d
To keep false memories aloof;
To-night I sorrowed for thy labor rude,
And put thee to the proof.

"Ascend again to yon high palace-towers,
With brothers share its plenitude,
And gather up with all thy princely powers
Joys to infinitude."

"Ay me!" I cried, "bid me not go afar,
While yet these little children call,
Lest life grow pallid as the morning star
In that cold shining hall!

"All shall be theirs: my lot is here below
To minister the goods I hold,
While suffering ones shall watch the torrent flow
In waves of amber gold.

"There childhood shall be laid on gleaming beds,
A saintly-eyed prophetic band,
And tinted oriels flame above their heads
To picture the new land.

"And dusky men shall press the snowy lawn,
Shall feel those tears that ease all pain,
Then wake to greet the free earth's noble dawn
And turn to rest again.

"There tired soldiers wash their bleeding feet,
Who gave for us their ripening youth
To earn pure freedom, dared all danger meet,
Content to die for truth.

"There, in the sleepless watch the organ's tone
Shall bear them on its swelling wing
To dreamful space, while star-fires one by one
In vibrant chorus sing."

Sudden there came a thought,--Thou hast no home,
No shaded haunt, or mansion wide,
No refuge after toil in which to roam,
Where silence may abide.

And then I saw a palace broad as earth,
Built beautiful of land and seas,--
Its eastern gate shone in the morning's birth,
The west o'ertopped the trees.

Free as wild waves upon an autumn day,
A world of brothers through its space
Might wander up and down, and sunbeams play
Even on Sorrow's face.

Here in the broad sunned silence of the noon
Peace waiteth to salute the worn,
And ever crowneth with her tender boon
Those who have nobly borne.

Like shafted light dropped in a sunset sea,
The radiant pillars of my home
Send from their glowing swift mortality
Great voices crying, "Come!"

* * * * *

THE DEACON'S HOLOCAUST.

I

A First-class old lady is the most precious social possession of a
New-England town. I have been in places where this office of Select
Woman had languished for want of a proper