s stilled, and his head
Like a haloed patriarch's leans as he listens
To hear the old Bible my grandfather read.
The old-fashioned Bible--
The dust-covered Bible--
The leathern-bound Bible my grandfather read.

Ah! who shall look backward with scorn and derision
And scoff the old book though it uselessly lies
In the dust of the past, while this newer revision
Lisps on of a hope and a home in the skies?
Shall the voice of the Master be stifled and riven?
Shall we hear but a tithe of the words He has said,
When so long He has, listening, leaned out of Heaven
To hear the old Bible my grandfather read?
The old-fashioned Bible--
The dust-covered Bible--
The leathern-bound Bible my grandfather read.

UNCOMFORTED

Lelloine! Lelloine! Don't you hear me calling?
Calling through the night for you, and calling through the day;
Calling when the dawn is here, and when the dusk is falling--
Calling for my Lelloine the angels lured away!

Lelloine! I call and listen, starting from my pillow--
In the hush of midnight, Lelloine! I cry,
And o'er the rainy window-pane I hear the weeping willow
Trail its dripping leaves like baby-fingers in reply.

Lelloine, I miss the glimmer of your glossy tresses,
I miss the dainty velvet palms that nestled in my own;
And all my mother-soul went out in answerless caresses,
And a storm of tears and kisses when you left me here alone.

I have prayed, O Lelloine, but Heaven will not hear me,
I can not gain one sign from Him who leads you by the hand;
And O it seems that ne'er again His mercy will come near me--
That He will never see my need, nor ever understand.

Won't you listen, Lelloine?--just a little leaning
O'er the walls of Paradise--lean and hear my prayer,
And interpret death to Him in all its awful meaning,
And tell Him you are lonely without your mother there.

WHAT THEY SAID

Whispering to themselves apart,
They who knew her said of her,
"Dying of a broken heart--
Death her only comforter--
For the man she loved is dead--
She will follow soon!" they said.

Beautiful? Ah! brush the dust
From Raphael's fairest face,
And restore it, as it must
First have smiled back from its place
On his easel as he leant