Stand out, my blue-eyed prophet!— thou, to whom The earliest world-daylight that ever flowed.

Through Casa Guidi windows, chanced to come!

Now shake the glittering nimbus cf tby hair.

And be God's witness—that the elemental

New springs of life are gushing everywhere To cleanse the water courses, and prevent all

Concrete obstructions which infest the air!

—That earth's alive, and gentle or ungentle

Motions within her, signify but growth:

The ground swells greenest o'er the labouring moles. Howe'er the uneasy world is vexed and wroth,

Young children, lifted high on parent souls,

Look round them with a smile upon the mouth, And take for music every bell that tolls.

Who said we should be better if like these?

And we sit murmuring for the future though

Posterity is smiling on our knees, Convicting us of folly? Let us go— We will trust God. The blank interstices

Men take for ruins, He will build into With pillared marbles rare, or knit across

With generous arches, till the fane's complete.

This world has no perdition, if some loss.

XXvI.

Such cheer I gather from tby smiling Sweet!

The self same cherub faces which emboss

The Vail, lean inward to the Mercyseat.

THE CRY OF THE CHILDREN.

fi' ofsfuurivt reeveu Medea.

Do ye hear the children weeping, O my brothers, Ere the sorrow comes with years? They are leaning their young heads against their mothers. And that cannot stop their tears. The young lambs are bleating in the meadows: The young birds are chirping in the;r nest:

The young fawns are playing with the shadows; The young flowers are blowing toward the west— But the young, young children, O my brothers. They are weeping bitterly! They are weeping in the playtime of the others, In the country of the free.

Do you question the young children in the sorrow, * Wby their tears are falling so? The old man may weep for his tomorrow Which is lost in Long Ago— The old tree is leafless in the forest—

The old year is ending in the frost— The old wound, if stricken, is the sorest—

The old hope is hardest to be lost: But the young, young children, O my brothers. Do you ask them wby they stand Weeping sore before the bosoms of their mothers, In our happy Fatherland?

They look up with their pale and sunken faces, And their looks are sad to see, For the man's hoary anguish draws and presses Down the cheeks of infancy— 'Your old earth,' they say, 'is very dreary;

Our young feet,' they say, ' are very weak!

Few paces have we taken, yet are weary—

Oui grave-rest is very far to seek: Ask the aged why they weep, and not the children, For the outside earth is cold, And we young ones stand without, in our bewildering. And the graves are for the old:

* True,' say the children, ' it may happen

That we die before our time: Little Alice died last year—her grave is shapen Like a snowhall, in the rime. We looked into the pit prepared to take her—

Was no room for any work in the

close clay: From the sleep wherein she lieth none

will wake her Crying, * Get up, little Alice! it is

day.'

If you listen by that grave, in sun and shower.

With your ear down, little Alice

never cries! Could we see her face, be sure we

should not know her, For the smile has time for growing in

her eyes,

And merry go her moments, lulled and stilled in The shroud by the kirk-chime! It is good when it happens,' say the children,

'That we die before our lime!' Alas, alas, the children! they are seeking

Death in life as best to have! They are binding up their .hearts away from breaking. With a cerement from the grave. Go out, children, from the mine and from the city— Sing out, children, as the little thrushes do— Pluck your handfuls of the meadowcowslips pretty— Laugh aloud, to feel your fingers let them through! But they answer, 'Are your cowslips of the meadows

Like our weeds anear the mine? Leave us quiet m the dark of the coalshadows. From your pleasures fair and fine!

'For oh,' say the children, 'we are weary,

And we cannot run or leap— If we cared for any meadows, it were merely

To drop down in them and sleep*. Our knees tremble sorely in the stooping—

We fall upon our faces, trying to go; And, underneath our heavy eyelids drooping, The reddest flower would look as pale as snow. For, all day, we drag our burden tiring.

Through the coal-dark underground, Or, all day, we drive the wheels of iron In the factories, round and round.

'For, all day, the wheels are droning, turning,— Their wind comes in our faces,— Till our hearts turn,—our heads, with pulses burning, And the walls turn in their places— Turns the sky in the high window blank and reeling— Turns the long light that drops adown the wall— Turn the black flies that crawl along the ceiling—

All are turning, all the day, and wc with all!

And all day the iron wheels are droning;

And sometimes we could pray, 'O ye wheels,' ;breaking out in a mad moaning.) 'Stop! be silent for to-day!'

Ay! be silent! Let them hear each other breathing For a moment, mouth to mouth— Let them touch each other's hands, in a fresh wreathing Of their tender human youth! Let them feel that this cold metallic motion

Is not all the life God fashions or reveals—

Let them prove their living souls against
the notion
That they live in you, or under you,
O wheels!—
Still, all day, the iron wheels go onward,

Grinding life down from its mark;
And the children's souls, which God is
calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.

Now tell the poor young children, O

my brothers, To look up to Him and pray— So the blessed One who blcsseth all the

others,

Will bless them another day. They answer, 'Who is God that He should hear us. While the rushing of the iron wheels is stirred? When we sob aloud, the human creatures near us Pass by, hearing not, or answer not a word!

And we hear not (for the wheels in their

resounding) Strangers speaking at the door: Is it Ukely God, with angels singing

round Him,

Hears our weeping any more 1 'Two words, indeed, of praying we remember; And at midnight's hour of harm, 'Our Father,' looking upward in the chamber, We say softly for a charm.* We know no other words, except ' Our Father,'

And we think that, in some pause of angel's song, God may pluck them with the silence sweet to gather. And hold both within His right hand which is strong. 'Our Father!' If He heard us. He would surely

* A fact rendered pathetically historical by Mr. Horne's Report of his coinmianlon, The name of the poet of " Orion " and " Cosmo de' Medici " has, however, a change of associations, and comea in time to remind me (with other noble tnstances) that we have some noble poetic heat Btlll in our literature,—though open to the reproach, on certain points, of buliig somewhat gelid in our humanity.

(For they call him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, 'Come and rest with me, my child.'

'But, no l' say the children, weeping faster,

'He is speechless as a stone; And they tell us, of His image is the master

Who commands us to work on. * Go to !' say the children—'Up in Heaven,

Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find: Do not mock us; grief has made us unbelieving,— We look up for God, but tears have made us blind.' Do you hear the children weeping and disproving, O mv brothers, what ye preach? For God's possible is taught by His world's loving— And the children doubt of each.

And well may the children weep before you;

They are weary ere they run; They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory Which is brighter than the sun: They know the grief of man, without his wisdom; They sink in man's despair, without its calm— Are slaves, without the liberty in Christendom,

Arc martyrs, by the pang without the palm,— Are worn as if with age, yet unretricvingly

The harvest of its memories cannot reap,—

Are orphans of the earthly love and heavenly: Let them weep! let them weep! They look up, with their pale and sunken faces. And their look is dread to see. For they mind you of their angels in high places, With eyes turned on Deity ;— 'How long,' they say, 'how long, O cruel nation,