The young lambs are bleating in the meadows;
The young birds are chirping in the nest;
The young fawns are playing with the shadows;
The young flowers are blowing toward the west-
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!-

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so?—

The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago-

The old tree is leafless in the forest-
The old year is ending in the frost-
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest-
The old hope is hardest to be lost:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's grief abhorrent, draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy-

'Your old earth,' they say, 'is very dreary;'
'Our young feet,' they say, 'are very weak!
Few paces have we taken, yet are weary-
Our grave-rest is very far to seek.

Ask the old why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,-

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old.

'True,' say the young children, it may happen
That we die before our time.

Little Alice died last year-the grave is shapen
Like a snowball in the rime.

We look'd into the pit prepared to take her-
Was no room for any work in the close clay:
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, "Get up, little Alice! it is day."

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,

With your ear down, little Alice never cries!-
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes,-
And merry go her moments, lull'd and still'd in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime!

It is good when it happens,' say the children,
That we die before our time.

6

'For oh,' say the children, we are weary,
And we cannot run or leap-

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring,

Through the coal-dark, underground-
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,-
Their wind comes in our faces,-

Till our hearts turn, our head, with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places-

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling—
Turns the long light that droppeth down the wall—
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling-
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.-
And all day, the iron wheels are droning;

And sometimes we could pray,

"O ye wheels," (breaking out in a mad moaning)
"Stop! be silent for to-day!'

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray-

So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.

They answer, Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirr'd?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word!

And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding)
Strangers speaking at the door:

Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him,
Hears our weeping any more?

'But, no!' say the children, weeping faster,
'He is speechless as a stone;

And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.

Go to!' say the children,-Up in Heaven,

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving— We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.' Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O my brothers, what ye preach?

For God's possible is taught by His world's loving-
And the children doubt of each.

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their look is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in their places,
With eyes meant for Deity;-

'How long,' they say, 'how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,

Stifle down with a mail'd heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O our tyrants,

And your purple shows your path;

But the child's sob curseth deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath!'

E. B. Browning

XII

OUR MARY AND THE CHILD MUMMY

When the four quarters of the world shall rise,
Men, women, children, at the Judgment-time,
Perchance this Memphian girl, dead ere her prime,
Shall drop her mask, and with dark new-born eyes

Salute our English Mary, loved and lost;
The Father knows her little scroll of prayer,
And life as pure as His Egyptian air;

For, though she knew not Jesus, nor the cost

At which He won the world, she learn'd to pray; And though our own sweet babe on Christ's good

name

Spent her last breath, premonish'd and advised
Of Him, and in His glorious Church baptized,
She will not spurn this old-world child away,
Nor put her poor embalmed heart to shame.
C. Tennyson-Turner

XIII

MARGARET LOVE PEACOCK

THREE YEARS OLD

Long night succeeds thy little day :
O, blighted blossom! can it be
That this gray stone and grassy clay
Have closed our anxious care of thee?

The half-form'd speech of artless thought,
That spoke a mind beyond thy years,
The song, the dance by Nature taught,
The sunny smiles, the transient tears,

The symmetry of face and form,

The eye with light and life replete,
The little heart so fondly warm,
The voice so musically sweet,—

These, lost to hope, in memory yet
Around the hearts that loved thee cling,
Shadowing with long and vain regret
The too fair promise of thy Spring.

T. L. Peacock

C

XIV

THE WAIL OF THE CORNISH MOTHER

They say 'tis a sin to sorrow,
That what God doth is best ;
But 'tis only a month to-morrow
I buried it from my breast.

I thought it would call me Mother,
The very first words it said:
O, I never can love another

Like the blesséd babe that's dead.

Well! God is its own dear Father;
It was carried to church, and bless'd;
And our Saviour's arms will gather
Such children to their rest.

I will make my best endeavour
That my sins may be forgiven;
I will serve God more than ever :
To meet my child in heaven.

I will check this foolish sorrow,
For what God doth is best-
But O, 'tis a month to-morrow
I buried it from my breast!

R. S. Hawker

XV

It was her first sweet child, her heart's delight:
And, though we all foresaw his early doom,
We kept the fearful secret out of sight;
We saw the canker, but she kiss'd the bloom.

And yet it might not be we could not brook
To vex her happy heart with vague alarms,
To blanch with fear her fond intrepid look,
Or send a thrill through those encircling arms.