GOOD FRIDAY. Ready to give thanks and live If, the quiet brooklet leaving, Up the stony vale I wind, Haply half in fancy grieving For the shades I leave behind, By the dusty wayside drear, Nightingales with joyous cheer Sing, my sadness to reprove, Gladlier than in cultured grove. Where the thickest boughs are twining Of the greenest, darkest tree, Good Friday. OS it not strange, the darkest hour For comfort, than an angel's mirth? That to the Cross the mourner's eye should turn Sooner than where the Easter sun Shines glorious on yon open grave, "Who died to heal, is risen to save"? Sooner than where upon the Saviour's friends Yet so it is; for duly there The bitter herbs of earth are set, Till tempered by the Saviour's prayer, And with the Saviour's life-blood wet, They turn to sweetness, and drop holy balm, Soft as imprisoned martyr's death-bed calm. * The Fisherman. PERILOUS life, and sad as life may be, Hath the lone fisher on the lonely sea, O'er the wild waters labouring, far from home, AN AGRARIAN LAW. Few hearts to cheer him through his dangerous life, And none to aid him in the stormy strife: Companion of the sea and silent air, The lonely fisher thus must ever fare; Without the comfort, hope,-with scarce a friend; He looks through life, and only sees-its end! Divide what we have earned by our hard labour? The industrious labourer's mite? The drunkard swill "Half of your loaf is mine"?-If we divide Our neighbours' goods to-day, why not divide Aught the more sacred 'cause 't was plundered first? What we have stol'n to-day? Save by our strength of arm, A week,-a day, an hour? How can we keep, the gold we get, How can we tell If what he earns be never safe? who'll sow, Of all laws is Security-that lost, A country doth become a robber's den, Bloody and base, where nought but bad men thrive. ORGET thee?" if to dream by night, and muse on thee by day, tecting power, If winged thoughts that flit to thee, a thousand in an hour, If busy fancy blending thee with all my future lot,— If this thou call'st "forgetting," thou, indeed, shalt be forgot! |