VII.

"For all day the wheels are droning, turning:

Their wind comes in our faces,

Till our hearts turn, our heads 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 drops adown 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!""

VIII.

Ay, be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth;

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth;

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals;

Let them prove their living souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark.

IX.

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 stirred?
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?

X.

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm,

'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.

We know no other words except 'Our Father;'

And we think, that, in some pause of angels' song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within his right hand, which is strong. 'Our Father!' If he heard us, he would surely (For they call him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

XI.

"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.

XII.

And well may the children weep before

you!

They are weary ere they run;
They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun.

They know the grief of man, without its wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without its calm;
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom;
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm :
Are worn as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The harvest of its memories cannot reap;
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly—
Let them weep! let them weep!

XIII.

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

For they mind you of their angels in high places,
With eyes turned on 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 mailed heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path !

But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper
Than the strong man in his wrath.

A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.

MRS. BROWNING.

I.

THE ship went on with solemn face;
To meet the darkness on the deep
The solemn ship went onward:
I bowed down weary in the place;
For parting tears and present sleep

Had weighed mine eyelids downward.

II.

Thick sleep which shut all dreams from me,
And kept my inner self apart,

And quiet from emotion,

Then brake away, and left me free,
Made conscious of a human heart
Betwixt the heaven and ocean.

III.

The new sight, the new wondrous sight
The waters round me, turbulent,
The skies impassive o'er me,
Calm in a moonless, sunless light,
Half-glorified by that intent

Of holding the day-glory!

IV.

Two pale thin clouds did stand upon
The meeting line of sea and sky,
With aspect still and mystic:

I think they did foresee the sun,
And rested on their prophecy

In quietude majestic.

V.

Then flushed to radiance where they stood,

Like statues by the open tomb

Of shining saints half risen.
The sun! he came up to be viewed,
And sky and sea made mighty room
To inaugurate the vision.

VI.

I oft had seen the dawnlight run

As red wine through the hills and break
Through many a mist's inurning;

But here no earth profaned the sun :
Heaven, ocean, did alone partake
The sacrament of morning.

VII.

Away with thoughts fantastical!
I would be humble to my worth,
Self-guarded as self-doubted:
Though here no earthly shadows fall,
I, joying, grieving, without earth,
May desecrate without it.