Straight the mother stooped to see
What the Indian's gift might be.
On the braid of wampum hung,
Lo a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again.

Flashed the roof the sunshine through,
Into space the walls outgrew;
On the Indian's wigwam-mat,
Blossom-crowned, again she sat.

Cool she felt the west-wind blow,
In her ear the pines sang low,
And, like links from out a chain,
Dropped the years of care and pain.

From the outward toil and din,
From the griefs that gnaw within,
To the freedom of the woods

Called the birds, and winds, and floods.

Well, O painful minister !
Watch thy flock, but blame not her,
If her ear grew sharp to hear
All their voices whispering near.

Blame her not, as to her soul
All the desert's glamour stole,
That a tear for childhood's loss
Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

When, that night, the Book was read,
And she bowed her widowed head,
And a prayer for each loved name
Rose like incense from a flame,

To the listening ear of Heaven,
Lo another name was given :
"Father, give the Indian rest!
Bless him! for his love has blest!"

MY PLAYMATE.

THE pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.

The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.

233

"And I sought, whence is Evil: I set before the eye of my spirit the whole creation; whatsoever we see therein, - sea, earth, air, stars, trees, moral creatures, - yea, whatsoever there is we do not see, angels and spiritual powers. Where is evil, and whence comes it, since God the Good hath created all things? Why made He anything at all of evil, and not rather by His Almightiness cause it not to be? These thoughts I turned in my miserable heart, overcharged with most gnawing cares." "And, admonished to return to myself, I entered even into my inmost soul, Thou being my guide, and beheld even beyond my soul and mind the Light unchangeable. He who knows the Truth knows what that Light is, and he that knows it knows Eternity! O Truth, who art Eternity! Love, who art Truth! Eternity, who art Love! And I beheld that Thou madest all things good, and to Thee is nothing whatsoever evil. From the angel to the worm, from the first motion to the last, Thou settest each in its place, and everything is good in its kind. Woe is me! - how high art Thou in the highest, how deep in the deepest! and Thou never departest from us and we scarcely return to Thee." -Augustine's Soliloquies, Book VII.

THE fourteen centuries fall away

Between us and the Afric saint, And at his side we urge, to-day, The immemorial quest and old complaint.

No outward sign to us is given,

From sea or earth comes no reply; Hushed as the warm Numidian heaven He vainly questioned bends our frozen sky.

No victory comes of all our strife,

From all we grasp the meaning slips; The Sphinx sits at the gate of life, With the old question on her awful lips.

In paths unknown we hear the feet

Of fear before, and guilt behind; We pluck the wayside fruit, and eat Ashes and dust beneath its golden rind.

From age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect, Through every web of life the dark threads run.

O, why and whither? - God knows all;

I only know that he is good, And that whatever may befall Or here or there, must be the best that could.

Between the dreadful cherubim

A Father's face I still discern, As Moses looked of old on him, And saw his glory into goodness turn!

For he is merciful as just;

And so, by faith correcting sight, I bow before his will, and trust Howe'er they seem he doeth all things right.

And dare to hope that he will make

The rugged smooth, the doubtful plain;

His mercy never quite forsake; His healing visit every realm of pain ;

That suffering is not his revenge

Upon his creatures weak and frail, Sent on a pathway new and strange With feet that wander and with eyes that fail;

That, o'er the crucible of pain,

Watches the tender eye of Love The slow transmuting of the chain Whose links are iron below to gold above!

237

For pearls that gem
A diadem

The diver in the deep sea dies;
The regal right

We boast to-night

Is ours through costlier sacrifice;

God is and man in guilt and fear
The central fact of Nature owns ;
Kneels, trembling, by his altar-stones,
And darkly dreams the ghastly smear
Of blood appeases and atones.

Guilt shapes the Terror: deep within
The human heart the secret lies
Of all the hideous deities;
And, painted on a ground of sin,
The fabled gods of torment rise!

And what is He?. The ripe grain nods,
The sweet dews fall, the sweet flowers

blow;
But darker signs his presence show:
The earthquake and the storm are God's,
And good and evil interflow.

O hearts of love! O souls that turn
Like sunflowers to the pure and best!
To you the truth is manifest:
For they the mind of Christ discern
Who lean like John upon his breast!
In him of whom the sibyl told,
For whom the prophet's harp was
toned,

Whose need the sage and magian
owned,

The loving heart of God behold,

The hope for which the ages groaned !