And corpses, jostled 'neath the moon,

Nod to the death-cart's rolling ! The young child calleth for the cup

The strong man brings it weeping; The mother from her babe looks up, And shrieks away its sleeping.

Be pitiful, o God!

The plague of gold strikes far and near,

And deep and strong it enters: This purple chimar which we wear,

Makes madder than the centaur's. Our thoughts grow blank, our words grow strange;

We cheer the pale gold-diggers — Each soul is worth so much on 'Change, And marked, like sheep, with figures.

Be pitiful, O God !

The curse of gold upon the land,

The lack of bread enforces -
The rail-cars snort from strand to strand,

Like more of Death's White Horses!
The rich preach “rights” and future days,

And hear no angel scoffing:
The poor die mute — with starving gaze
On corn-ships in the offing.

Be pitiful, O God!

We meet together at the feast

To private mirth betake us —
We stare down in the winecup, lest

Some vacant chair should shake us!
We name delight, and pledge it round-

" It shall be ours to-morrow!” God's

's seraphs ! do your voiees sound As sad in naming sorrow ?

Be pitiful, O God I

We sit together, with the skies,

The steadfast skies, above us: We look into each other's eyes,

“And how long will you love us ?” The eyes grow dim with prophecy,

The voices, low and breathless –

« Till death us part!” –0 words, to be Our best for love the deathless!

Be pitiful, dear God!

We tremble by the harmless bed

Of one loved and departed
Our tears drop on the lips that said

Last night, “Be stronger hearted !”
O God, to clasp those fingers close,

And yet to feel so lonely! -To see a light on dearest brows, Which is the daylight only!

Be pitiful, O God!

The happy children come to us,

And look up in our faces :
They ask us – Was it thus, and thus,

When we were in their places ?
We cannot speak:

The hills we used to live in; And feel our mother's smile press through The kisses she is giving.

Be pitiful, O God!

- we see anew

We pray together at the kirk,

For mercy, mercy, solely –
Hands weary with the evil work,

We lift them to the Holy !
The corpse is calm below our knee

Its spirit, bright before Thee
Between them, worse than either, we —
Without the rest or glory!

Be pitiful, O God!

We leave the communing of men,

The murmur of the passions ;
And live alone, to live again

With endless generations.
Are we so brave? - - The sea and sky

In silence lift their mirrors ;
And, glassed therein, our spirits high
Recoil from their own terrors.

Be pitiful, O God!

We sit on hills our childhood wist,

Woods, hamlets, streams, beholding:
The sun strikes, through the farthest mist,

The city's spire to golden.
The city's golden spire it was,

When hope and health were strongest,
But now it is the churchyard grass,
We look upon the longest.

Be pitiful, O God!
And soon all vision waxeth dull -

Men whisper, “He is dying:
We cry no more, “Be pitiful!”

We have no strength for crying:
No strength, no need! Then, Soul of mine,

Look up and triumph rather-
Lo! in the depth of God's Divine,
The Son adjures the Father

BE PITIFUL, O GOD!

on! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE PROUD?

Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?
Like a swift, fleeting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,
He passeth from life to his rest in the grave.
The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade,
Be scattered around and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the high
Shall moulder to dust and together shall lie.
The infant a mother attended and loved;
The mother that infant's affection who proved;
The husband that mother and infant who blessed;
Each, all, are away to their dwellings of Rest.
The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure, — her triumphs are by ;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.
The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne;
The brow of the priest that the mitre hatb worn :

The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave,
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap;
The herdsman, who climbed with his goats up the steep;
The beggar, who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away with the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed
That withers away to let others succeed;
So the multitude comes, even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same our fathers have been:
We see the same sights our fathers have seen:
We drink the same stream, and view the same sun,
And run the same course our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think ;
From the death we are shrinking our fathers would shrink;
To the life we are clinging they also would cling:
But it speeds for us all, like a bird on the wing.

They loved, but the story we cannot unfold ;
They scorned, but the heart of the haughty is cold;
They grieved, but no wail from their slumber will come;
They joyed, but the tongue of their gladness is dumb.

They died, aye! they died; we things that are now,
That walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
And make in their dwelling a transient abode,
Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,
We mingle together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge,
Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

'Tis the wink of the eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health, to the paleness of death •

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,
Oh! why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?

HYMN.

C. S. M. “We, which do believe, have entered into rest!" Aye, now! though round our souls are wildly rolling

The waves of care and trouble, mountain high; Though funeral bells o'er our dead hopes are tolling –

And clouds and darkness mark our earthly sky;

The soul hath many an “upper room” of sadness

Where, “in the midst" appears her risen Lord, Whose presence turns the bitterest grief to gladness,

By one low-spoken, yet Almighty word

6 Peace!” All unheeded is the tempest sweeping

Around the spirit — for within the doors
The Master stands to give us joy for weeping,

And shed upon our hearts love's choicest stores.

“We enter into rest.” The “Sabbath keeping"

May be begun in hearts afar from home,
E’en though our eyes may be well used to weeping,

Though in the wilderness our feet may roam.

Unseen by human eyes, the light is beaming,

Its pure and quiet radiance on our way,
From out the opened heavens upon us streaming,

And turning for us darkness into day.

“ We have believed”. - we trust the word unfailing,

And here and now, “ do enter into rest; “We have believed -no foe our peace assailing,

Can break the soul's repose on Jesus' breast.