In this brief life despair should never A sin forgotten is in part to pay for, A sin remembered is a constant reach us; The air of the valley has felt the chill: The workers pause at the door of the mill; The housewife, keen to the shivering air Arrests her foot on the cottage stair, Instinctive taught by the motherlove, And thinks of the sleeping ones above. Why start the listeners? Why does the course A monster in aspect, with shaggy front, Of shattered dwellings, to take the brunt Of the homes they shatter--whitemaned and hoarse, The merciless Terror fills the course Of the narrow valley, and rushing raves, With Death on the first of its hissing ⚫ waves, [mill Till cottage and street and crowded Of the mill-stream widen? Is it a Are crumbled and crushed. How many, darker, cower out of sight, And burrow, blind and silent, like the mole. And like the mole, too, with its busy feet That dig and dig a never-ending cave, Our hidden sins gnaw through the soul, and meet And feast upon each other in its grave. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD. LABORARE EST ORARE. PAUSE not to dream of the future before us; Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us; Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus, Unintermitting, goes up into heaven! Never the ocean wave falters in flow- Labor is rest,- from the sorrows that ing; Never the little seed stops in its growing; More and more richly the rose heart keeps glowing, Till from its nourishing stem it is riven. "Labor is worship!" - the robin is singing; "Labor is worship!"-the wild bee is ringing; Listen! that eloquent whisper, upspringing, Speaks to thy soul from out Na ture's great heart. From the dark cloud flows the lifegiving shower; From the rough sod blows the softbreathing flower; From the small insect, the rich coral bower; Only man shrinks, in the plan, from his part. Labor is life!-'Tis the still water faileth; Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth; Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth! Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon. greet us; Rest from all petty vexations that meet us, Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us, Rest from world-sirens that lure us to ill. |