RICH AND POOR.

WHEN the rich and noble suffer,

When the

Then the fame is spread abroad: poor and humble suffer, No man knoweth,-only God.

NIGHT THOUGHTS.

GAZING, gazing from the casement out into the murky night,
Far away I hear the voice of seaward wending rills;
At that sound to times far distant do my wayward thoughts
take flight,

And a strange impetuous longing all my weary spirit fills:

For I long to hurl me, trustful, 'neath the seething, seething spray,

Trusting to the waters' guiding to be cast on freedom's strand;

All heartless bonds of modern life I long to cast away,

And hail as brothers all I meet on the shores of some better land:

For time is ever fleeting, and this world grows very old,

And false distinctions keep apart the brotherhood of men ; And as the world grows older, the hearts of men wax cold, The Earth was fresh and young once, now it is not as 'twas then :

Not now upon the wings of pure devotion soaring,

'Do the rich and noble throng the solemn, shadowy aisle ; They have a golden god set up on high, and it adoring,

Their brothers poor and low of heart are perishing the while;

Who to some proud usurper of the free old English land Trace, through streams of blood and tears, their lordly, lordly line;

Who piles of gold have heaped unnumbered as the sand, Wrung from their brothers' sweat in town, or mart, or field, or mine;

These, and such as these, pass on in pride upon life's way, Stepping on the prostrate bodies of the God-beloved and

poor,

Vessels fashion'd unto honour thinking scorn of kindred clay,— But the cry unheard on earth aye enters in at heaven's door.*

Such thoughts as these inspiring me as I gaze into the night,
Listening to the voices of the seaward wending rills,

Sudden I behold the dawn approach with line of light
Brighter, and brighter growing behind the eastern hills

* James v. 4.

And my heart gains comfort, though I know it may not be, That I be borne to better shores on the down-flowing river, For my soul looketh onwards, and onwards far I see,

By the light of revelation, the poor at peace for ever:

Each meek one and lowly-hearted who, in the dust cast down,
Lived, and laboured humbly, in this weary world below,
I seem to see in triumph crowned with a golden crown,
And robed in glistening vestments, white as the driven snow.

A LEGEND OF ARNSTRAND.

I WANDER'D on the brown sea-sand

Beside the barren sea,

And there I met an ancient hag
Whose looks were wild and free.

Her long hair was of raven-black,
And dark grey were her een,
So soul-distraught a looking dame
Was seldom, seldom seen,

I cross'd myself upon my breast,
Pray'd heaven to defend

Me from all evil, suddenly she

To me her steps did bend.

"What dost thou here, young man," quoth she, Blest Mary! how glisten'd her ee! "Good mother, I walk and meditate," Quoth I, and turn'd to flee.