Wreathe with flowers the weighty yoke Might of mortal never broke! From the altar of her vows To the grave's unsightly house Measured is the path, and made; All the work is planned and paid. As a girl, with ready smile, Where shall rise some ponderous pile, On the chosen, festal day, Turns the initial sod away, So the bride with fingers frail Founds a temple or a jail,-- Or a palace, it may be, Flooded full with luxury, Open yet to deadliest things, And the Midnight Angel's wings. Keep its chambers purged with prayer: Faith can guard it, Love is rare. Organ, sound thy wedding-tunes! Priest, recite the sacred runes! Hast no ghostly help nor art Can enrich a selfish heart, Blessing bind 'twixt greed and gold, Joy with bloom for bargain sold? Hail, the wedded task of life! Mending husband, moulding wife. Hope brings labor, labor peace; Wisdom ripens, goods increase; Triumph crowns the sainted head, And our lilies wait the dead. * * * * * FRIEND ELI'S DAUGHTER. I. The mild May afternoon was drawing to a close, as Friend Eli Mitchenor reached the top of the long hill, and halted a few minutes, to allow his horse time to recover breath. He also heaved a sigh of satisfaction, as he saw again the green, undulating valley of the Neshaminy, with its dazzling squares of young wheat, its brown patches of corn-land, its snowy masses of blooming orchard, and the huge, fountain-like jets of weeping-willow, half concealing the gray stone fronts of the farm-houses. He had been absent from home only six days, but the time seemed almost as long to him as a three-years' cruise to a New-Bedford whaleman. The peaceful seclusion and pastoral beauty of the scene did not consciously appeal to his senses; but he quietly noted how much the wheat had grown during his absence, that the oats were up and looking well, that Friend Comly's meadow had been ploughed, and Friend Martin had built his half of the line-fence along the top of the hill-field. If any smothered delight in the loveliness of the spring-time found a hiding-place anywhere in the well-ordered chambers of his heart, it never relaxed or softened the straight, inflexible lines of his face. As easily could his collarless drab coat and waistcoat have flushed with a sudden gleam of purple or crimson.