Now waves of eager life beneath it swelling, With restless care mock oriental ease, And chimney-stacks, tiled roof and murky dwelling, Shut out the sun and breeze. Yet even here I marked, each day, appearing An aged Syrian, sorrowful and calm, With folded arms, wan smile, and looks endearing Cast on the lonely Palm. And once he murmured, as the night descended, While gazing fondly through unconscious tears, “Fair tree, _the promise of thy life is ended_, _For here thou hast no peers_.” How near the good we distantly are craving! The Syrian long had weary vigil kept— One morn his country’s tree was gaily waving— It blossomed while he slept! Some far-off nook of that vast city treasured Another Palm by careless eyes unseen, That drearily the lingering years had measured, Yet put forth shoots of green; Until its ripened flower-dust uplifting, On the strong currents of the tideless air, With certain aim to his pent garden drifting, A mate encountered there! Thus seeds of Truth their noiseless flight are winging, And Love instinctively steals through the crowd, To hearts receptive consolation bringing, They may not breathe aloud! Accept the omen, thou who toilest lonely, And patiently Life’s blossoming await, Where God has planted thee be faithful only, And thou shalt conquer Fate! * * * * * “A MERE ACT OF HUMANITY.” A SLIGHT SKETCH. BY GRACE GREENWOOD. “Health to the art whose glory is to give The crowning boon that makes it life to live.” HOLMES. Start not, my fastidious reader, when I announce that the young gentleman, in whose favor and fortunes I would enlist your friendly sympathies, as the hero of this sketch, is, or rather was, a _medical student_. Now I am very well aware that medical students are proverbially “hard cases”—wild, spreeing, careless, skeptically inclined young gentlemen, whose handkerchiefs smell of ether, and whose gloves are strongly suggestive of rhubarb; whose talk runs large, with bold jests on _grave subjects_, sly anatomical allusions, and startling hints at something “Mair horrible and awfu’, Which e’en to name wad be unlawfu’,” and whose very laughter has a sort of bony-rattle about it.