With old dry blood, else perish, I was told;
Hence the young light shrunk up within my eyes,
And left them blank and bold.

"I take my deeds, all, bad as they have been,--
The way was dark, the awful pitfall bare;--
In my weak hands, up through the fires of sin,
I hold them for my prayer."

"The thick, tough husk of evil grows about
Each soul that lives," I mused, "but doth it kill?
When the tree rots, the imprisoned wedge falls out,
Rusted, but iron still.

"Shall He who to the daisy has access,
Reaching it down its little lamp of dew
To light it up through earth, do any less,
Last and best work, for you?"




SONGS OF THE SEA.


Not Dibdin's; not Barry Cornwall's; not Tom Campbell's; not any of the
"Pirate's Serenades" and "I'm afloats!" which appear in the music-shop-
windows, illustrated by lithographic vignettes of impossible ships in
impracticable positions. These are sung by landsmen yachting in still
waters and in sight of green fields, by romantic young ladies in