E. HATHAWAY.

* * * * *

ASPIRATION.

    Oh may I join the choir invisible
    Of those immortal dead who live again
    In minds made better by their presence:  live
    In pulses stirred to generosity: 
    In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
    For miserable aims that end with self;
    In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars,
    And with their mild persistence urge men’s search
    To vaster issues.

GEORGE ELIOT.

* * * * *

THE POOR BEETLE.

    The sense of death is most in apprehension;
    And the poor beetle that we tread upon,
    In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great
    As when a giant dies.

Measure for Measure, Act 3, Sc. 1.

* * * * *

THE CONSUMMATION.

It is little indeed that each of us can accomplish within the limits of our little day.  Small indeed is the contribution which the best of us can make to the advancement of the world in knowledge and goodness.  But slight though it be, if the work we do is real and noble work, it is never lost; it is taken up into and becomes an integral moment of that immortal life to which all the good and great of the past, every wise thinker, every true and tender heart, every fair and saintly spirit, have contributed, and which, never hasting, never resting, onward through ages is advancing to its consummation.

REV.  DR. CAIRD.

* * * * *

PERSEVERE.

    Salt of the earth, ye virtuous few
      Who season human kind! 
    Light of the world, whose cheering ray
      Illumes the realms of mind!

    Where misery spreads her deepest shade,
      Your strong compassion glows;
    From your blest lips the balm distils
      That softens mortal woes.

    Proceed:  your race of glory run,
      Your virtuous toils endure;
    You come, commissioned from on high,
      And your reward is sure.

MRS. BARBAULD.

* * * * *

A VISION.

    When ’twixt the drawn forces of Night and of Morning,
      Strange visions steal down to the slumbers of men,
    From heaven’s bright stronghold once issued a warning,
      Which baffled all scorning, when brought to my ken.

    Methought there descended the Saints and the Sages,
      With grief-stricken aspect and wringing of hands,
    Till Dreamland seemed filled with the anguish of ages,
      The blots of Time’s pages, the woes of all lands.

    And I, who had deemed that their bliss knew no morrow
      (Half vexed with their advent, half awed with their might)—­
    Cried, “Come ye from heaven, Earth’s aspect to borrow,
      To mar with weird sorrow the peace of the night?”