"CUI BONO?"

THOMAS CARLYLE.

WHAT is Hope? A smiling rainbow
Children follow through the wet;
'Tis not here, still yonder, yonder:
Never urchin found it yet.

What is Life? A thawing ice-board
On a sea with sunny shore:
Gay we sail; it melts beneath us;
We are sunk and seen no more.

What is Man? A foolish baby,

Vainly strives, and fights, and frets; Demanding all, deserving nothing; One small grave is all he gets.

AN ANSWER TO "CUI BONO."

JANE WELSH CARLYLE.

NAY, this is Hope: a gentle dove
That nestles in the gentle breast,
Bringing glad tidings from above,
Of joys to come, and heavenly rest.

And this is Life: ethereal fire

Striving aloft through mouldering clay, Mounting, flaming, higher, higher! Till lost in immortality.

And Man-Oh, hate not, nor despise
The fairest, lordliest work of God!
Think not He made the good and wise
Only to sleep beneath the sod!

"CROSSING THE BAR."

ALFRED TENNYSON.

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea!

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound and foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark!

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face

When I have crossed the bar.

FATE.

BRET HARTE.

"THE sky is clouded, the rocks are bare;
The spray of the tempest is white in air;
The winds are out with the waves at play
And I shall not tempt the sea to-day.

"The trail is narrow, the wood is dim,
The panther clings to the arching limb;
And the lion's whelps are abroad at play,
And I shall not join in the chase to-day."

But the ship sailed safely over the sea,
And the hunters came from the chase in glee;
And the town that was builded upon a rock
Was swallowed up in the earthquake-shock.

THE LORDS OF THULE.

FROM THE GERMAN.

THE Lords of Thule it did not please
That Willegis their bishop was,
For he was a wagoner's son.
And they drew, to do him scorn,

Wheels of chalk upon the wall;

He found them in chamber, found them in hall.

But the pious Willegis

Could not be moved to bitterness;

Seeing the wheels upon the wall,

On every wall, that I may see,

A wheel of white in a field of red;

Underneath, in letters plain to be read"Willegis, bishop now by name,

Forget not whence you came.""

The Lords of Thule were full of shame,
They wiped away their words of blame;
For they saw that scorn and jeer
Cannot wound the wise man's ear.

And all the bishops that after him came
Quartered the wheel with their arms of fame.
Thus came to pious Willegis

Glory out of bitterness.

MATINS AT ST. MARY'S.

EDNA DEAN PROCTOR.

RICHARD, the lion-hearted,
Parting for Palestine,
In lone St. Mary's Abbey,
Knelt at our lady's shrine;
And begged that the Abbot's blessing
And the monk's prevailing prayer,

Might follow him over the waters
And the deserts hot and bare.

"God be praised!" quoth the Abbot,

That at matins, and sext, and compline
Through the church's sacred air,
Petitions shall rise to Heaven,

That the wave and the shore may be
Safe for our Sovereign Richard,

Till conqueror home comes he."

The moon of another April
Shown on the eastern main,
And sailing by rocky Cyprus
The Holy Land to gain,

Were the king and his Norman nobles-
When out of the south there blew

The blast of the dread sirocco,

And away the good ship flew.

Into the blinding darkness,

Into the howling storm,

While the salt sea wreathed before her
A beckoning demon form.

"Mary have mercy!" the sailors

Shrieked as the masts went down;

"Bitter is death," sighed the nobles, "So near to our glory's crown!'

Leaning over the bulwarks,

Richard, risen from rest,

With his white brow bared to the tempest,

And his blue eyes turned to the west, Cried in a voice of anguish