And well may the children weep before you! They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory

Which is brighter than the sun.

They know the grief of man, without its
wisdom;

They sink in man's despair, without its
calm;

Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,
Are Martyrs, by the pang without the palm:
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly
The harvest of its memories cannot reap,-
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly.
Let them weep! let them weep!

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They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in high places,

With eyes turned on Deity.

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel
nation,

Will you stand, to move the world, on a
child's heart,—

Stifle down with a mailèd heel its palpitation,
And tread onward to your throne amid

the mart?

Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,
And your purple shows your path!
But the child's sob in silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath."

1843.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

160

1832.

SIT DOWN, SAD SOUL

SIT down, sad soul, and count
The moments flying:
Come, tell the sweet amount
That's lost by sighing!
How many smiles?-a score?

Then laugh, and count no more;
For day is dying!

Lie down, sad soul, and sleep,

And no more measure
The flight of Time, nor weep
The loss of leisure;

But here, by this lone stream,
Lie down with us, and dream
Of starry treasure!

We dream: do thou the same:

We love-forever:

We laugh; yet few we shame,

The gentle, never.

Stay, then, till Sorrow dies;

Then-hope and happy skies

Are thine forever!

Bryan Waller Procter.

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AT THE MID HOUR OF NIGHT

Ar the mid hour of night, when stars are weeping, I fly

To the lone vale we loved, when life shone warm in thine eye;

And I think oft, if spirits can steal from the regions of air,

To revisit past scenes of delight, thou wilt come to me there,

And tell me our love is remember'd, even in

the sky.

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Then I sing the wild song 't was once such pleasure to hear!

When our voices commingling, breathed, like one on the ear;

And, as Echo far off through the vale my

sad orison rolls,

I think, O my love! 't is thy voice from the
Kingdom of Souls,

Faintly answering still the notes that once were

FOR ANNIE

THANK Heaven! the crisis-
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last-

And the fever called “Living"
Is conquered at last.

Sadly, I know

I am shorn of my strength, And no muscle I move

As I lie at full lengthBut no matter!-I feel

I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed,

That any beholder

Might fancy me dead

Might start at beholding me,

Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,

The sighing and sobbing,

Are quieted now,

With that horrible throbbing

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At heart:-ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing;

The sickness-the nausea-
The pitiless pain-

Have ceased, with the fever

That maddened my brainWith the fever called "Living " That burned in my brain.

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