e Angel Death comes down,
And marks my brow with his loving touch,
As one that shall wear the victor's crown,
It matters much.

--Noah Barker.

For I am 'ware it is the seed of act
God holds appraising in his hollow palm,
Not act grown great thence in the world below;
Leafage and branchage vulgar eyes admire.

--Robert Browning.

OBSCURE MARTYRS

"The world knows nothing of its greatest men."

They have no place in storied page;
No rest in marble shrine;
They are past and gone with a perished age,
They died and "made no sign."
But work that shall find its wages yet,
And deeds that their God did not forget,
Done for their love divine--
These were their mourners, and these shall be
The crowns of their immortality.

O, seek them not where sleep the dead,
Ye shall not find their trace;
No graven stone is at their head,
No green grass hides their face;
But sad and unseen is their silent grave;
It may be the sand or the deep sea wave,
Or a lonely desert place;
For they needed no prayers and no mourning-bell--
They were tombed in true hearts that knew them well.

They healed sick hearts till theirs were broken,
And dried sad eyes till theirs lost light;
We shall know at last by a certain token
How they fought and fell in the fight.
Salt tears of sorrow unbeheld,
Passionate cries unchronicled,
And silent strifes for the right--
Angels shall count them, and earth shall sigh
That she left her best children to battle and die.

--Edwin Arnold.

THY BEST

Before God's footstool to confess
A poor soul knelt and bowed his head.
"I failed," he wailed. The Master said,
"Thou did'st thy best--that is success."

--Henry Coyle.

Aspire, break bounds, I say;
Endeavor to be good and better still,
And best! Success is naught, endeavor's all.

--Robert Browning.

FAILURE

He cast his net at morn where fishers toiled,
At eve he drew it empty to the shore;
He took the diver's plunge into the sea,
But thence within his hand no pearl he bore.

He ran a race, but never reached his goal;
He sped an arrow, but he missed his aim;
And slept at last beneath a simple stone,
With no achievements carved about his name.

Men called it failure; but for m