Giving not bread but a stone.

Under rich laces their haughty hearts beat,
Mocking the woes of their kin in the street.

Only a woman. In the old days

Hope caroled to her her happiest lays;
Somebody missed her;

Somebody kissed her;

Somebody crowned her with praise;

Somebody faced up the battle of life

Strong for her sake who was mother or wife.

Somebody lies with a tress of her hair

· Light on his heart, where the death-shadows are; Somebody waits for her,

Opening the gates for her,

Giving delight for despair;

Only a woman nevermore poor

Dead in the snow at the bronze church-door!

Death's Miniature.

ONE but an hour! and yet beyond my reach
As much as are the dead;

Nor all the passion of imploring speech
Restores the presence fled.

The room is just as empty as if God
Had sent the form to rest;

The silence were no deeper, if the sod
Lay over that fair breast.

I try to fancy where she is just now,
And that she thinks with me;

Yes, I believe it, for I own her vow,
But oh! for certainty.

This somber hush, this wonder how and where

My living friend now is,

Are like the features Death himself doth wear,

These lineaments are his.

This Absence is the miniature of Death,

A perfect likeness, too,

So that I seem to feel his very breath
Chilling me through and through.

But though he sat for this dark picture here,
Ah, what a dread surprise,

If he himself should suddenly draw near,
Should now confront mine eyes.

By laying here the absent one I wait,
To whose warm love I cling,
In all his majesty of marble state,
A white and soulless thing!

Good God! let all thy mercy intervene
When we must come to know,

The awful difference that lies between
The real and pictured Woe!

Evening Prayer.

NCE more to yonder peaceful starlit sky,
We lift our hearts from out this vale of tears;
O Father, deign to hear us where we lie,
And with thy love disperse our doubts and fears.

It is the same sad story as of old,

Of unfought battles, or if fought, unwon;
The same forgiveness asked for dark-browed sins,
Which ate our lives out in the days agone.

For worship of the creature more than God,

For passing by our neighbor in his need, That, though we honor Jesus with our lips,

We seldom follow where his hand would lead.

Yet pity, Father! from thy throne on high

Lean loving down to meet our broken prayer;
And may we feel a blessing touch our brows,
In the light breathings of the evening air!

Labor and Trust,

EARILY I sit and weave

The tangled web of life.

The pattern which my hands have wrought
Is but a bit of color fraught

With daily, hourly strife.

Longingly I seek to trace

The inwove threads I span;

To know how this and that unite,
For bringing forth the figures bright
That form the perfect plan.

Rapidly the shuttle flies.

When heart and hope are mine;

When on the loom the sunlight pours,
The flecks of gold like summer flowers
In wondrous beauty shine.

Gloomily the fingers move,

Dark tinted is the work,

When 'mong the threads an evil knot,-
Envy and malice,-love forgot,

Doth unexpected lurk.

Patiently, with bowed head,

I weave in sorrow's day,

Scarce can I tell what threads I hold,

I only know that grief untold

Hides all but sodden gray.

Trustfully I sit and weave;

I know 'tis mine to do

That which he gives into my hands,
Complete in him who wisely planned
Shall be the pattern true.

"Tender and True."

KNOW, dearest Lord, though the anguish is keen,
What all these sore wounds from thy loving hands mean,
Till smitten and stripped, I made creatures my stay,
And my love from my Maker turned coldly away.

But "the heart that I fashioned," thou sayest "must be mine;
Must all other lovers all idols resign.

Nor other can love thee, my child, as I love —

O cease the weak hearts of thy fellows to prove.
No comfort nor peace wilt thou find save in me;
To shelters that fail thee why, why wilt thou flee?
Mine eye is upon thee; I feel for thy woe;

The secret distress of thy spirit I know

How hunted, and wounded, and cheated thou art,
And I pity each pang of thy suffering heart.
And mine is compassion that never will fail,

While any are left that are sinful and frail.

Then lean not, my child, on the reeds that will break;

Haste hither to One that will never forsake.
As long as thy sins and thy sorrows endure
The pity and help of thy Maker is sure."

O, Lord, dearest Lord, o'er the waste, howling wild,

Reach out thy strong hand and lead homeward thy child.