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 giveth them to feel; Let them prove their inward souls against the notion That they live in you, or under you. O wheels! Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward, As if fate in each were stark! And the childrens' souls, which God is calling sunward, Now tell the weary children, O my brothers! For the bless'd One who blesseth all the others, To bless them another day. They answer-"Who is God that He should hear us," Is it likely God with angels singing round Him, Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; "Our Father!" looking upward in our chamber, We say no other words except "Our Father!" And we think that, in some pause of angels' song, He may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both in His right hand, which is strong. Our Father! If He heard us, He world surelyFor they call Him good and mild Answer, smiling down the steep would very purely, "Come and rest with me, my child." "But no," say the children, weeping faster, "He is silent as a stone; And they tell us, of His image is the master "Go to!" say the children; "up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like turning clouds are all we find! Do not mock us! we are atheists in our grieving, We look to Him-but tears have made us blind!" Do you hear children weeping and disproving, my brothers, what ye teach? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, And well may the children weep before ye, They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory They know the grief of men, but not the wisdom, Are martyrs by the pang without the palm! Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly, They look up, with their pale and sunken faces, For you think you see their angels in their places, "How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation! Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart? Trample down with mailèd 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 THE BELLS.-EDGAR A. POE. I. Hear the sledges with the bells- What a world of merriment their melody foretells! In a sort of Runic rhyme, To the tintinabulation that so musically wells Bells, bells, bells From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells. II. Hear the mellow wedding bells, What a world of happiness their harmony foretells! How they ring out their delight! From the molten-golden notes, And all in tune, What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats Oh, from out the sounding cells, What a gush of euphony voluminously wells! How it dwells On the Future! how it tells To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells! III. Hear the loud alarum bells- What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells! How they scream out their affright! They can only shriek, shriek, In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire, And a resolute endeavor How they clang, and clash and roar! On the bosom of the palpitating air! Yet the ear it fully knows, By the twanging, And the clanging, How the danger ebbs and flows; Yet the ear distinctly tells, In the jangling, And the wrangling, How the danger sinks and swells, By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells Of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells In the clamor and the clangor of the bells! IV. Hear the tolling of the bells- What a world of solemn thought their monody compels! How we shiver with affright At the melancholy menace of their tone! For every sound that floats From the rust within their throats And the people-ah, the people- And who tolling, tolling, tolling, Feel a glory in so rolling On the human heart a stone- And their king it is who tolls; A pæan from the bells- With the pean of the bells! To the pean of the bells- Keeping time, time, time, To the throbbing of the bells Of the bells, bells, bells- As he knells, knells, knells, To the moaning and the groaning of the bells. TITANIA, BOTTOM AND FAIRIES.-SHAKSPEARE Enter TITANIA and her train. Tit. Come, now a roundel, and a fairy song; SONG. 1st Fai. You spotted snakes with double tongue, Newts and blind worms, do no wrong; Chorus. Philomel with melody Sing in our sweet lullaby, Lulla, lulla, lullaby: lulla, lulla, lullaby; So, good night, with lullaby. 2d Fai. Weaving spiders, come not here; Hence you long-legged spinners, hence: Worm nor snail, do no offence. Chorus. Philomel with melody, &c. 1st Fai. Hence, away; now all is well; One, aloof, stand sentinel. [Exeunt FAIRIES. TITANIA sleeps. Enter OBERON. Ober. What thou seest when thou dost awake [Squeezes the flower on Titania's eyelids Do it for thy true love take; Love and lauguish for his sake: Be it ounce, or cat, or bear, Pard or boar with bristled hair, In thy eye that shall appear When thou wak'st, it is thy dear; Wake, when some evil thing is near. [Exit. Enter BOTTOM, singing; PUCK having clapt on him an ass's head. SONG. Bot. The ousel-cock, so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill Tit. What angel wakes me from my flowery bed? [Wakes. |