JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

* * * * *

SANTA FILOMENA.

    [FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.]

  Whene’er a noble deed is wrought,
  Whene’er is spoken a noble thought,
    Our hearts, in glad surprise,
    To higher levels rise.

  The tidal wave of deeper souls
  Into our inmost being rolls,
    And lifts us unawares
    Out of all meaner cares.

  Honor to those whose words or deeds
  Thus help us in our daily needs,
    And by their overflow
    Raise us from what is low!

  Thus thought I, as by night I read
  Of the great army of the dead,
    The trenches cold and damp,
    The starved and frozen camp,

  The wounded from the battle-plain,
  In dreary hospitals of pain,
    The cheerless corridors,
    The cold and stony floors.

  Lo! in that house of misery
  A lady with a lamp I see
    Pass through the glimmering gloom,
    And flit from room to room.

  And slow, as in a dream of bliss,
  The speechless sufferer turns to kiss
    Her shadow, as it falls
    Upon the darkening walls.

  As if a door in heaven should be
  Opened and then closed suddenly,
    The vision came and went,
    The light shone and was spent.

  On England’s annals, through the long
  Hereafter of her speech and song,
    That light its rays shall cast
    From portals of the past.

  A Lady with a Lamp shall stand
  In the great history of the land,
    A noble type of good,
    Heroic womanhood.

  Nor even shall be wanting here
  The palm, the lily, and the spear,
    The symbols that of yore
    Saint Filomena bore.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

* * * * *

A DEED AND A WORD.

  A little stream had lost its way
    Amid the grass and fern;
  A passing stranger scooped a well,
    Where weary men might turn;
  He walled it in and hung with care
    A ladle at the brink;
  He thought not of the deed he did,
    But judged that all might drink. 
  He passed again, and lo! the well,
    By summer never dried,
  Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,
    And saved a life beside.

  A nameless man, amid a crowd
    That thronged the daily mart,
  Let fall a word of hope and love,
    Unstudied, from the heart;
  A whisper on the tumult thrown,
    A transitory breath—­
  It raised a brother from the dust,
    It saved a soul from death. 
  O germ!  O fount!  O word of love! 
    O thought at random cast! 
  Ye were but little at the first,
    But mighty at the last.

CHARLES MACKAY.

* * * * *

SOGGARTH AROON.

  Am I the slave they say,
    Soggarth aroon?[A]
  Since you did show the way,
    Soggarth aroon,
  Their slave no more to be,
  While they would work with me
  Old Ireland’s slavery,
    Soggarth aroon.