GIFTED FOR GIVING.

"Freely ye have received, freely give."

MATT. X. 8.

BE true, O poet, to your gift divine! And let your heart go throbbing through your line,

Till it grows vital with the life that burns

In joy and grief, in faith and doubt, by turns, And full, complete expression gives to these In the clear ringing of its cadences !

Pour your soul's passion through the tide of song,

Nor ask the plaudits of the changeful throng. Sing as the bird sings, when the morning beam

With gentlest touch awakes it from its dream, And life and light, their motion and their glow,

Gush through the song, with flow and overflow;

Sing as the stream sings, winding through the

maze

Of woods and meadows with no thought of

praise,

Its murmurous music, or in storm or calm, Blending its low, sweet notes with Nature's psalm;

Sing as the wind sings, when the forest trees
Are vocal with its mystic melodies,
And every leaf lifts up its tiny harp
To answer back in tones distinct and sharp.
Though purblind men, the devotees of greed,
To song or singer give but little heed,
And the deaf multitudes refuse to turn
From Mammon's shrines diviner lore to learn,
The angels, in their starry homes, shall know
How true a spirit walks the earth below,
And, pausing in their song, to list your lyre,
Shall whisper through the spaces, "Come up
higher!"

INSPIRATION.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, an original writer and a strong lover of nature, was born July 12, 1817, and graduated at Harvard College in 1845. After an interesting and eccentric life he died at Concord, Mass., May 6, 1862. An account of his life was published by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson in the Atlantic Monthly for August, 1862.

IF with light head erect I sing,
Though all the Muses lend their force,
From my poor love of anything,

The verse is weak and shallow as its source.

But if with bended neck I grope,
Listening behind me for my wit,
With faith superior to hope,

More anxious to keep back than forward it;

Making my soul accomplice there
Unto the flame my heart hath lit,
Then will the verse forever wear,

Time cannot bend the line which God has writ.

I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before;

I moments live, who lived but years,

And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore.

Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life;
Of manhood's strength it is the flower;
'T is peace's end, and war's beginning strife.

It comes in summer's broadest noon,
By a gray wall, or some chance place,
Unseasoning time, insulting June,
And vexing day with its presuming face.

I will not doubt the love untold
Which not my worth nor want hath bought,
Which wooed me young, and wooed me old,
And to this evening hath me brought.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU

God's living poem speaks to him God-like in every line; Not all man's hackneyed renderings can make it less divine.

MRS. ELIZABeth (Rundle) Charles.

A POET'S PRAYER.

-

ALMIGHTY Father! let thy lowly child,
Strong in his love of truth, be wisely bold, -
A patriot bard by sycophants reviled,
Let him live usefully, and not die old!
Let poor men's children, pleased to read his
lays,

Love for his sake the scenes where he hath been,

And when he ends his pilgrimage of days,
Let him be buried where the grass is green.
Where daisies, blooming earliest, linger late
To hear the bee his busy note prolong,
There let him slumber, and in peace await
The dawning morn, far from the sensual
throng,

Who scorn the wind-flower's blush, the redbreast's lovely song.

EBENEZER ELL'OTT.

A POET'S HOPE.

WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING, a nephew of the celebrated Unitarian minister of the same name, was born in Boston June 10, 1818. He has pursued a literary life Several volumes of his prose have been published, besides "Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist."

LADY, there is a hope that all men have,

Some mercy for their faults, a grassy place
To rest in, and a flower-strewn, gentle grave;
Another hope which purifies our race,
That when that fearful bourn forever past,
They may find rest, — and rest so long to last.

I seek it not, I ask no rest forever,
My path is onward to the farthest shores, -
Upbear me in your arms, unceasing river,
That from the soul's clear fountain swiftly
pours,

Motionless not, until the end is won,
Which now I feel hath scarcely felt the sun.

To feel, to know, to soar unlimited, Mid throngs of light-winged angels sweeping far,

And pore upon the realms unvisited,
That tessellate the unseen, unthought star,

In life, in death, on earth, in heaven No other name for me!

The same sweet style and title given Through all eternity.

THOMAS HORNBLOWER GILL.

THE HIGHER GOOD.

THEODORE PARKER, ar. influential liberal theologian, was born at Lexington, Mass., Aug. 24, 1810, and died at Florence, Italy, May 10, 18CO. He was a Unitarian minister, but a change came over his religious views and he resigned his charge. In 1846 he became pastor of an independent society, and preached in the Music Hall, Boston, to a large congregation as long as his health permitted. He was an enthusiastic and eloquent friend of freedom and of every movement for moral reform.

FATHER, I will not ask for wealth or fame, Though once they would have joyed my carnal sense:

I shudder not to bear a hated name,

Wanting all wealth, myself my sole defence. But give me, Lord, eyes to behold the truth;

A seeing sense that knows the eternal right; A heart with pity filled, and gentlest ruth;

A manly faith that makes all darkness light: Give me the power to labor for mankind;

Make me the mouth of such as cannot speak; Eyes let me be to groping men, and blind;

A conscience to the base; and to the weak Let me be hands and feet; and to the foolish, mind;

And lead still further on such as thy kingdom seek.

THEODORE PARKER.

1849

GRAND DIEU, POUR TON PLAISIR.

WRITTEN DURING TEN YEARS' IMPRISONMENT IN THE BASTILE.

GRAND Dieu, pour ton plaisir
Je suis dans une cage ;
Ecoute mon ramage;
C'est-là mon seul désir:
J'aime mon esclavage,
Grand Dieu, pour ton plaisir.

Je chante tout le jour, Seigneur, c'est pour te plaire; Mon extrême misère Augmente mon amour: N'ayant point d'autre affaire, Je chante tout le jour.

Tu l'entends, mon Seigneur, Cet amoureux langage,

Ignoré du faux sage,
Goûté du chaste cœur,
L'amour a son ramage:
Tu l'entends, mon Seigneur.

Je vis en liberté,

Quoique dans l'esclavage :
L'Amour Pur met au large
Le cœur, la volonté :
Dans ma petite cage
Je vis en liberté.

Divine volonté,

Que j'adore et que j'aime !
Plus ma peine est extrême,
Plus j'ai de liberté.

Tous biens sont en toi-même,
Divine volonté.

De ton petit oiseau
Reçois, je te conjure,
Le gazouillant murmure,
Plus tendre qu'il n'est beau;
Et sois la nourriture

De ton petit oiseau.

MADAME GUYON

A LITTLE BIRD I AM.

A FREE TRANSLATION OF THE PRECEDING POEM.

A LITTLE bird I am,

Shut from the fields of air, And in my cage I sit and sing

To him who placed me there; Well pleased a prisoner to be, Because, my God, it pleases thee!

Naught have I else to do,

I sing the whole day long;
And he whom most I love to please
Doth listen to my song;

He caught and bound my wandering wing,
But still he bends to hear me sing.

Thou hast an ear to hear,

A heart to love and bless;

And, though my notes were e'er so rude,
Thou wouldst not hear the less;
Because thou knowest, as they fall,
That love, sweet love, inspires them all.

My cage confines me round: Abroad I cannot fly;