POETRY.
POETRY AND THE POOR.
" THE world is very beautiful!" I said, As yesterday, beside the brimming stream, Glad and alone, I watched the tremulous gleam
Slant thro' the wintry wood, green-carpeted With moss and fern and curving bramble-spray, And bronze the thousand russet margin-reeds, And in the sparkling holly glint and play, And kindle all the briar's flaming seeds.
" The world is very horrible !" I sigh, As, in my wonted ways, to-day I thread Chill streets, deformed with dim monotony, Hiding strange mysteries of unknown dread,— The reeking court, the breathless fever-den, The haunts where things unholy throng and brood ; Grim crime, the fierce despair of strong-armed men, Child-infamy, and shameless womanhood.
And men have looked upon this piteons thing—
Blank lives unvisited by beauty's spell— And said, " Let be : it is not meet to bring Dreams of sweet freedom to the prison-cell.
Sing them no songs of things all bright and fair, Paint them no visions of the glad and free, Lest with purged sight their miseries they see, And, thro' vain longings, pass to blank despair."
0 brother, treading ever darkening ways, 0 sister, whelmed in ever deepening care, Would God we might unfold before your gaze Some vision of the pure, and true, and fair ! Better to know, tho' sadder things be known, Better to see, tho' tears half blind the sight, Than thraldom to the sense, and heart of stone, And horrible contentment with the night.
Oh ! bring we then all sweet and gracious things To touch the lives that lie so chill and drear, That they may dream of some diviner sphere, Whence each soft ray of love and beauty springs. Each good and perfect gift ift from above ; And there is healing for Earth's direst woes ; God hath unsealed the springs of light and love, To make the desert blossom as the rose.
W. WALSHAM BEDFORD.
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