Whereof each thread is to this beating heart As a peculiar darling? Lo, the flies

Hum o'er him! lo, a feather from the crow Falls in his parted lips! Lo, his dead eyes See not the raven! Lo, the worm, the worm, Creeps from his festering corse? My God! my God!

O Lord, Thou doest well. I am content.
If Thou have need of him he shall not stay.
But as one calleth to a servant, saying
"At such a time be with me," so, O Lord,
Call him to Thee! O, bid him not in haste
Straight whence he standeth. Let him lay
aside

The soiléd tools of labor. Let him wash
His hands of blood. Let him array himself
Meet for his Lord, pure from the sweat and
fume

Of corporal travail! Lord, if he must die,
Let him die here. O, take him where Thou

gavest!

Sidney Dobell

MOTHER AND SON

BRIGHTLY for him the future smiled,

The world was all untried;

He had been a boy, almost a child,
In your household till he died.

And

you saw him young and strong and fair But yesterday depart;

And you now know he is lying there

Shot to death through the heart!

Alas, for the step so proud and true
That struck on the war-path's track;
Alas, to go, as he went from you,

And to come, as they brought him back!

One shining curl from that bright young head,
Held sacred in your home,

Is all that you have to keep in his stead
In the years that are to come.

You may claim of his beauty and his youth
Only this little part -

It is not much with which to stanch
The wound in a mother's heart!

It is not much with which to dry
The bitter tears that flow;
Not much in your empty hands to lie
As the seasons come and go.

Yet he has not lived and died in vain,
For proudly you may say

He has left a name without a stain

For your tears to wash away.

And evermore shall your life be blest,
Though your treasures now are few,

Since you gave for your country's good the

best

God ever gave to you!

Phoebe Cary

MOTHERHOOD

MOTHER of Christ long slain, forth glided she,

Following the children joyously astir Under the cedars and the olive-tree,

Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face. When lo! another woman, passing near, Yearned o'er the tender life that filled the

place,

And Mary sought the woman's hand, and

said:

"I know thee not, yet know thee memory

tossed

And what hath led thee here, as I am

led

These bring to thee a child beloved and lost."

"How radiant was my little one!

And He was fair,

Yea fairer than the fairest sun,

And like its rays through amber spun

His sun-bright hair,

Still, I can see it shine and shine!"

"Even so," the woman said, "was mine."

"His ways were ever darling ways,"

And Mary smiled,

"So soft and clinging! Glad relays Of love were all his precious days

My little child

Was like an infinite that gleamed."

"Even so was mine," the woman dreamed.

Then whispered Mary: "Tell me, thou

Of thine!" And she:

"Oh, mine was rosy as a bough

Blooming with roses, sent, somehow,

To bloom for me!

His balmy fingers left a thrill

Within my breast that warms me still."

Then gazed she down some wilder, darker hour

And said, when Mary questioned knowing

not:

"Who art thou, mother of so sweet a

flower?"

"I am the mother of Iscariot."

Agnes Lee