Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/55

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God! thou art all substance wreathing Into forms that suit thy will; God! thou art through all things breathing One harmonious anthem still. Job Durfte.

CONSTANCY TO THE IDEAL.

As in the year's sweet prime, the oriole goes Picking, with busy bill, small scraps of things To weave the pendent home, which daily grows In beauteous cincture from whate'er she brings; For that she bears svithin her tiny breast The heavenly plan whereafter she doth build, And closely knits and softly lines her nest, With glad forethought of how it shall be filled : So we, like her, should work in joyous mood. Doing each day the duty of the day, And, constant to our fairest dream of good, Fashion our lives thereby, as best we may, In faith that every perfect fruit of earth Within it bears a seed for heavenly birth. I homas Diirfee.

NATHAN HAI.E.

To drum-beat and heart-beat A soldier marches by. There is color in his check, There is courage in his eye, Yet to drum-beat and heart-beat In a moment he must die. With calm brow and steady brow He listens to his doom; In his look there is no fear. Not a shadow-trace of gloom; But with calm brow and steady brow He robes him for the tomb. •

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'Neath the blue morn, the sunny morn, He dies upon the tree,

And he mourns that he can lose But one life for Liberty; And in the blue morn, the sunny morn, His spirit-wings are free. From Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf, From monument and urn, The sad of Earth, the glad of Heaven His tragic fate shall learn; And on Fame-leaf and Angel-leaf The name of HALE shall burn. Francis Miles finch. GRANT.

AND as with him of old. Immortal captain of triumphant Rome, Whose eagles made the rounded globe their home, How the grand soul of true heroic mould Despised resentment and such meaner things, That Peace might gather all beneath her wings! No lamentation here; The weary hero lays him down to rest, As tired infant at the mother's breast, Without a care, without a thought of fear, Waking to greet upon the other shore The glorious host of comrades gone before. F.arth to the kindred earth; The spirit to the fellowship of souls! As slowly time the mighty scroll unrolls Of waiting ages yet to have their birth, Fame, faithful to the faithful, writes on high His name, as one that was not born to die! Melville Weston Fuller. RETROSPECTION.

WHY, Memory, cling thus to Life's jocund morning, — Why point to its treasures, exhausted too soon,