"Speak the word, and, master mine,

As we charged on Tilly's line,
And his Walloon lancers,

Smiting through their midst we 'll teach
Civil look and decent speech

To these boyish prancers!"

"Marvel not, mine ancient friend,
Like beginning, like the end":
Quoth the Laird of Ury,

"Is the sinful servant more
Than his gracious Lord who bore
Bonds and stripes in Jewry?

"Give me joy that in his name
I can bear, with patient frame,
All these vain ones offer;

While for them He suffereth long,
Shall I answer wrong with wrong,

Scoffing with the scoffer ?

'Happier I, with loss of all,

Hunted, outlawed, held in thrall,

With few friends to greet me,

Than when reeve and squire were seen, Riding out from Aberdeen,

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With bared heads to meet me.

When each goodwife, o'er and o'er,

Blessed me as I passed her door;

And the snooded daughter,

Through her casement glancing down,

Smiled on him who bore renown

From red fields of slaughter.

"Hard to feel the stranger's scoff,
Hard the old friend's falling off,

Hard to learn forgiving:

But the Lord his own rewards,
And his love with theirs accords,
Warm and fresh and living.

"Through this dark and stormy night Faith beholds a feeble light

Up the blackness streaking;

Knowing God's own time is best,

In a patient hope I rest

For the full day-breaking!"

So the Laird of Ury said,

Turning slow his horse's head

Towards the Tolbooth prison,

Where, through iron grates, he heard
Poor disciples of the Word

Preach of Christ arisen!

Not in vain, Confessor old,
Unto us the tale is told

Of thy day of trial;
Every age on him, who strays
From its broad and beaten ways,
Pours its sevenfold vial.

Happy he whose inward ear

Angel comfortings can hear,

O'er the rabble's laughter;

And, while Hatred's fagots burn,
Glimpses through the smoke discern
Of the good hereafter.

Knowing this, that never yet
Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed,
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.

Thus, with somewhat of the Seer,
Must the moral pioneer

From the Future borrow;

Clothe the waste with dreams of grain,
And, on midnight's sky of rain,
Paint the golden morrow!

WHAT THE VOICE SAID.

MADDENED by Earth's wrong and evil,

"Lord!" I cried in sudden ire,

"From thy right hand, clothed with thunder, Shake the bolted fire!

"Love is lost, and Faith is dying;
With the brute the man is sold;
And the dropping blood of labor
Hardens into gold.

"Here the dying wail of Famine,
There the battle's groan of pain;
And, in silence, smooth-faced Mammon
Reaping men like grain.

"Where is God, that we should fear Him?'

Thus the earth-born Titans say;

'God! if thou art living, hear us!'

Thus the weak ones pray.”

"Thou, the patient Heaven upbraiding,"
Spake a solemn Voice within ;
"Weary of our Lord's forbearance,
Art thou free from sin?

"Fearless brow to Him uplifting,

Canst thou for his thunders call,

Knowing that to guilt's attraction
Evermore they fall?

"Know'st thou not all germs of evil
In thy heart await their time?
Not thyself, but God's restraining,
Stays their growth of crime.

"Couldst thou boast, O child of weakness! O'er the sons of wrong and strife,

Were their strong temptations planted
In thy path of life?

"Thou hast seen two streamlets gushing
From one fountain, clear and free,
But by widely varying channels

Searching for the sea.

"Glideth one through greenest valleys,
Kissing them with lips still sweet;
One, mad roaring down the mountains,
Stagnates at their feet.

"Is it choice whereby the Parsee

Kneels before his mother's fire? In his black tent did the Tartar Choose his wandering sire?

"He alone, whose hand is bounding
Human power and human will,
Looking through each soul's surrounding,
Knows its good or ill.

"For thyself, while wrong and sorrow Make to thee their strong appeal, Coward wert thou not to utter

What the heart must feel.

"Earnest words must needs be spoken When the warm heart bleeds or burns

With its scorn of wrong, or pity

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For the wronged, by turns.

But, by all thy nature's weakness,

Hidden faults and follies known,

Be thou, in rebuking evil,

Conscious of thine own.

"Not the less shall stern-eyed Duty
To thy lips her trumpet set,
But with harsher blasts shall mingle
Wailings of regret."

Cease not, Voice of holy speaking,
Teacher sent of God, be near,

Whispering through the day's cool silenc
Let my spirit hear!