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Now that those scenes of bliss are gone,
Now that the long years roll away,
The two Ash Wednesdays blend in one,
One sad yet almost festal day:
The emblem of that union blest,
Where lofty souls together rest,

Star differing each from star in glory,
Yet telling each its own high story.

When this day bids us from within

Look out on human strifes and storms :
The worst man's hope, the best man's sin,

The world's base arts, Faith's hollow forms-
One answer comes in accents dear,
Yet as the piercing sunbeam clear,
The secret of the better life

Read by my Mother and my Wife.

THE UNTRAVELLED TRAVELLER.

(Lines written on the recovery of Prince Leopold.)

HEN brothers part for manhood's race,'

'WH

And gladly seek from year to year,

From scene to scene, from place to place,
The wonders of each opening sphere,
Is there no venturous path in store,

To undiscovered haunt or shore,
For him whom Fate forbade to roam,
The untravelled traveller at home?

Yes, gallant youth! What though to thee
Nor Egypt's sands, nor Russia's snows,
Nor Grecian isle, nor tropic sea,

Nor Western worlds, their wealth disclose;

Thy wanderings have been vaster far
Than midnight sun or southern star;
And thou, too, hast thy trophies won,
Of toils achieved and exploits done.

For thrice thy weary feet have trod

The pathway to the realms of Death; And leaning on the hand of God,

With halting step and panting breath,
Thrice from the edge of that dread bourn,
From which no travellers return,

Thou hast, like him who rose at Nain,
Come back to life and light again.

Each winding of that mournful way,
Each inlet of that shadowy shore,
Through restless night and tedious day
'Twas thine to fathom and explore;
Through hairbreadth scapes and shocks as rude
As e'er are met in fire or flood,

Thou, in thy solitary strife,

Hast borne aloft thy charmèd life.

Yet in this pilgrimage of ill

Sweet tracts and isles of peace were thineDear watchful friends, strong gentle skill, Consoling words of Love Divine,

A Royal mother's ceaseless care,
A nation's sympathising prayer,
The Everlasting Arms beneath

That lightened even the load of death.

Those long descents, that upward climb,
Shall give an inward strength and force,
Breathed as by Alpine heights sublime

Through all thy dark and perilous course.

Not Afric's swamps nor Biscay's wave
Demand a heart more firm and brave,
Than may for thee be born and bred,
Even on thy sick and lonely bed.

And still as months and years roll by,
A world-wide prospect shall unfold—
The realm of art, the poet's sky,

The land of wisdom's purest gold.
These shalt thou traverse to and fro,
In search of these thy heart shall glow,
And many a straggler shall be led
To follow in thine onward tread.

'Hast Thou, O Father, dear and true,
One blessing only-none for me?
Bless, O my Father, bless me too,
Out of Thy boundless charity.'
Rest, troubled spirit, calmly rest;

He blesses, and thou shalt be blest;
And from thy hard-wrought happiness
Thou wilt the world around thee bless.

GEORGE ELIOT.

Born 1820. Died 1881.

OH, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirred to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,

And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven:

To make undying music in the world,
Breathing as beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, failed, and agonised
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor anxious penitence, is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air.
And all our rarer, better, truer self,

That sobbed religiously in yearning song,

That watched to ease the burthen of the world,

Laboriously tracing what must be,

And what may yet be better-saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude
Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mixed with love-
That better self shall live till human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread for ever.

This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach
That purest heaven, be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardour, feed pure love,
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty-
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense.
So shall I join the choir invisible

Whose music is the gladness of the world.

ANNA LETITIA WARING.

About 1850.

THY WILL BE DONE.

`ATHER, I know that all my life

FATE

Is portioned out for me,

And the changes that are sure to come

I do not fear to see;

But I ask Thee for a present mind,
Intent on pleasing Thee.

I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,

Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles And to wipe the weeping eyes : And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathise.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro;
Seeking for some great thing to do,

A secret thing to know:

I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship with men
To keep and cultivate,

And a work of lowly love to do,

For the Lord on whom I wait.

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