Haggling with prejudice for pennyworths

Of that reform which their hard toil will make

The common birthright of the age to come,-
When I see this, spite of my faith in God,
I marvel how their hearts bear up so long;
Nor could they, but for this same prophecy,
This inward feeling of the glorious end.

Ere

"Deem me not fond; but in my warmer youth, my heart's bloom was soiled and brushed away, I had great dreams of mighty things to come; Of conquest, whether by the sword or pen

I knew not; but some conquest I would have,
Or else swift death: now, wiser grown in years,
I find youth's dreams are but the flutterings
Of those strong wings whereon the soul shall soar
In aftertime to win a starry throne;

And so I cherish them, for they were lots

Which I, a boy, cast in the helm of Fate.

Now will I draw them, since a man's right hand,

A right hand guided by an earnest soul,

With a true instinct, takes the golden prize

From out a thousand blanks.

What men call luck

Is the prerogative of valiant souls,
The fealty life pays its rightful kings.
The helm is shaking now, and I will stay
To pluck my lot forth; it were sin to flee !"

So they two turned together; one to die,
Fighting for freedom on the bloody field;
The other, far more happy, to become

A name earth wears for ever next her heart;
One of the few that have a right to rank
With the true Makers: for his spirit wrought
Order from Chaos; proved that right divine
Dwelt only in the excellence of Truth;

And far within old Darkness' hostile lines
Advanced and pitched the shining tents of Light.
Nor shall the grateful Muse forget to tell,
That-not the least among his many claims
To deathless honour-he was MILTON's friend,
A man not second among those who lived
To show us that the poet's lyre demands
An arm of tougher sinew than the sword.

THE FORLORN.

The night is dark, the stinging sleet,
Swept by the bitter gusts of air,

Drives whistling down the lonely street,
And stiffens on the pavement bare.

The street-lamps flare and struggle dim

Through the white sleet-clouds as they pass,

Or, governed by a boisterous whim,

Drop down and rattle on the glass.

One

poor, heart-broken, outcast girl

Faces the east-wind's searching flaws, And, as about her heart they whirl,

Her tattered cloak more tightly draws.

The flat brick walls look cold and bleak,

Her bare feet to the side-walk freeze; Yet dares she not a shelter seek,

Though faint with hunger and disease.

The sharp storm cuts her forehead bare, And, piercing through her garments thin, Beats on her shrunken breast, and there Makes colder the cold heart within.

She lingers where a ruddy glow

Streams outward through an open shutter,

Giving more bitterness to woe,

More loneness to desertion utter.

One half the cold she had not felt,
Until she saw this gush of light
Spread warmly forth, and seem to melt

Its slow way through the deadening night.

She hears a woman's voice within,

Singing sweet words her childhood knew,

And years of misery and sin

Furl off and leave her heaven blue.

Her freezing heart, like one who sinks
Outwearied in the drifting snow,

Drowses to deadly sleep, and thinks
No longer of its hopeless woe:

Old fields, and clear blue summer days,
Old meadows, green with grass and trees,
That shimmer through the trembling haze

And whiten in the western breeze,—

Old faces,—all the friendly past
Rises within her heart again,

And sunshine from her childhood cast
Makes summer of the icy rain.

Enhaloed by a mild, warm glow,

From all humanity apart,

She hears old footsteps wandering slow

Through the lone chambers of her heart.