For love, that shines through all her ways,
Hinders the stealthy hours from duty,
A soul divinely self-forgetful

Has come to blossom in her beauty.

While the low brow, the silver curl.

The twilight glance, the perfect features,

The rose upon a creamy pallor,

Make her the loveliest of creatures.

Now with the glow that on the face

Like moonlight on a flower has found her, With the tone's thrill, a faint remoteness, Half like a halo hangs around her.

Half like a halo? Nay, indeed,

I never saw a picture painted

Such holy work the years have renderedSo like a woman that is sainted,

WITNESSES.

Whenever my heart is heavy,
And life seems sad as death,
A subtle and marvelous mockery
Of all who draw their breath,
And I weary of throned injustice,

The rumor of outrage and wrong,
And I doubt if God rules above us,

And I cry, O Lord, how long,
How long shall sorrow and evil

Their forces around them draw?

Is there no power in thy right hand,
Is there no life in thy law ?

Then at last the blazing brightness

Of day forsakes its height, Slips like a splendid curtain

From the awful and infinite night; And out of the depths of distance, The gulfs of purple space,

The stars steal, slow and silent,

Each in the ancient place,

Each in armor shining,

The hosts of heaven arrayed,

And wheeling through the midnight

As they did when the world was made.

And I lean out among the shadows

Cast by that far white gleam, And I tremble at the murmur

Of one mote in the mighty beam, As the everlasting squadrons

Their fated influence shed, While the vast meridians sparkle With the glory of their tread.

That constellated glory

The primal morning saw,

And I know God moves to his purpose,

And still there is life in his law!

I have a little kinsman

Whose earthly summers are but three,

And yet a voyager is he

Greater than Drake or Frobisher,

Than all their peers together!

He is a brave discoverer,

And, far beyond the tether

Of them who seek the frozen Pole,

Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.

Ay, he has travelled whither

A winged pilot steered his bark
Through the portals of the dark,
Past hoary Mimir's well and tree,
Across the unknown sea.

Suddenly, in his fair young hour,
Came one who bore a flower,
And laid it in his dimpled hand

With this command:

"Henceforth thou art a rover !
Thou must make a voyage far,
Sail beneath the evening star,
And a wondrous land discover."
-With his sweet smile innocent
Our little kinsman went.

Since that time no word

From the absent has been heard.

Who can tell

How he fares, or answer well
What the little one has found
Since he left us, outward bound?
Would that he might return!
Then should we learn

From the pricking of his chart

How the skyey roadways part.

Hush! does not the baby this way bring,

To lay beside this severed curl,

Some starry offering

Of chrysolite or pearl?

Ah, no! not so!

We may follow on his track,
But he comes not back.
And yet I dare aver

He is a brave discoverer

Of climes his elders do not know.

He has more learning than appears

On the scroll of thrice three thousand years,

More than in the groves is taught,

Or from furthest Indies brought;

He knows, perchance, how spirits fare,—

What shapes the angels wear,

What is their guise and speech

In those lands beyond our reach,—
And his eyes behold

Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told.

THE HAND OF LINCOLN.

Look on this cast, and know the hand
That bore a nation in its hold;
From this mute witness understand

What Lincoln was,-how large of mould

The man who sped the woodman's team,
And deepest sunk the plowman's share,
And pushed the laden raft astream,
Of fate before him unaware.

This was the hand that knew to swing
The ax-since thus would Freedom train

Her son and made the forest ring,

And drove the wedge, and toiled amain.

Firm hand, that loftier office took,

A conscious leader's will obeyed,

And, when men sought his word and look,
With steadfast might the gathering swayed.

No courtier's, toying with a sword,

Nor minstrel's laid across a lute;

A chief's, uplifted to the Lord,

When all the kings of earth were mute!

The hand of Anak, sinewed strong,
The fingers that on greatness clutch,
Yet, lo! the marks their lines along

Of one who strove and suffered much.