Perhaps no guilt your pris'ner knows
Although for crime arraigned,
And proots may cluster thickly round
By circumstance maintained;
He may be innocent and stand
Before his Maker's sight

A spotless one, more pure than you,
Who THINK you act the right.
And can ye give him life again,

Or mete him right for wrong,
If future time should prove the guilt
May somewhere else belong?

Then, DARE ye swing your Brother's form
High up in Heaven's free air,
When time may tell, an innocent
Has been suspended there?

Suppose he did it—and suppose
Your priests around him placed,
Teaching, repentance may atone,
And sinners may be graced-
Suppose he does repent, and lies
Washed clean before the throne,
Becomes a saint, and purified,
And Heav'n he feels his own;
With anxious zeal his spirit craves
To till life's little span

With calling all to turn, and see
God's love to guilty Man.

And who, than he once sunk in sin

Can more that love portray?

Who preach more truly-sinners turn,
Crime may be washed away?

Then, could ye hang that saint redeemed
High up in Heaven's free air?

Is earth so full of righteous ones
That ye have some to spare?

And where your Father mercy showed,
Can ye no mercy show?

Have ye ne'er sinn'd, that ye must thus
Deal the avenging blow?

But, if repentance should NOT come
Before his hour of doom,

If, unregenerate you should send
Your Brother to the tomb,

Think you that ye will guiltless stand
Before your Father's eye?

Did ye not MURDER when ye said
Your prisoner should die?

Or are your prison-houses full?

Have ye no room for one?

Is bread so scant ye cannot feed

'Till life's short course is run? Have ye not bolts and bars enough To hold the victim fast,

When burglars with their thousand wiles
Are there securely cast?

And are ye sure, no changing fate
May give to you HIS place?
Are you so sanctified in good
Ye cannot fall from grace?
Can no temptation have the pow'r
To urge the hasty blow?

Have ye so conquered evil thoughts
That sin no more ve know?
Or may not circumstances charge
Your innocence with crime?
Full oft we know it has been thus
From immemorial time.

Then, by the danger all must share
That his may be our lot,
By all the bonds of human kind
Aid to wipe out this blot!

Cease not from striving, till our law

Is clear from bloody stain,

And REFORMATION,-NOT REVENGE,—
In principle sustain !

MAUD MULLER.-J. G. Whittier.

MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.

Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.

Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.

But, when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,

The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast-
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.

He drew his bridle in the shade

Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,

And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.

She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,

And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge, "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quafled."

He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;

Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.

And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;

And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.

At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.

Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah, me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!

"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.

"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.

"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay;

And the baby should have a new toy each day.

"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."

The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.

A form more fair, a face more sweet,
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.

"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.

"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay:

"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
'But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving words."

But he thought of his sisters proud and cold,
And his mother vain of her rank and gold.

So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.

But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.

He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.

Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go:
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;

And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms,
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.

And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain; "Ah, that I were free again!

"Free as when I rode that day,

Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."

She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.

But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.

And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall,

In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.

And, gazing down with timid grace,
She felt his pleased eyes read her face,

Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;

The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,

And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,

A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.

Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "It might have been.”

Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!

God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.

For of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: "It might have been l'

Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;

And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!

THANATOPSIS.-W. C. Bryant.

To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language: for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away

Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight

Over thy spirit, and sad images

Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,

And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,-
Go forth under the open sky, and list

To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more