MARY N. PRESCOTT.

The sea has been friend, and fire, and

bread;

TWO MOODS.

I PLUCKED the harebells as I went

dead,

How It called, and I rose and went.

MARY N. PRESCOTT.

[U. S. A.]

WORK.

SWEET wind, fair wind, where have you been?

"I've been sweeping the cobwebs out of the sky;

I've been grinding a grist in the mill hard by;

I've been laughing at work while others sigh;

Let those laugh who win!"

Sweet rain, soft rain, what are you doing? "I'm urging the corn to fill out its cells; I'm helping the lily to fashion its bells; I'm swelling the torrent and brimming the wells;

Is that worth pursuing?"

Redbreast, redbreast, what have you done? "I've been watching the nest where my fledgelings lie;

I've sung them to sleep with a lullaby;
By and-by I shall teach them to fly,
Up and away, every one!"

Honey-bee, honey-bee, where are you going?

"To fill my basket with precious pelf; To toil for my neighbor as well as myself; To find out the sweetest flower that grows, Be it a thistle or be it a rose,—

A secret worth the knowing!"

Each content with the work to be done,
Ever the same from sun to sun:
Shall you and I be taught to work
By the bee and the bird, that scorn to
shirk?

Wind and rain fulfilling His word!
Tell me, was ever a legend heard
Where the wind, commanded to blow,
deferred;

Or the rain, that was bidden to fall, demurred?

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The skies above were opulent
Of sunshine. "Ah! whate'er betide,
The world is sweet, is sweet," I cried,
That morning by the river-side.

The curlews called along the shore;
The boats put out from sandy beach;
Afar I heard the breakers' roar,
Mellowed to silver-sounding speech;
And still I sang it o'er and o'er,
"The world is sweet forevermore!"

blossom never more,

And the burden of my loneliness lies on

pale lips of the day

Sent forth an earnest thrill of breath at warmth of the first ray,

A great thought rose within me, how, while men asleep had lain, The thousand labors of the world had grown up once again.

"The sun grew on the world, and on my soul the thought grew too,

A great appalling sun, to light my soul the long day through.

I felt the world's whole burden for a moment, then began

With man's gigantic strength to do the labor of one man.

"I went forth hastily, and lo! I met a

hundred men,

The worker with the chisel and the worker with the pen,

The restless toilers after good, who sow and never reap,

And one who maketh music for their souls that may not sleep.

"Each passed me with a dauntless look, and my undaunted eyes Were almost softened as they passed with tears that strove to rise At sight of all those labors, and because

that every one,

Ay, the greatest, would be greater if my little were undone.

"They passed me, having faith in me, and in our several ways,

Together we began to-day as on the other

days:

I felt their mighty hands at work, and, as the day wore through, Perhaps they felt that even I was helping somewhat too:

"Perhaps they felt, as with those hands they lifted mightily

The burden once more laid upon the world so heavily,

man can do and bear,

It did not wholly fall my side as though no man were there.

"And so we toil together many a day from morn till night,

I in the lower depths of life, they on the lovely height;

For though the common stones are mine, and they have lofty cares, Their work begins where this leaves off, and mine is part of theirs.

"And 't is not wholly mine or theirs I think of through the day,

But the great eternal thing we make together, I and they;

Far in the sunset I behold a city that

Soul-stirring recollections, With hopes, their bright reflections. Rush to my troubled heart at thought of thee,

My own illustrious, injured Italy.

Dear queen of snowy mountains,
And consecrated fountains,

Within whose rocky, heaven-aspiring pale
Beauty has fixed a dwelling
All others so excelling

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| Truth hath decreed her joyous resurrection:

She shall arise, she must.

For can it be that wickedness hath power To undermine or topple down the tower Of virtue's edifice?

And yet that vice

Should be allowed on sacred ground to plant

A rock of adamant?

It is of ice,

would fail;

Hail to thee! hail!

Before the righteous sun's returning ray.