear;

Calm as the ray of sun or star

Which storms assail in vain, Moving unruffled through earth's war, The eternal calm to gain.

THE MASTER'S TOUCH.

In the still air the music lies unheard; In the rough marble beauty hides

unseen:

To make the music and the beauty, needs

The master's touch, the sculptor's chisel keen.

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A vicious parent shaming still its child, | Three wives sat up in the lighthouse Poor anxious penitence, is quick dis

solved;

Its discords quenched by meeting har

monies,

Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
That sobbed religiously in yearning song,

tower,

And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down,

They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,

And the night rack came rolling up ragged and brown!

That watched to ease the burden of the But men must work, and women must

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Which martyred men have made more And the sooner it's over, the sooner to

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That purest heaven, - be to other souls The cup of strength in some great agony, Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,

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Be the sweet presence of a good diffused, "O MARY, go and call the cattle home,

And in diffusion ever more intense !
So shall I join the choir invisible,
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

[1819-1874.]

THE THREE FISHERS.

THREE fishers went sailing out into the

west,

Out into the west as the sun went down ;

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee";

The western wind was wild and dank wi'

foam,

And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land,

And never home came she.

Each thought on the woman who loved "O, is it weed, or fish, or floating hair,

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