Tell law it is contention.
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.

Tell fortune of her blindness,
Tell nature of decay,
Tell friendship of unkindness,
Tell justice of delay.

And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.

Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;

Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming.
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.

Tell faith it's fled the city,
Tell how the country erreth,
Tell manhood shakes off pity,
Tell virtue least preferreth.
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.

So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing:
Although to give the lie

Deserves no less than stabbing;

Yet stab at thee who will,
No stab the soul can kill.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

[Mrs. Browning wrote and published the greater portion of her poetry while she was yet Elizabeth Barrett; she married Mr. Browning, the poet, in 1846, All her works evince intellectual power of the highest order, and they suffer nothing by comparison with the sublimest efforts of masculine genius: she combines the philosophy of Tennyson with the grace of Shelley and the force of Milton. Her principal works are, "Poems," two vols., 1844; "The Drama of Exile;" "The Vision of Poets;" "Lady Geraldine's Courtship;" "Casa Guidi Windows," written in Florence, 1848; "Aurora Leigh," 1856, a novel in blank verse; besides numerous contributions to the periodicals. Messrs Chapman and Hall publish her works in a collected form. She died in 1861.]

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers,

Ere the sorrow comes with years?

They are leaning their young heads against their mothers,-
And that cannot stop their tears.

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows,
The young birds are chirping in the nest,

The

young fawns are playing with the shadows,
The young flowers are blowing toward the west-
But the young, young children, O my brothers,
They are weeping bitterly!-

They are weeping in the playtime of the others,
In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in their sorrow,
Why their tears are falling so?-

The old man may weep for his to-morrow
Which is lost in Long Ago-

The old tree is leafless in the forest-
The old year is ending in the frost-
The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest-
The old hope is hardest to be lost:

But the young, young children, O my brothers,
Do you ask them why they stand

Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers,
In our happy Fatherland ?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces,
And their looks are sad to see,

For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses
Down the cheeks of infancy-

66

"Your old earth," they say, "is very dreary;" "Our young feet," they say, are very weak! Few paces have we taken, yet are weary

Our grave-rest is very far to seek.

Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children,
For the outside earth is cold,

And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering,
And the graves are for the old.

"True," say the children, "it may happen
That we die before our time.

Little Alice died last year-the grave is shapen
Like a snowball, in the rime.

We looked into the pit prepared to take her-
Was no room for any work in the close clay:
From the sleep wherein she lieth none will wake her,
Crying, 'Get up, little Alice! it is day.'

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower,
With your ear down, little Alice never cries!-
Could we see her face, be sure we should not know her,
For the smile has time for growing in her eyes!

And

merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in
The shroud, by the kirk-chime!

It is good when it happens," say the children,
"That we die before our time."

Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking
Death in life as best to have!

They are binding up their hearts away from breaking,
With a cerement from the grave.

Go out, children, from the mine and from the city-
Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do-
Pluck you handfuls of the meadow-cowslips pretty—
Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through!
But they answer, "Are your cowslips of the meadows

Like our weeds anear the mine?

Leave us quiet in the dark of the coal shadows,
From your pleasures fair and fine!

"For oh," say the children,

66

we are weary,

And we cannot run or leap

If we cared for any meadows, it were merely
To drop down in them and sleep.

Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping-
We fall upon our faces, trying to go;
And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping,
The reddest flower would look as pale as snow.
For, all day, we drag our burden tiring

Through the coal-dark underground-
Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron
In the factories, round and round.

"For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,

.

Their wind comes in our faces,

Till our hearts turn,-our head, with pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places-

Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling-
Turns the long light that drops adown the wall-
Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling-
All are turning, all the day, and we with all.-
And all the day, the iron wheels are droning;
And sometimes we could pray,

"O ye wheels,' (breaking out in a mad moaning),
'Stop! be silent for to-day!'

Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth-

Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing
Of their tender human youth!

Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals-
Let them prove their living souls against the notion
That they live in you, or under you, O wheels!-
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark;

And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward. Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers,
To look up to Him and pray—

So the blessed One, who blesseth all the others,
Will bless them another day.

They answer, "Who is God that He should hear us,
While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred ?
When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us
Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word;
And we hear not (for the wheels in their resounding
Strangers speaking at the door:

Is it likely God, with angels singing round him,
Hears our weeping any more?

"Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, And at midnight's hour of harm,

'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.

We know no othe vords, except 'Our Father,' And we think that, in some pause of angel's song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather, And hold both within His right hand which is strong 'Our Father!' If He heard us, He would surely (For they call Him good and mild)

Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

"But no!" say the children, weeping faster, He is speechless as a stone;

66

And they tell us, of His image is the master
Who commands us to work on.

Go to!" say the children-" Up in Heaven,

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find.
Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving-
We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.”
Do you hear the children weeping and disproving,
O my brothers, what ye preach ?

For God's possible is taught by His world's loving
And the children donht of each.

L

And well may the children weep before you!
They are weary ere they run;

They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory
Which is brighter than the sun :

They know the grief of man, without his wisdom;
They sink in man's despair, without his calm-
Are slaves, without the liberty in Christdom,—
Are martyrs, by the pang without the palm,-
Are worn, as if with age, yet unretrievingly

The blessing of its memory cannot keep,-
Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly:
Let them weep! let them weep!

They look up, with their pale and sunken faces,
And their lock is dread to see,

For they mind you of their angels in their places,
With eyes turned on Deity;-

"How long," they say, "how long, O cruel nation,
Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,-
Stifle down with a mailed heel its palpitation,

And tread onward to your throne amid the mart?

Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper,

And your purple shows your path!

But the child's sob curses deeper in the silence
Than the strong man in his wrath !"

(By permission of Messrs. Chapman and Hall.)

THE DESERTED VILLAGE.

OLIVER GOLDSMITH.

[Oliver Goldsmith, the son of a poor curate, and the sixth of a family of nine children, was born at Pallas, County of Longford, in Ireland, 1731. He made the tour of Europe on foot, and often subsisted on the bounty of "The peasants, whom he conciliated by performing to them on his flute. Traveller" was the result of this tour, and by its publication in 1765, he first emerged from obscurity. "The Vicar of Wakefield " appeared in the following year. In 1767 his comedy of "The Good-natured Man was produced; his Roman History," "The Deserted Village," and still popular comedy "She Stoops to Conquer," followed, in 1768, 1770, and 1773. At the time of his death, 1774, he could command his own terms from the booksellers, but he was extravagant and died in debt. He was buried in the Temple, and a monument was erected to his memory in Westminster Abbey.]

SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain,

Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain.
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,

And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed;

Dear lovely bowers of innocence and ease,.

Seats of my youth, when every sport could please;