The promise of a fairer morrow,
An earnest of the better life to come;
The binding of the spirit broken,
The warning to the erring spoken,
The comfort of the sad,
The eye to see, the hand to cull
Of common things the beautiful,

The absent heart made glad
By simple gift or graceful token
Of love it needs as daily food,
Allown one Source, and all are good!
Hence, tracking sunny cove and
reach,

Where spent waves glimmer up the
beach,

And toss their gifts of weed and shell
From foamy curve and combing swell,
No unbefitting task was thine

To weave these flowers so soft and
fair

In unison with His design

Who loveth beauty everywhere;
And makes in every zone and clime,
In ocean and in upper air,
"All things beautiful in their time."

For not alone in tones of awe and

power

they, who, like the gentle wind, uplift

The petals of the dew-wet flowers, and drift

Their perfume on the air,

He speaks to man;

shower

His rainbows span ;

own gift,

Making their lives a prayer!

"Who saw the tears of love he wept Above the grave where Lazarus slept; And heard, amidst the shadows dim Of Olivet, his evening hymn.

Then said I, - for I could not brook
The mute appealing of his look,
"I, too, am weak, and faith is small,
And blindness happeneth unto all.

"Yet, sometimes glimpses on my sight, Through present wrong, the eternal right;

And, step by step, since time began,
I see the steady gain of man ;

"That all of good the past hath had
Remains to make our own time glad,
Our common daily life divine,
And every land a Palestine.

"Thou weariest of thy present state;
What gain to thee time's holiest date?
The doubter now perchance had been
As High Priest or as Pilate then!

-the gray

A homeless, troubled age,
Pale setting of a weary day;
Too dull his ear for voice of praise,
Too sadly worn his brow for bays.

Pride, lust of power and glory, slept;
Yet still his heart its young dream kept,
And, wandering like the deluge-dove,
Still sought the resting-place of love.

And, mateless, childless, envied more
The peasant's welcome from his door
By smiling eyes at eventide,
Than kingly gifts or lettered pride.

Until, in place of wife and child,
All-pitying Nature on him smiled,
And gave to him the golden keys
To all her inmost sanctities.

Midst yearnings for a truer life,
Without were fears, within was strife;
And still his wayward act denied
The perfect good for which he sighed.

The love he sent forth void returned; The fame that crowned him scorched and burned,

Burning, yet cold and drear and lone,
A fire-mount in a frozen zone !

Like that the gray-haired sea-king passed, 54

Seen southward from his sleety mast,
About whose brows of changeless frost
A wreath of flame the wild winds tossed.

Far round the mournful beauty played Of lambent light and purple shade, Lost on the fixed and dumb despair Of frozen earth and sea and air!

A man apart, unknown, unloved

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And, listening to its sound, the twain Seemed lapped in childhood's trust again.

Wide open stood the chapel door;
A sweet old music, swelling o'er
Low prayerful murmurs, issued thence, -
The Litanies of Providence!

Then Rousseau spake: "Where two or three

In His name meet, He there will be !"
And then, in silence, on their knees
They sank beneath the chestnut-trees.

As to the blind returning light,
As daybreak to the Arctic night,
Old faith revived: the doubts of years
Dissolved in reverential tears.

That gush of feeling overpast,
"Ah me!" Bernardin sighed at last,
"I would thy bitterest foes could see
Thy heart as it is seen of me!

"No church of God hast thou denied ;
Thou hast but spurned in scorn aside
A base and hollow counterfeit,
Profaning the pure name of it!

"With dry dead moss and marish weeds
His fire the western herdsman feeds,
And greener from the ashen plain
The sweet spring grasses rise again.

"Nor thunder-peal nor mighty wind
Disturb the solid sky behind;

And through the cloud the red bolt rends The calm, still smile of Heaven descends!

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'And, bright with wings of cherubim Visibly waving over him,

Seen through his life, the Church had seemed

All that its old confessors dreamed.

"I would have been," Jean Jaques replied,

"The humblest servant at his side,
Obscure, unknown, content to see
How beautiful man's life may be !

"O, more than thrice-blest relic, more
Than solemn rite or sacred lore,
The holy life of one who trod
The foot-marks of the Christ of God!

"Amidst a blinded world he saw
The oneness of the Dual law;
That Heaven's sweet peace on Earth
began,

And God was loved through love of

man.

"He lived the Truth which reconciled
The strong man Reason, Faith the child:
In him belief and act were one,
The homilies of duty done!"

So speaking, through the twilight gray The two old pilgrims went their way.

What seeds of life that day were sown, The heavenly watchers knew alone.

Time passed, and Autumn came to fold Green Summer in her brown and gold; Time passed, and Winter's tears of snow Dropped on the grave-mound of Rous

seau.

"The tree remaineth where it fell, The pained on earth is pained in hell!” So priestcraft from its altars cursed The mournful doubts its falsehood nursed.

Ah! well of old the Psalmist prayed,

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'Thy hand, not man's, on me be laid!" Earth frowns below, Heaven weeps above, And man is hate, but God is love!

No Hermits now the wanderer sees,
Nor chapel with its chestnut-trees;
A morning dream, a tale that 's told,
The wave of change o'er all has rolled.

Yet lives the lesson of that day;
And from its twilight cool and gray
Comes up a low, sad whisper,
Make
The truth thine own, for truth's own
sake.

"Why wait to see in thy brief span
Its perfect flower and fruit in man?
No saintly touch can save; no balm
Of healing hath the martyr's palm.
"Midst soulless forms, and false pre-

tence.

Of spiritual pride and pampered sense, A voice saith, 'What is that to thee? Be true thyself, and follow Me!'

"In days when throne and altar heard The wanton's wish, the bigot's word, And pomp of state and ritual show Scarce hid the loathsome death below,

"Midst fawning priests and courtiers foul,

The losel swarm of crown and cowl, White-robed walked François Fenelon, Stainless as Uriel in the sun!

"Yet in his time the stake blazed red, The poor were eaten up like bread; Men knew him not: his garment's hem No healing virtue had for them.