His labors had been prodigious.  He usually lectured not less than fifteen times a week, published twenty-five volumes, and left behind him several other volumes nearly ready for the press.  His health was never firm.  A rheumatic disease lurked in his system from the time of his illness at Goettingen.  Three years before he died, this disease settled in his eyes, and made him nearly blind.  But against all impediments, he struggled on, fighting the good fight of faith, patient and resolute, till suddenly his course was finished, and he took his crown.

POEMS.

BY JULIA WARD HOWE.

I.

THE BEE’S SONG

    Do not tie my wings,
    Says the honey-bee;
    Do not bind my wings,
    Leave them glad and free. 
    If I fly abroad,
    If I keep afar,
    Humming all the day,
    Where wild blossoms are,
    ’Tis to bring you sweets,
    Rich as summer joy,
    Clear—­as gold and glass;
    The divinest toy
    That the god’s have left,
    Is the pretty hive,
    Where a maiden reigns,
    And the busy thrive.

    If you bar my way,
    Your delight is gone,
    No more honey-gems;
    From the heather borne;
    No more tiny thefts,
    From your neighbor’s rose,
    Who were glad to guess
    Where its sweetness goes.

    Let the man of arts
    Ply his plane and glass;
    Let the vapors rise,
    Let the liquor pass;
    Let the dusky slave
    Till the southern fields;
    Not the task of both
    Such a treasure yields;
    Honey, Pan ordained,
    Food for gods and men,
    Only in my way
    Shall you store again.

    Leave me to my will
    While the bright days glow,
    While the sleepy flowers
    Quicken as I go. 
    When the pretty ones
    Look to me no more,
    Dead, beneath your feet,
    Crushed and dabbled o’er;
    In my narrow cell
    I will fold my wing;
    Sink in dark and chill,
    A forgotten thing.

    Can you read the song
    Of the suppliant bee? 
    ’Tis a poet’s soul,
    Asking liberty.

II.

LIMITATIONS OF BENEVOLENCE.

    “The beggar boy is none of mine,”
      The reverend doctor strangely said;
    “I do not walk the streets to pour
      Chance benedictions on his head.

    “And heaven I thank who made me so. 
      That toying with my own dear child,
    I think not on his shivering limbs,
      His manners vagabond and wild.”

    Good friend, unsay that graceless word! 
      I am a mother crowned with joy,
    And yet I feel a bosom pang
      To pass the little starveling boy.