"When the wind blows the blossoms fall, But a good God reigns over all."

The widow's lips impulsive moved;
The mother's grief, tho' unreproved,
Softened, as her trembling tongue
Repeated what the infant sung;
And the sad lover, with a start,
Conned it over to his heart.

And though the child

- if child it were,

And not a seraph sitting there

Was seen no more, the sorrowing three

Went on their way resignedly,

The song still ringing in their ears
Was it music of the spheres?

Who shall tell? They did not know.
But in the midst of deepest woe
The strain recurred when sorrow grew,
To warn them, and console them too :
"When the wind blows the blossoms fall,
But a good God reigns over all."

THE LITTLE MOLES.

WHEN canting hypocrites combine
To curb a free man's thought,
And hold all doctrine undivine
That holds their canting naught;

When round their narrow pale they plod,

And scornfully assume

That all without are cursed of God,

And justify the doom:

We think of God's eternal love

And strong in hope reply,

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,

There's sunshine in the sky.

When smug philosophers survey

The various climes of earth,

And mourn, poor sagelings of a day!

Its too prolific birth;

And prove by figure, rule, and plan,

The large fair world too small

To feed the multitudes of man
That flourish on its ball:

We view the vineyards on the hills,

Or corn-fields waving high ;

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,

There's sunshine in the sky.

When men complain of human kind

In misanthropic mood,

And thinking evil things, grow blind
To presence of the good;

When, walled in prejudices strong,

They urge that evermore
The world is fated to go wrong

For going wrong before:

We feel the truths they cannot feel,
And smile as we reply,

Grub, little moles, grub under ground,
There's sunshine in the sky.

OLD OPINIONS.

ONCE We thought that Power Eternal
Had decreed the woes of man;
That the human heart was wicked
Since its pulses first began;
That the earth was but a prison,
Dark and joyless at the best,
And that men were born for evil,
And imbibed it from the breast;
That 'twas vain to think of urging
Any earthly progress on.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that Kings were holy
Doing wrong by right divine;

That the Church was Lord of Conscience,

Despot over Mine and Thine:

That whatever priests commanded,

No one could reject and live;

And that all who differed from them

It was error to forgive,—

Right to send to stake or halter
With eternal malison.

Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that holy Freedom
Was a cursed and tainted thing;
Foe of Peace and Law and Virtue ;
Foe of Magistrate and King;
That all vile degraded passion
Ever followed in her path;
Lust and Plunder, War and Rapine,
Tears, and Anarchy, and Wrath;
That the angel was a cruel,

Haughty, blood-stained Amazon.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

Once we thought that Education
Was a luxury for the few;
That to give it to the many
Was to give it scope undue ;
That 'twas foolish to imagine
It could be as free as air,
Common as the glorious sunshine
To the child of want and care;
That the poor man, educated,
Quarreled with his toil anon.
Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

3

Old opinions, rags and tatters;

Ye are worn; ah, quite threadbare!
We must cast you off for ever;
We are wiser than we were:
Never fitting, always cramping,
Letting in the wind and sleet,
Chilling us with rheums and agues,
Or inflaming us with heat.
We have found a mental raiment
Purer, whiter to put on.

Old opinions! rags and tatters!
Get you gone! get you gone!

"WE ARE WISER THAN WE KNOW."

THOU, who in the midnight silence

Lookest to the orbs on high,

Feeling humbled, yet elated,

In the presence of the sky;

Thou, who minglest with thy sadness

Pride ecstatic, awe divine,

That ev'n thou canst trace their progress

And the law by which they shine
Intuition shall uphold thee,

Even though reason drag thee low;
Lean on faith, look up rejoicing,
We are wiser than we know.