In words he did not put his trust;
    His faith in words he never writ;
  He loved to share his cup and crust
    With all mankind who needed it. 
        In time of need
          A friend was he. 
        “What was his creed?”
          He told not me.

  He put his trust in heaven, and he
    Worked well with hand and head;
  And what he gave in charity
    Sweetened his sleep and daily bread. 
        Let us take heed,
          For life is brief. 
        What was his creed—­What
          his belief?

ANONYMOUS.

* * * * *

THE PHILOSOPHER TOAD.

    Down deep in the hollow, so damp and so cold,
      Where oaks are by ivy o’ergrown,
    The gray moss and lichen creep over the mould,
      Lying loose on a ponderous stone. 
    Now within this huge stone, like a king on his throne,
    A toad has been sitting more years than is known;
    And, strange as it seems, yet he constantly deems
    The world standing still while he’s dreaming his dreams,—­
    Does this wonderful toad in his cheerful abode
  In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone,
  By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o’ergrown.

    Down deep in the hollow, from morning till night,
    Dun shadows glide over the ground,
    Where a watercourse once, as it sparkled with light,
      Turned a ruined old mill-wheel around: 
    Long years have passed by since its bed became dry,
    And the trees grow so close, scarce a glimpse of the sky
    Is seen in the hollow, so dark and so damp,
    Where the glow-worm at noonday is trimming his lamp,
    And hardly a sound from the thicket around,
    Where the rabbit and squirrel leap over the ground,
    Is heard by the toad in his spacious abode
  In the innermost heart of that ponderous stone,
  By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o’ergrown.

    Down deep in that hollow the bees never come,
      The shade is too black for a flower;
    And jewel-winged birds with their musical hum,
      Never flash in the night of that bower;
    But the cold-blooded snake, in the edge of the brake,
    Lies amid the rank grass, half asleep, half awake;
    And the ashen-white snail, with the slime in, its trail,
    Moves wearily on like a life’s tedious tale,
    Yet disturbs not the toad in his spacious abode,
  In the innermost heart of that flinty old stone,
  By the gray-haired moss and the lichen o’ergrown.

    Down deep in a hollow some wiseacres sit,
      Like a toad in his cell in the stone;
    Around them in daylight the blind owlets flit,
      And their creeds are with ivy o’ergrown;—­
    Their stream may go dry, and the wheels cease to ply,
    And their glimpses be few of the sun and the sky,
    Still they hug to their breast