Seal to my utmost age What now my youth hath known: ‘My times are in Thy hands,’ O most! When wholly in my own. GARDEN CHIDINGS. THE spring being at her blessed carpentry, This morning makes a stem, this noon a leaf, And jewels her sparse greenery with a bud; Fostress of happy growth is she. But thou, O too disdainful spirit, or too shy! Passive dost thou inhabit, like a mole, The porch elect of darkness; for thy trade Is underground, a barren industry, Shivering true ardor on the nether air, Shaping the thousandth tendril, and all year Webbing the silver nothings to and fro. What wonder if the gardener think thee dead, When every punctual neighbor-root now goes Adventurously skyward for a flower? Up, laggard! climb thine inch; thyself fulfil; Thou only hast no sign, no pageantry, Save these fine gropings: soon from thy small plot The seasonable sunshine steals away. FRÉDÉRIC OZANAM. UNTO the constant heart whom saints befriend Afar in peace, what were our gaudy praise? His course is ended, and his faith is kept. Honor in silence to that memory! sweet Equally in the forum of the schools, And in the sufferer’s hovel. His, threefold, The lowliness of Isai’s chosen son, And zeal that fired the warring Macchabee, About him like a wedding-garment, worn The day of his acceptance; and we know That for the sake of some such soul as this,-- So brave, so clean, compassionate and just, Alert in its most meek security,-- Love beareth yet with all that stains the world. BANKRUPT. PAST the cold gates, a wraith without a name, Sullen and withered, like a thing half-tame Still for its jungle moaning, came by night, Before the Judgment’s awful Angel came. ‘Answer, Immortal! at my high decree Glory or shame shall flood thee as the sea: What of the power, the skill, the graciousness, The star-strong soul the Lord hath lent to thee?’ But the lone spectre raised a mournful hand: ‘Call me not that! Release me from this land! What words are Heaven and Hell? They fall on me As on a sphere the fooled and slipping sand. ‘Discerning, thou the good mayst yet belie, By some last test, the sinner sanctify. My guilt is neutral-safe, like innocence: No boon nor bane of deathless days gain I, ‘Whose life is hollow shell and broken bowl, Of all which was its treasury, the whole Utterly, vilely squandered. O most Just! Put down thy scales: for I have spent my soul.’ A REASON FOR SILENCE. YOU sang, you sang! you mountain brook Scarce by your tangly banks held in, As running from a rocky nook, You leaped the world, the sea to win, Sun-bright past many a foamy crook, And headlong as a javelin.