The prayer of Ajax was for light;

Through all that dark and desperate fight, The blackness of that noonday night,

He asked but the return of sight,

To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer

Be, too, for light, for strength to bear

Our portion of the weight of care,

That crushes into dumb despair

One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,

Patient, though sorely tried!

I pledge you in this cup of grief,

Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf!

MAIDENHOOD.

MAIDEN! with the meek, brown eyes,

In whose orbs a shadow lies

Like the dusk in evening skies!

Thou whose locks outshine the sun,
Golden tresses, wreathed in one,

As the braided streamlets run!

Standing, with reluctant feet,
Where the brook and river meet,
Womanhood and childhood fleet'

Gazing, with a timid glance,

On the brooklet's swift advance, On the river's broad expanse!

Deep and still, that gliding stream Beautiful to thee must seem,

As the river of a dream.

Then why pause with indecision,

When bright angels in thy vision

Beckon thee to fields Elysian?

Seest thou shadows sailing by,
As the dove, with startled eye,
Sees the falcon's shadow fly?

Hearest thou voices on the shore, That our ears perceive no more, Deafened by the cataract's roar ?

O, thou child of many prayers!

Life hath quicksands, — Life hath snares!

Care and age come unawares!

Like the swell of some sweet tune,

Morning rises into noon,

May glides onward into June.

Childhood is the bough, where slumbered Birds and blossoms many-numbered ;Age, that bough with snows encumbered.

Gather, then, each flower that grows,
When the young heart overflows.

To embalm that tent of snows.

Bear a lily in thy hand;

Gates of brass cannot withstand

One touch of that magic wand.