eet she stands,
And all that man exacts of her demands;
The new morality, the art of life,
And not obedience, holds her as wife.
Hail, the new woman! By her choices she
Determines wisely what mankind shall be.
She will not with eyes open be beguiled
To choose a tainted father for her child.
UNDER THE STARS.
BY COATES KINNEY.
It is a sad, sad sight.--_Carlyle._
O stars! as the flakes of a snowstorm
How ye fly and fall and drift!
Swift snowing of suns out of darkness,
Whirled by winds of force and whiffed!
Fly! fall! but the wind the Almighty
Still behind you always runs,
Still pushes you onward together,
Fixed each sun in drift of suns.
Fixed, ay, to the vision of mortal
Never change hath shown in you;
Lands, seas, and their kingdoms and races
All have changed, but ye are true--
Still true to the old constellations,
Such as when the forebrain first
Uplifted itself to their glories
With this human spirit's thirst.
Calm! still! though in every sparkle
Motions like the thunderbolt,
Wide whirlings of worlds in their sunlight,
Planet's wheel and comet's volt,
All hang, as it were, in a dewdrop
Frozen to a steadfast gleam;
Time, place, dwindled down to a glitter,
Whimseys of an instant's dream.
Drift! drift! all the universe drifting
Round some sun too vast for thought!
On! on! awful maelstrom of matter
Whirling in a gulf of naught!
Whirl! wheel! and my soul like a seabird
Flies across and dips and flees--
Wild wings of my soul, like the seabird's,
Tossed and lost upon the seas!
THE CRY OF THE VALLEY.
BY CHARLES MELVIN WILKINSON.
Too long, too long on the mountain's brow
You linger, O storm-cloud! Know you not
I, the suffering lowland, need you now
Where the scorching sun glares hot?
You deluge the barren cliffs of chalk
While wither the grass and the fruitful grain,
And the red rose, shrivelling, dies on its stalk
With a smothered cry for rain.
You lavish your wealth on the lordly height
That knows not a miser's need therefor,--
With a smile I must take what is mine by right
As the gift true souls abhor.
But the rain that is mine by the love of God,
By the grace of the mountain a gift to me,
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