Unseen of her her fair fame grew,
The good she did she rarely knew,
Unguessed of her in life the love
That rained its tears her grave above.

When last I saw her, full of peace,
She waited for her great release;
And that old friend so sage and bland,
Our later Franklin, held her hand.

For all that patriot bosoms stirs

Had moved that woman's heart of hers,
And men who toiled in storm and sun
Found her their meet companion.

Our converse, from her suffering bed
To healthful themes of life she led ;
The out-door world of bud and bloom
And light and sweetness filled her room.
Yet evermore an underthought
Of loss to come within us wrought,
And all the while we felt the strain
Of the strong will that conquered pain.

God giveth quietness at last!
The common way that all have passed
She went, with mortal yearnings fond,
To fuller life and love beyond.

Fold the rapt soul in your embrace,
My dear ones! Give the singer place!
To you, to her, I know not where,-
I lift the silence of a prayer.

For only thus our own we find ;
The gone before, the left behind,
All mortal voices die between ;
The unheard reaches the unseen.

Again the blackbirds sing; the streams Wake, laughing, from their winter dreams,

And tremble in the April showers
The tassels of the maple flowers.

But not for her has spring renewed
The sweet surprises of the wood;
And bird and flower are lost to her
Who was their best interpreter !

What to shut eyes has God revealed? What hear the ears that death has sealed?

455

Rise, stricken city! - from thee throw
The ashen sackcloth of thy woe;
And build, as to Amphion's strain,
To songs of cheer thy walls again !

How shrivelled in thy hot distress
The primal sin of selfishness!
How instant rose, to take thy part,
The angel in the human heart!

Ah! not in vain the flames that tossed
Above thy dreadful holocaust;
The Christ again has preached through
thee

The Gospel of Humanity!

Then lift once more thy towers on high,
And fret with spires the western sky,
To tell that God is yet with us,
And love is still miraculous!

As beautiful her mornings brea
As fair her evenings fall.
Love watches o'er my quiet ways,
Kind voices speak my name,
And lips that find it hard to praise
Are slow, at least, to blame.

How softly ebb the tides of will!
How fields, once lost or won,
Now lie behind me green and still
Beneath a level sun!

How hushed the hiss of party hate,
The clamor of the throng!
How old, harsh voices of debate
Flow into rhythmic song!

Methinks the spirit's temper grows
Too soft in this still air;
Somewhat the restful heart foregoes
Of needed watch and prayer.

The bark by tempest vainly tossed
May founder in the calm,
And he who braved the polar frost
Faint by the isles of balm.

Better than self-indulgent years
The outflung heart of youth,
Than pleasant songs in idle years

The tumult of the truth.

Rest for the weary hands is good, And love for hearts that pine, But let the manly habitude

Of upright souls be mine.

Let winds that blow from heaven re fresh,

Dear Lord, the languid air; And let the weakness of the flesh Thy strength of spirit share.

And, if the eye must fail of light,
The ear forget to hear,
Make clearer still the spirit's sight,
More fine the inward ear!

Be near me in mine hours of need
To soothe, or cheer, or warn,
And down these slopes of sunset lead
As
ur the hills of morn!

THE BREWING OF SOMA.

"These libations mixed with milk have been prepared for Indra; offer Soma to the drinker of Soma."-VASHISTA, Trans. by MAX MULLER.

THE fagots blazed, the caldron's smoke

Up through the green wood curled; "Bring honey from the hollow oak, Bring milky sap,' "the brewers spoke, In the childhood of the world.

And brewed they well or brewed they ill,

The priests thrust in their rods, First tasted, and then drank their fill, And shouted, with one voice and will, "Behold the drink of gods!"

They drank, and lo! in heart and brain

A new, glad life began ; The gray of hair grew young again, The sick man laughed away his pain, The cripple leaped and ran.

"Drink, mortals, what the gods have sent,

Forget your long annoy."

So sang the priests. From tent to tent
The Soma's sacred madness went,
A storm of drunken joy.

Then knew each rapt inebriate

A winged and glorious birth, Soared upward, with strange joy elate, Beat, with dazed head, Varuna's gate, And, sobered, sank to earth.

The land with Soma's praises rang;
On Gihon's banks of shade
Its hymns the dusky maidens sang;
In joy of life or mortal pang

All men to Soma prayed.

The morning twilight of the race

Sends down these matin psalms: And still with wondering eyes we trace The simple prayers to Soma's grace, That Vedic verse embalms.

As in that child-world's early year,
Each after age has striven

457