They dared not plant the grave with flowers, Nor dress the funeral sod, Where, with a love as deep as ours, They left their dead with God. The hard and thorny path they kept, From beauty turned aside; Nor missed they over those who slept The grace to life denied. Yet still the wilding flowers would blow, The golden leaves would fall, The seasons come, the seasons go. And God be good to all. Above the graves the blackberry hung In bloom and green its wreath, And harebells swung as if they rung The chimes of peace beneath. The beauty Nature loves to share, The gifts she hath for all, The common light, the common air, O'ercrept the graveyard's wall. It knew the glow of eventide, The sunrise and the noon, And glorified and sanctified It slept beneath the moon. With flowers or snow-flakes for its sod, Around the seasons ran, And evermore the love of God Rebuked the fear of man. We dwell with fears on either hand, Within a daily strife, And spectral problems waiting stand Before the gates of life. The doubts we vainly seek to solve, The truths we know, are one; The known and nameless stars revolve Around the Central Sun. And if we reap as we have sown, And take the dole we deal, The law of pain is love alone, The wounding is to heal. Unharmed from change to change we glide, We fall as in our dreams; The far-off terror, at our side, A smiling angel seems. Secure on God's all-tender heart Alike rest great and small; Why fear to lose our little part, When He is pledged for all? O fearful heart and troubled brain! Take hope and strength from this,-- That Nature never hints in vain, Nor prophesies amiss. Her wild birds sing the same sweet stave, Her lights and airs are given, Alike, to playground and the grave,-- And over both is Heaven. * * * * * THE AUTOCRAT OF THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. EVERY MAN HIS OWN BOSWELL. [I am so well pleased with my boarding-house that I intend to remain there, perhaps for years. Of course I shall have a great many conversations to report, and they will necessarily be of different tone and on different subjects. The talks are like the breakfasts,--sometimes dipped toast, and sometimes dry. You must take them as they come. How can I do what all these letters ask me to? No. 1. wants serious and earnest thought. No. 2. (letter smells of bad cigars) must have more jokes; wants me to tell a "good storey" that he has copied out for me. (I suppose two letters before the word "good" refer to some Doctor of Divinity who told the story.) No. 3. (in female hand)--more poetry. No. 4. wants something that would be of use to a practical man. (_Prahctical mahn_ he probably pronounces it.) No. 5. (gilt-edged, sweet-scented)--"more sentiment,"--"heart's outpourings."----