33

I

SAW a mother and her child,-
A spectacle of every day!

As many a mother smiles, she smiled,

He played as any child might play; Yet was her heart so full, she turned To him who owned a father's name, And, while her cheek, all rosy, burned, Cried, "May he never come to shame!" Her words were oracles: long years Have solved the riddle of her fears.

I saw a youth amidst the tide
Of city life, that ever rolls,
Wave urging wave, from side to side,
A soul among a million souls:
By none acknowledged, knowing none,
Homeless and hopeless, yet a spark,
The latest of a secret flame,

He deeply cherished in the dark,-
Nameless, to leave a deathless name.

He slept and dreamed his dream anew; Years passed-he woke-and found it true! MONTGOMERY (Fragment of a Life).

34

H! if thy fate, with anguish fraught,

A should be to wet the dusty soil

With the hot tears and sweat of toil,—
To struggle with imperious thought
Until the overburdened brain,
Weary with labor, faint with pain,
Like a jarred pendulum, retain
Only its motion, not its power,—
Remember, in that perilous hour,
When most afflicted and oppressed,
From labor there shall come forth rest.

And if a more auspicious fate
On thy advancing steps await,
Still let it ever be thy pride
To linger by the laborer's side;

With words of sympathy or song
To cheer the dreary march along
Of the great army of the poor,
O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be
Without reward; for thou shalt learn
The wisdom early to discern

True beauty in utility.

LONGFELLOW (To a Child).

"Choose well, your choice is
Brief, and yet endless.

"Here eyes do regard you
In Eternity's stillness;
Here is all fulness,

Ye brave! to reward you;

Work, and despair not!"

GOETHE, translated by CARLYLE (Symbolum).