The world is wide: yet nowhere does it keep
So safe a haven, so complete a rest.

Her hands are neither beautiful nor fair,

Yet seemed they lovely in her children's eyes,
We found our daily strength and comfort there,
And if her hands were rough,— -we were not wise.

'T is counted something great to be a queen,
And bend a kingdom to a woman's will;
To be a mother such as mine, I ween,

Is something better and more noble still.
O mother in the changeful years now flown,
Since as a child I leant upon your knee,
Life has not brought to me, nor fortune shown,
Such tender love! such yearning sympathy!

Let fortune smile or frown,-whiche'er she will;
It matters not. I scorn her fickle ways!

I never shall be quite bereft, until

I lose my mother's honest blame and praise !

Touchingly sympathetic, though of another order of sympathy from either poem quoted, is this, entitled

IN PRISON.

God pity the wretched prisoners,
In their lonely cells to-day!
Whatever the sins that tripped them,

God pity them! still I say.

Only a strip of sunshine,

Cleft by rusty bars;

Only a patch of azure,

Only a cluster of stars;

Only a barren future,

To starve their hope upon;

Only stinging memories

Of a past that's better gone.

Only scorn from women,

Only hate from men,

Only remorse to whisper

Of a life that might have been.

Once they were little children,

And perhaps their unstained feet

Were led by a gentle mother
Toward the golden street;

Therefore, if in life's forest

They since have lost their way, For the sake of her who loved them, God pity them! still I say.

O, mothers gone to heaven!

With earnest heart I ask

That your eyes may not look earthward On the failure of your task!

For even in those mansions

The choking tears would rise,

Though the fairest hand in heaven

Would wipe them from your eyes!

And you, who judge so harshly,

Are you sure the stumbling - stone

That tripped the feet of others

Might not have bruised your own?

Are you sure the sad - faced angel
Who writes our errors down

Will ascribe to you more honor

Than him on whom you frown?

Or, if a steadier purpose

Unto your life is given;
A stronger will to conquer,

A smoother path to heaven ;
If, when temptations meet you,

You crush them with a smile;

If you can chain pale passion

And keep your lips from guile ;
Then bless the hand that crowned you
Remembering, as you go,

'T was not your own endeavor

That shaped your nature so;
And sneer not at the weakness
Which made a brother fall,
For the hand that lifts the fallen!
God loves the best of all!

And pray for the wretched prisoners

All over the land to-day,

That a holy hand in pity

May wipe their guilt away.

These verses appeared first in the Rochester Union & Advertiser, in February, 1867. A few months since they were sent to the Chicago Tribune, as the production of an inmate of the penitentiary at Joliet, and were published with a paragraph recognizing their deep feeling, and speaking of the fictitious convict-poet as worthy a better fate. The Tribune's indignation on learning how it had been deceived, was forcibly expressed, and its sober second thought as to the convict's worthiness, did not flatter him.

Mrs. Smith's faith in God is well-nigh unquestioning. She rarely doubts that whatever He does is right. Out of her faith, her full, implicit trust in divine wisdom, this song of comfort grew :

SOMETIME.

Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned,

And sun and stars forevermore have set,

The things which our weak judgments here have spurned,
The things o'er which we grieved with lashes wet,
Will flash before us, out of life's dark night,

As stars shine most in deeper tints of blue;
And we shall see how all God's plans are right,
And how what seemed reproof was love most true.

And we shall see how, while we frown and sigh,
God's plans go on as best for you and me ;
How, when we called, He heeded not our cry,
Because His wisdom to the end could see.
And e'en as prudent parents disallow

Too much of sweet to craving babyhood,

So God, perhaps, is keeping from us now
Life's sweetest things, because it seemeth good.'

And if, sometimes, commingled with life's wine,
We fd the wormwood, and rebel and shrink,
Be sure a wiser hand than yours or mine

Pours out this potion for our lips to drink.
And if some friend we love is lying low,
Where human kisses cannot reach his face,
Oh, do not blame the loving Father so,

But wear your sorrow with obedient grace!

1

And you shall shortly know that lengthened breath
Is not the sweetest gift God sends His friend,
And that, sometimes, the sable pall of death
Conceals the fairest boon His love can send
If we could push ajar the gates of life,

And stand within and all God's workings sec,
We could interpret ali this doubt and strife
And for each mystery could find a key '

But not to-day. Then be content, poor heart.
God's plans like lilies pure and white unfold.
We must not tear the close - shut leaves apart,
Time will reveal the calyxes of gold.
And if, through patient toil, we reach the land
Where tired feet, with sandals loosed, may rest,
When we shall clearly know and understand,

I think that we will say, "God knew the best!"

Mrs. Helen Hunt ("H. H.) has been credited witn this, but unjustly. In response to our query of verification, Mrs. Smith said: "Yes, I wrote 'Sometime' on the cars one day, journeying along from Chicago to Springfield. It was suggested by the conversation of a lady and gentleman occupying seats in front of me. She held in her hand the portrait of a lovely child, and sometimes kissed it, and as she talked of the little one her tears fell like rain. I grew sober and sad, and drew my pencil from my pocket and wrote out my thoughts on a piece of crumpled paper.

Very different from the foregoing, yet not less illus