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The Pauper's Drive.

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To the churchyard a pauper is going, I wot;
The road it is rough, and the hearse has no springs;
And hark to the dirge which the mad driver sings:
"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

O, where are the mourners? Alas! there are none;
He has left not a gap in the world, now he's gone-
Not a tear in the eye of child, woman, or man;
To the grave with his carcass as fast as you can:
"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!'

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What a jolting and creaking and splashing and din!
The whip, how it cracks; and the wheels how they spin!
How the dirt, right and left, o'er the hedges is hurled!
The pauper at length makes a noise in the world!

66 'Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

Poor pauper defunct! he has made some approach
To gentility, now that he's stretched in a coach!
He's taking a drive in his carriage at last;
But it will not be long, if he goes on so fast:
"Rattle his bones over the stones!

He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

You bumpkins! who stare at your brother conveyed, Behold what respect to a cloddy is paid!

And be joyful to think, when by death you're laid low, You've a chance to the grave like a

'gemman" to go!

"Rattle his bones over the stones!
He's only a pauper whom nobody owns!"

But a truce to this strain; for my soul it is sad,
To think that a heart in humanity clad
Should make, like the brute, such a desolate end,
And depart from the light without leaving a friend!
"Bear soft his bones over the stones! [owns!"
Though a pauper, he's one whom his Maker yet
-Thomas Noel.

The Sick Stockrider.

"H

OLD hard, Ned! Lift me down once more and lay me in the shade:

Old man, you've had your work cut out to guide Both horses, and to hold me in the saddle when I swayed,

6

All through the hot, slow, sleepy, silent ride." The dawn at Moorabinda" was a mist rack dull and dense,

The sunrise was a sullen, sluggish lamp.

I was dozing in the gateway at Arthbuthnot's boundary fence,

I was dreaming on the limestone cattle camp. We crossed the creek at Carricksford and sharply through the haze,

And suddenly, the sun shot flaming forth.

To the southward lay Tralawa with the sand peaks all ablaze,

And the flush fields of Glen Lomond lay to north.

Now westward winds the bridle-path that leads to Sandisfarm,

And yonder looms the double headed bluff;

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How the sun-dried reed beds crackled, how the flint

strewn ranges rang

To the strokes of Mountain and Acrobat.

Hard behind them in the timber, harder still across the heath,

Close beside them through the tea-tree scrub we dashed;

And the golden-tinted fern leaves, how they rustled underneath,

And the honeysuckle odors, how they crashed!

"We led the hunt throughout, Ned on the chestnut and I on the gray,

And the troopers were three hundred yards behind, Whilst we emptied our six-shooters on the bushrangers at bay.

While you grappled with the leader, man to man, and horse to horse,

And you rolled together when the chestnut reared;
He blazed away and missed you, in the shallow water

course,

A narrow shave-his powder missed your beard!

In these hours when life is ebbing, how those days when life was young

Come back to us! How clearly I recall

Even the yarns Jack Hall invented, and the songs Jem Roper sung;

And where are now Jem Roper and Jack Hall?

Ay! nearly all our comrades of the old colonial school, Our ancient boon companions, now are gone;

Hard livers for the most part, somewhat reckless as a rule,

It seems that you and I are left alone.

I've had my share of pastime and I've done my share of toil,

And life is short-the longest life a span!

I care not now to tarry for the corn and for the oil,
Nor for wine that maketh glad the heart of man;
For good undone and gifts misspent and resolutions
vain,

'Tis somewhat late to trouble thus I know:

I should live the same life over if I had to live again, And the chances are I go where most men go.

The deep blue skies wax dusky and the tall green trees grow dim,

The sward beneath me seems to heave and fall; And sickly smoky shadows through the sleepy sunlight twine,

And on the very sun's face leave their pall.

Oh! let me slumber in the hollow where the wattle blossoms wave,

With never stone or rail to fence my bed;

Should the sturdy station children pull the bush flowers on my grave,

I may chance to hear them romping over head. -Adam Lyndsay Gordon.

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Parting.

Remember that an eye as bright

Is dimmed-a heart as true is broken,
And turn thee from thy land of light,
To waste on these some little token.
But do not weep!-I could not bear
To stain thy cheek with sorrow's trace.
I would not draw one single tear,
For worlds, down that beloved face.
As soon would I, if power were given,
Pluck out the bow from yonder sky,
And free the prisoned floods of heaven,
As call one teardrop to thine eye.

-Thomas Kibble Hervey.

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RELIGION.

THOU eternal One! whose presence bright All space doth occupy, all motion guide; Unchanged through time's all-devastating flight; Thou only God! There is no God beside! Being above all beings! Three in one! Whom none can comprehend, and none explore; Who fill'st existence with thyself alone; Embracing all, supporting, ruling o'er!— Being whom we call God-and know no more! In its sublime research, philosophy May measure out the ocean deep-may count The sands or the sun's rays,-but God! for thee There is no weight nor measure;-none can mount Up to thy mysteries. Reason's brightest spark, Though kindled by thy light, in vain would try To trace thy counsels, infinite and dark;

And thought is lost ere thought can soar so highE'en like past moments in eternity.

Thou from primeval nothingness didst call,
First chaos, then existence;-Lord! on thee
Eternity has its foundation;-all

Sprung forth from thee, of light, joy, harmony,
Sole origin;-all life, all beauty, thine.
Thy word created all, and doth create;

Thy splendor fills all space with rays divine:
Thou art, and wert, and shalt be! Glorious,
Light-giving, life-sustaining Potentate!

Thy chains the unmeasured universe surround;
Upheld by thee, by thee inspired with breath!
Thou the beginning with the end hast bound,
And beautifully mingled life and death!
As sparks mount upward from the fiery blaze,
So suns are born, so worlds spring forth from thee,
And as the spangles in the sunny rays
Shine round the silver snow, the pagantry
Of heaven's bright army glitters in thy praise.
A million torches, lighted by thy hand,
Wander unwearied through the blue abyss:

God.

They own thy power, accomplish thy command,
All gay with life, all eloquent with bliss.
What shall we call them? Pyres of crystal light
A glorious company of golden streams,
Lamps of celestial ether burning bright,
Suns lighting systems with their joyful beams?
But thou to these art as the noon to night.

Yes! as a drop of water in the sea,
All this magnificence in thee is lost;-
What are ten thousand worlds compared to thee?
And what am I then? Heaven's unnumbered host,
Though multiplied by myriads; and arrayed
In all the glory of sublimest thought,
Is but an atom in the balance weighed
Against thy greatness, - is a cipher brought
Against infinity! What am I then? Naught!
Naught! But the effluence of thy light divine,
Pervading worlds, hath reached my bosom too;
Yes, in my spirit doth thy spirit shine,
As shines the sunbeam in a drop of dew.

Naught? but I live, and on hope's pinion fly
Eager toward thy presence; for in thee

I live, and breathe, and dwell; aspiring high
Even to the throne of thy divinity.

I am, O God! and surely thou must be!
Thou art! directing, guiding all thou art!
Direct my understanding then to thee;
Control my spirit, guide my wandering heart;
Though but an atom midst immensity,
Still I am something, fashioned by thy hand.
I hold a middle rank, 'twixt heaven and earth,
On the last verge of mortal being stand,
Close to the realms where angels have their birth,
Just on the boundries of the spirit land!
The chain of being is complete in me;
In me is matter's last gradation lost,
And the next step is spirit-Deity!

Α'

The Love of God.

[From the Provencal of Bernard Rascas.]

LL things that are on earth shall wholly pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye.

The forms of men shall be as they had never been; The blasted groves shall lose their fresh and tender green;

The birds of the thicket shall end their pleasant song, And the nightingale shall cease to chant the evening long.

The kine of the pasture shall feel the dart that kills,
And all the fair white flocks shall perish from the hills.
The goat and antlered stag, the wolf, and the fox,
The wild boar of the wood, and the chamois of the rocks,

And the strong and fearless bear, in the trodden dust shall lie;

And the dolphin of the sea, and the mighty whale, shall die.

And realms shall be dissolved, and empires be no more, And they shall bow to death, who ruled from shore to shore;

And the great globe itself, so the holy writings tell, With the rolling firmament, where the starry armies

dwell,

Shall melt with fervent heat-they shall all pass away, Except the love of God, which shall live and last for aye. -William Cullen Bryant.

The Eternal.

HE One remains, the many change and pass;
Heaven's light forever shines, Earth's shadows
fly.

Life, like a dome of many-colored glass,
Stains the white radiance of Eternity,
Until Death tramples it to fragments-Die,

If thou wouldst be with that which thou dost seek!
Follow where all is fled! Rome's azure sky,
Flowers, ruins, statues, music-words are weak
The glory they transfuse with fitting truth to speak.
Why linger, why turn back, why shrink, my heart?
Thy hopes are gone before: from all things here
They have departed; thou shouldst now depart!
A light is passed from the revolving year,
And man and woman; and what still is dear
Attracts to crush, repels to make thee wither.
The soft sky smiles,-the low wind whispers near:
'Tis Adonais calls! oh, hasten thither,

No more let Life divide what Death can join together.

That Light whose smile kindles the universe,
That beauty in which all things work and move,
That benediction which the eclipsing curse
Of birth can quench not, that sustaining Love
Which through the web of being blindly wove
By man and beast; and earth and air and sea,
Burns bright or dim, as each are mirrors of
The fire for which all thirst, now beams on me,
Consuming the last clouds of cold mortality.

The breath whose might I have invoked in song
Descends on me; my spirit's bark is driven
Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng
Whose sails were never to the tempest given;
The massy earth and sphered skies are riven:

I am borne darkly, fearfully, afar;

While, burning through the inmost veil of heaven, The soul of Adonais, like a star,

Beacons from the abode where the Eternal are. -Percy Bysshe Shelley. (Adonais).

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[This hymn, one of the most important in the service of the Latin Church, has been sometimes attributed to the Emperor Charlemagne. The better opinion, however, inclines to Pope Gregory I., called the great, as the author, and fixes its origin somewhere in the sixth century.]

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