POETRY.

A VISION.

PALE, blood-stained, who are these, that are thronging the throne

of God ?

Their faces are ashen with anguish, their garments soiled from the- sod ; Wide and wan as a sunless ocean, the multitude stands, With silent lips, and with piteous eyes, and with praying hands.

There is none that speaks, and none that stirs in the numberless hosts, Like the still white clouds in starless heavens,—an army of ghosts ; Slain in the battle some, with the curses of war in their mouth ; Some in wantonness slaughtered ; some stricken of hunger or drouth.

Who will stand for them, who will plead for them, there at, the throne ?

Are they not all God's children, whom Christ has claimed for.hie own ? Sinners,—but all are sinners, and who can tell their doom ? If there be room in hell, yet in heaven is there not room?

Like the motes of dust from a sunbeam, when a sudden wind has blown, Lice the stars from the presence of God, when a universe is o'er- thrown,

They are gone from our gaze, they are gathered and garnered for bliss or pain,

Woman and warrior, Turk and Christian, slayer and slain.

Is there no sign, then, is there no wonder, is there no cry ?

Are the dead as a wind that passes, are they gone as the waves go by?

Listen ! is there no sound of a sobbing that shakes the air, And the wail of an unseen multitude, waked from a mute despair?

Do we dream, or are dead men weeping, as they wept in the world below, For the seeds of war untrodden, and the bitter harvest of woe, And the guiltless herds that are marched, like the beasts, to a sacrifice, That can save not them, nor their rulers, from the hell of falsehood and vice?

And they weep that they see no end, and they cry that the end should be !

.Ah, God I send down thine angel, that the rest die not as we! As Thou didst send thy Son, to die that sin might cease, Send down one lowest of angels, only to breathe of Peace !

TO breathe thy. Peace in the counsels, where the rulers, uncon- cerned,

Stake for a perilous glory, the honour that Peace has earned ; And the happy homes of a nation they stake for a statesman's pride ;- Oh, send thy Peace! oh, save them, for whose sakes the Saviour