Behold her, ye worldly! behold her, ye vain! 
  Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain! 
  Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days,
  Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise. 
  Ye lazy philosophers, self-seeking men;
  Ye fireside philanthropists, great at the pen;
  How stands in the balance your eloquence weighed
  With the life and the deeds of that high-born maid?

GERALD JOSEPH GRIFFEN.

* * * * *

WHAT I LIVE FOR.

  I live for those who love me,
    Whose hearts are kind and true,
  For heaven that smiles above me,
    And waits my spirit, too;
  For all the ties that bind me,
  For all the tasks assigned me. 
  And bright hopes left behind me,
    And good that I can do.

  I live to learn their story
    Who’ve suffered for my sake,
  To emulate their glory,
    And follow in their wake;
  Bards, patriots, martyrs, sages,
  The noble of all ages,
  Whose deeds crown history’s pages,
    And Time’s great volume make.

  I live to hold communion
    With all that is divine,
  To feel there is a union
    ’Twixt Nature’s heart and mine;
  To profit by affliction,
  Reap truths from fields of fiction,
  And, wiser from conviction,
    Fulfil each grand design.

  I live to hail that season,
    By gifted minds foretold,
  When men shall rule by reason,
    And not alone by gold;
  When man to man united,
  And every wrong thing righted,
  The whole world shall be lighted
    As Eden was of old.

  I live for those who love me,
    Whose hearts are kind and true,
  For heaven that smiles above me,
    And waits my spirit too;
  For the cause that lacks assistance,
  For the wrong that needs resistance,
  For the future in the distance,
    And the good that I can do.

GEORGE LINNAEUS BANKS.

* * * * *

IF WE HAD BUT A DAY.

  We should fill the hours with the sweetest things,
    If we had but a day;
  We should drink alone at the purest springs
    In our upward way;
  We should love with a lifetime’s love in an hour,
    If the hours were few;
  We should rest, not for dreams, but for fresher power
    To be and to do.

  We should guide our wayward or wearied wills
    By the clearest light;
  We should keep our eyes on the heavenly hills,
    If they lay in sight;
  We should trample the pride and the discontent
    Beneath our feet;
  We should take whatever a good God sent,
    With a trust complete.

  We should waste no moments in weak regret,
    If the day were but one;
  If what we remember and what we forget
    Went out with the sun;
  We should be from our clamorous selves set free,
    To work or to pray,
  And to be what the Father would have us be. 
    If we had but a day.