"GRIEF SHOULD BE LIKE JOY."

GRIEF should be

Like Joy: majestic, equable, sedate ; Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles,

mend

to com

Great thoughts, grave thoughts, thoughts last

ing to the end.

6

AUBREY DE VERE.

"MY SORROW IS MY THRONE."

My sorrow is my throne!

It lifts me from the dust of earthly care; 'Tis calm and peaceful, though so cold and lone

And wider prospects stretch before me. there.

My sorrow is my crown !

A glory round the worn and aching brow; I would not lay its thorny circlet down For any flowers earth has to offer now.

Yet sometimes I could deem

I heard his voice, loved voice that guides me,

say,

"The earth we loved must never trivial seem, Although our joy has passed from earth

away.

"Go down, at my behest,

The smallest, humblest, kindly task to do; I see the thorn-prints; hide them from the

rest;

Because thou lov'st me so, love others too." LUCY SMITH.

DIRGE.

I REACHED the middle of the mount

Up which the incarnate soul must climb, And paused for them, and looked around, With me who walked through space and time.

Five rosy boys with morning light

Had leaped from one fair mother's arms, Fronted the sun with hope as bright,

And greeted God with childhood's psalms.

Knows he who tills this lonely field

To reap its scanty corn,
What mystic fruit his acres yield
At midnight and at morn?

In the long sunny afternoon
The plain was full of ghosts;
I wandered up, I wandered down,
Beset by pensive hosts.

The winding Concord gleamed below,
Pouring as wide a flood

DIRGE.

As when my brothers, long ago,
Came with me to the wood.

But they are gone, the holy ones
Who trod with me this lovely vale;
The strong, star-bright companions
Are silent, low, and pale.

My good, my noble, in their prime,

Who made this world the feast it was, Who learned with me the lore of time, Who loved this dwelling-place!

They took this valley for their toy,
They played with it in every mood;
A cell for prayer, a hall for joy, -
They treated nature as they would.

They colored the horizon round;

Stars flamed and faded as they bade, All echoes hearkened for their sound,They made the woodlands glad or mad.

I touch this flower of silken leaf,

Which once our childhood knew; Its soft leaves wound me with a grief Whose balsam never grew.

Hearken to yon pine-warbler
Singing aloft in the tree!

9

Not unless God made sharp thine ear
With sorrow such as mine,

Out of that delicate lay couldst thou
Its heavy tale divine.

"Go, lonely man," it saith;

66

They loved thee from their birth;

Their hands were

and pure,

pure

their faith,

There are no such hearts on earth.

"Ye drew one mother's milk,

One chamber held ye all;

A very tender history

Did in your childhood fall.

"You cannot unlock your heart,
The key is gone with them;
The silent organ loudest chants
The master's requiem."

EMERSON.