REV.  H. BERNARD CARPENTER.

* * * * *

EXULTING SINGS.

Sweet morn! from countless cups of gold
Thou liftest reverently on high
More incense fine than earth can hold,
To fill the sky.

The lark by his own carol blest,
From thy green harbors eager springs;
And his large heart in little breast
Exulting sings.

The fly his jocund round unweaves,
With choral strain the birds salute
The voiceful flocks, and nothing grieves,
And naught is mute.

To thousand tasks of fruitful hope,
With skill against his toil, man bends
And finds his work’s determined scope
Where’er he wends.

From earth, and earthly toil and strife,
To deathless aims his love may rise,
Each dawn may wake to better life,
With purer eyes.

JOHN STERLING.

* * * * *

IN HOLY BOOKS.

In holy books we read how God hath spoken
To holy men in many different ways;
But hath the present worked no sign nor token? 
Is God quite silent in these latter days?

    The word were but a blank, a hollow sound,
      If He that spake it were not speaking still;
    If all the light and all the shade around
      Were aught but issues of Almighty Will.

    So, then, believe that every bird that sings,
      And every flower that stars the elastic sod,
    And every thought the happy summer brings,
      To the pure spirit is a word of God.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

* * * * *

THE BELL OF ATRI.

    At Atri in Abruzzo, a small town
    Of ancient Roman date, but scant renown,
    One of those little places that have run
    Half up the hill, beneath a blazing sun,
    And then sat down to rest, as if to say,
    “I climb no farther upward, come what may,”—­
    The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,
    So many monarchs since have borne the name,
    Had a great bell hung in the market-place
    Beneath a roof, projecting some small space,
    By way of shelter from the sun and rain. 
    Then rode he through the streets with all his train,
    And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long,
    Made proclamation, that whenever wrong
    Was done to any man, he should but ring
    The great bell in the square, and he, the King,
    Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon. 
    Such was the proclamation of King John.

    How swift the happy days in Atri sped,
    What wrongs were righted, need not here be said. 
    Suffice it that, as all things must decay,
    The hempen rope at length was worn away,
    Unravelled at the end, and strand by strand,
    Loosened and wasted in the ringer’s hand,
    Till one, who noted this in passing by,
    Mended the rope with braids of briony,
    So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine
    Hung like a votive garland at a shrine.