A name to hear in soft accord

Of leaves by light winds overrun, Or read, upon the greening sward Of May, in shade and sun.

The name my infant ear first heard

5

GREETING.

449

His mother's own, no tenderer word

My father spake than this.

No child have I to bear it on;

Be thou its keeper; let it take From gifts well used and duty done New beauty for thy sake.

The fair ideals that outran

My halting footsteps seek and find-
The flawless symmetry of man,
The poise of heart and mind.

Stand firmly where I felt the sway
Of every wing that fancy flew,
See clearly where I groped my way,
Nor real from seeming knew.

15

20

The old-time guests for whom I wait Come few and slow, methinks, to-day. Ah! who could hear my messages Across the dim unsounded seas

On which so many have sailed away!

Come, then, old friends, who linger yet, And let us meet, as we have met,

Once more beneath this low sunshine; And grateful for the good we've known, The riddles solved, the ills outgrown, Shake hands upon the border line. The favor, asked too oft before, From your indulgent ears, once more I crave, and, if belated lays To slower, feebler measures move, The silent sympathy of love

To me is dearer now than praise.

5

II

15

Why should the 'crowner's quest'
Sit on my worst or best?
Why should the showman claim
The poor ghost of my name?

Yet, as when dies a sound
Its spectre lingers round,
Haply my spent life will
Leave some faint echo still.

A whisper giving breath
Of praise or blame to death,
Soothing or saddening such
As loved the living much.
Therefore with yearnings vain
And fond I still would fain

A kindly judgment seek,

A tender thought bespeak.

And, while my words are read,
Let this at least be said:
'Whate'er his life's defeatures,
He loved his fellow-creatures.

'If, of the Law's stone table, To hold he scarce was able

Mudknock, Balmawhistle, all Only knew the Yankee drawl, Never brogue was heard till when, Foremost of his countrymen,

He kept for man the last.

The first great precept fast,

Hither came Friend Morrison; Yankee born, of alien blood, Kin of his had well withstood

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

Strange trees and fruits above him hung, Strange odors filled the sultry air, Strange birds upon the branches swung, 15 Strange insect voices murmured there.

And strange bright blossoms shone around,

But Moslem graves, with turban stones, 25 And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,

And graybeard Mollahs in low tones Chanting their Koran service through.

they

The flowers which smiled on either hand, Like tempting fiends, were such as 30 Which once, o'er all that Eastern land, As gifts on demon altars lay.

As if the burning eye of Baal

The servant of his Conqueror knew, From skies which knew no cloudy veil, 35 The Sun's hot glances smote him through.

'Ah me!' the lonely stranger said,

"The hope which led my footsteps on, And light from heaven around them shed, O'er weary wave and waste, is gone! 40

'Where are the harvest fields all white, For Truth to thrust her sickle in? Where flock the souls, like doves in flight, From the dark hiding-place of sin?

The burden of a hateful spell, The very flowers around recall The hoary magi's rites of hell!

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50

'And what am I, o'er such a land The banner of the Cross to bear? Dear Lord, uphold me with Thy hand, Thy strength with human weakness share!'