drearily singing the chore-girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened; the summer sun
Had the chill of snow;
For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day:
Haply her blind grandsire sleeps
The fret and pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,
The old man sat; and the chore-girl still
Sung to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:--
"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"

_John G. Whittier._

"Not Understood"

Not understood, we move along asunder,
Our paths grow wider as the seasons creep
Along the years. We marvel and we wonder,
Why life is life, and then we fall asleep,
Not understood.

Not understood, we gather false impressions,
And hug them closer as the years go by,
Till virtues often seem to us transgressions;
And thus men rise and fall and live and die,
Not understood.

Not understood, poor souls with stunted visions
Often measure giants by their narrow gauge;
The poisoned shafts of falsehood and derision
Are oft impelled 'gainst those who mould the age,
Not understood.

Not understood, the secret springs of action
Which lie beneath the surface and the show
Are disregarded; with self-satisfaction
We judge our neighbors, and they often go
Not understood.

Not understood, how trifles often change us--
The thoughtless sentence or the fancied slight--
Destroy long years of friendship and estrange us,
And on our souls there falls a freezing blight--
Not understood.

Not understood, how many hearts are aching
For lack of sympathy! Ah! day by day
How many cheerless, lonely hearts are breaking,
How many noble spirits pass away
Not understood.

O God! that men would see a little clearer,
Or judge less hardly when they cannot see!
O God! that men would draw a little nearer
To one another! They'd be nearer Thee,
And understood.

Somebody's Mother

The woman was old, and ragged, and gray,
And bent with the chill of a winter's day;
The streets were white with a recent snow,
And the woman's feet with age were slow.

At the crowded crossing she waited long,
Jostled aside by the careless throng
Of huma