THE CLOD AND THE PEBBLE.

LOVE seeketh not itself to please,

Nor for itself hath any care,

But for another gives its ease,

And builds a heaven in hell's despair.

So sang a little clod of clay,

Trodden with the cattle's feet;

But a pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

'Love seeketh only Self to please, To bind another to its delight,

Joys in another's loss of ease,

And builds a hell in heaven's despite.'

HOLY THURSDAY.

Is this a holy thing to see,
In a rich and fruitful land,

Babes reduced to misery,

Fed with a cold usurious hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy, .
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,

And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are fill'd with thorns: It is eternal winter there.

For where'er the sun does shine,
And where'er the rain does fall,
Babes should never hunger there,

Nor poverty the mind appal.

THE LITTLE GIRL LOST.

IN futurity,

I prophetic sec,

That the earth from sleep (Grave the sentence deep)

Shall arise, and seek
For her Maker meek;
And the desert wild
Become a garden mild.

In the southern clime,
Where the summer's prime

Never fades away,

Lovely Lyca lay.

Seven summers old
Lovely Lyca told.

She had wandered long,
Hearing wild birds' song.

'Sweet sleep, come to me
Underneath this tree;
Do father, mother weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?

'Lost in desert wild
Is your little child.

How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep?

'If her heart does ache,
Then let Lyca wake;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.

'Frowning, frowning night,
O'er this desert bright
Let thy moon arise,
While I close my eyes.'

Sleeping Lyca lay

While the beasts of prey,

Come from caverns deep,

View'd the maid asleep.

The kingly lion stood
And the virgin view'd,
Then he gambol'd round
O'er the hallow'd ground;

Leopards, tigers, play
Round her as she lay,
While the lion old

Bow'd his mane of gold,

And her breast did lick
And upon her neck,

From his eyes of flame,
Ruby tears there came;

While the lioness

Loos'd her slender dress, And naked they conveyed To caves the sleeping maid.

THE LITTLE GIRL FOUND.

ALL the night in woe

Lyca's parents go

Over valleys deep,

While the deserts weep.

Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm, seven days

They tread the desert ways.

Seven nights they sleep

Among shadows deep,

And dream they see their child

Starved in desert wild.

Pale thro' pathless ways
The fancied image strays
Famish'd, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.

Rising from unrest,

The trembling woman prest
With feet of weary woe;

She could no further go.

In his arms he bore

Her, armed with sorrows sore;

Till before their way

A couching lion lay.