The mind has a thousand eyes,

And the heart but one;

Yet the light of a whole life dies

When love is done...

—F. W. BOURDILLON.

DUTY

I slept and dreamed that life was Beauty;
I woke, and found that life was Duty.
Was thy dream then a shadowy lie?
Toil on, sad heart, courageously,
And thou shalt find thy dream to be
A noonday light and truth to thee.

-ELLEN STURGIS HOOPER.

LET SOMETHING GOOD BE SAID

When over the fair fame of friend or foe
The shadows of disgrace shall fall; instead
Of words of blame, or proof of thus and so,
Let something good be said.

Forget not that no fellow-being yet

May fall so low but love may lift his head;
Even the cheek of shame with tears is wet,
If something good be said.

No generous heart may vainly turn aside.
In ways of sympathy: no soul so dead
But may awaken strong and glorified,
If something good be said.

And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown,
And by the cross on which the Saviour bled,

And by your own soul's fair renown,

Let something good be said.

-JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.

A FLOWER GARDEN

265

SOME SMALL SWEET WAY
There's never a rose in all the world

But makes some green spray sweeter;
There's never a wind in all the sky
But makes some bird-wing fleeter;
There's never a star but brings to heaven
Some silver radiance tender;

And never a rosy cloud but helps
To crown the sunset splendor;
No robin but may thrill some heart,
His dawn-like gladness voicing.

God gives us all some small sweet way
To set the world rejoicing.

I AM GLAD

I am glad to think

-SELECTED.

I am not bound to make the world go right,
But only to discover and to do,

With cheerful heart, the work that God appoints.
I will trust in Him,

That He can hold His own; and I will take

His will, above the work He sendeth me

To be my chiefest good. The glory is not in the task, But in the doing it for Him.

-JEAN INGElow.

THE YEAR'S AT THE SPRING

The year's at the spring,

The day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;

The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in his heaven-
All's right with the world!

-ROBERT BROWNING.

THE SET OF THE SOUL

One ship goes east, another west,
By the selfsame winds that blow.
'Tis the set of the sail, and not the gale,
That determines the way they go.

Like the winds of the sea are the ways of Fate
As we voyage along through life.

'Tis the set of the soul that decides the goal, And not the calm or the strife.

A FLOWER GARDEN

267

WATER LILIES

O star on the breast of the river!
O marvel of bloom and grace!

Did you fall right down from heaven,
Out of the sweetest place?

You are white as the thoughts of an angel,
Your heart is steeped in the sun;
Did you grow in the Golden City,
My pure and radiant one?

Nay, nay, I fell not out of heaven;
None gave me my saintly white;
It slowly grew from the darkness,
Down in the dreary night.
From the ooze of the silent river
I won my glory and grace;
White souls fall not, O my poet,
They rise to the sweetest place.

-MARY FRANCES BUTTS.

TO-DAY

This day is mine-my own!-the sun
Looks o'er the world's red rim at me;

The countless days before this one

All dawned that this great day could be;
The æons that have passed were all
Required to bring this glorious day,
To let my moving shadow fall
Across the level way.

The past the long, long tapering past-
But ope'd the way and cleared the scene
For this day that has dawned at last-
This greatest of all days! Between
The dawn and night shall I but sway
In idleness, or heartily

Do something well to mark this day
That I have lived to see?

-SAMUEL ELLSWORTH KISER.

MAKE THIS A DAY

This day is yours; your work is yours,
The odds are not who pays your hire;
The thing accomplished-that endures,
If it be what the days require.
He who takes up his daily round,
As one new armored for the fray,
To-morrow steps on solid ground.
Make this a day.

The day is this; the time is now;
No better hour was ever here-
Who waits upon the when and how
Remains forever in the rear.
Though yesterday were wasted stuff,
Your feet may still seek out the way.
To-morrow is not soon enough-
Make this a day.

-W. D. N., in Young Citizen.

THE RAINBOW

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky.

So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The child is father of the man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

-WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.