liquor pass;
Let the dusky slave
Till the southern fields;
Not the task of both
Such a treasure yields;
Honey, Pan ordained,
Food for gods and men,
Only in my way
Shall you store again.

Leave me to my will
While the bright days glow,
While the sleepy flowers
Quicken as I go.
When the pretty ones
Look to me no more,
Dead, beneath your feet,
Crushed and dabbled o'er;
In my narrow cell
I will fold my wing;
Sink in dark and chill,
A forgotten thing.

Can you read the song
Of the suppliant bee?
'Tis a poet's soul,
Asking liberty.

II.

LIMITATIONS OF BENEVOLENCE.

"The beggar boy is none of mine,"
The reverend doctor strangely said;
"I do not walk the streets to pour
Chance benedictions on his head.

"And heaven I thank who made me so.
That toying with my own dear child,
I think not on _his_ shivering limbs,
_His_ manners vagabond and wild."

Good friend, unsay that graceless word!
I am a mother crowned with joy,
And yet I feel a bosom pang
To pass the little starveling boy.

His aching flesh, his fevered eyes
His piteous stomach, craving meat;
His features, nipt of tenderness,
And most, his little frozen feet.

Oft, by my fireside's ruddy glow,
I think, how in some noisome den,
Bred up with curses and with blows,
He lives unblest of gods or men.

I cannot snatch him from his fate,
The tribute of my doubting mind
Drops, torch-like, in the abyss of ill,
That skirts the ways of humankind.

But, as my heart's desire would leap
To help him, recognized of none,
I thank the God who left him this,
For many a precious right foregone.

My mother, whom I scarcely knew,
Bequeathed this bond of love to me;
The heart parental thrills for all
The children of humanity.

EARTH'S WITNESS.

BY ALICE B. HAVEN.

That Poet wrongs his soul, whose dreary cry
Calls "winds" and "waves," and "burning stars of night"
To bring our darkness nature's clearer light
On that just sentence, "Thou shalt surely die;"
To track the spirit as it leaves its clay
To bring back surety of its future home,
Or echo of the voice that calleth "come,"
To prove that it is borne to perfect day.
Say rather, "winds," who