Yea, surely, He Who melts my love to tears For this dead songster, hears And pities mine and me. His love must know Our sorrow, and will lift Our numbed lives from the drift Of death’s all-hushing snow. A GENTLE MAN. I knew a gentle Man;-- Alas! his soul has flown; Now that his tender heart is still, Pale anguish haunts my own. His eye, in pity’s tear, Would often saintly swim; He did to others as he would That they should do to him. He suffered many things,-- Renounced, forgave, forbore; And sorrow’s crown of thorny stings, Like Christ, he meekly wore; At rural toils he strove; In beauty, joy he sought; His solace was in children’s words And wise men’s pondered thought. He was both meek and brave, Not haughty, and yet proud; He daily died his soul to save, And ne’er to Mammon bowed. E’en as a little child He entered Heaven’s Gate; I caught his parting smile, which said, “Be reconciled, and wait.” INVIOLATE. We took a walk in Winter woods, My little lad and I,-- The hills and hollows all were pearl, And sapphire all the sky. Before guerilla winds we saw The skurrying drift retreat; We thought of budded roots that lay Asleep beneath our feet. We spoke of how, last year, in May, One sunny bank we found, Where wind-flowers stood in fairy crowds, To charm the gladdened ground. A subtle feeling checked the boy,-- His small hand held me back, With mute appeal that we should tread The wood-path’s beaten track. “My child, ’tis pleasanter to break New pathways as we go.” He said, “I do not like to spoil The beauty of the snow.” FAITH. The spreading circle of the known That Science strives to bound with laws Is but a glowing sparkle thrown From God, the radiant central cause. His mystery is vaster far Than knowledge is or e’er can be; The wheel of Evolution’s car Rolls onward through eternity. A stilly voice forever sounds The lapses of our doubt between: “Seek not to give Religion bounds, Nor limit Faith by forces seen.” PLATO. Athenian prophet of the soaring mind! What new lamp burns so brightly as his old? He changed Philosophy from dross to gold By poet’s alchemy; and he combined Egypt and Ind and the Hellenic States With all the knowledge Cadmus’ letters hold, In Logic’s crucible to be refined; He opened Speculation’s splendid gates To Western ways where Science after trod; A reign of sweeter Ethics he foretold, Renouncing Zeus for a diviner God; And, unaffrighted by the awful Fates, In starry sandals of Religion shod, From pagan darkness Plato led mankind. DANTE. AFTER READING “PARADISO.”