Our Mother [pp. 447]

THOUGHTS FR 0O.f A CITr OBSER VA TORY.
place in the world, and has no lack of work to
do; while countless visits that minister to both
body and soul, and countless comforts that find
their way to otherwise comfortless homes, tell
how faithfully he is keeping his promise to the
dead.
THOUGHTS FROM A CITY OBSERV>
ATORY.
HERE have I sat and watched the scenes below,
The streets with life and bustle all aglow;
And as I scan the busy, hurrying throng
That through the noisy city crowd along,
I see a little world beneath me lie,
All spread within the range of human eye;
Each on a different mission seems intent,
And hurries on as if on errand bent
Of life and death. The eager, jostling mass,
Like scenes before the wizard's magic glass,
Is ever changing yet is ever seen
The same continual rush, and jar, and din.
And looking on this motley, changeful crowd
Of beings, with like faculties endowed,
Yet some pursuing virtue, others vice,
Where conscience calls or pleasure's smiles entice;
This human river surging through the street,
Where Jew and Gentile, priest and devil meet;
Imagination soars to hights sublime,
And sees the world beneath the sweep of time.
'T is much the same, although a grander sight,
As lies before me in the noonday light.
The centuries glide by like ocean's waves,
Shifting the sands their restless water laves;
And as they pass in swift transition by,
How shift the scenes I view with fancy's eye!
Man ventures forth in life with buoyant hope,
Giving ambitious fancies freest scope,
Expects the world to help him up the hight,
And gloats upon the future with delight.
Poor fool! this cold, cold world is not the thing
He took it for; the years fly on to bring
Sorrow and care, the lot of all on earth.
He looks for plenty and he finds a dearth.
Generations rise upon the world,
Run their short race, and back to dust are hurled;
Living, far different are the paths they tread;
Dying, all find the grave a common bed.
Races of men have lived and past away,
But clay they were and they returned to clay.
Cities they built, and towers and battled walls,
Reared gorgeous temples, mosques, and stately halls,
Lived all the pomp and panoply of life,
And all its turmoil, avarice, and strife;
Each toiling, struggling, panting, racing on,
To catch a phantom which, when touched, was gone;
None satisfied with life-man never wasThe world seemed made without a final cause.
They died-their minds with apprehensions rife,
Their bodies went to feed a newer life;
Their souls-God knows and man can never know
Until he leaves this wilderness below,
And follows them to that eternal source
Of spirit knowledge. This is but the course
Of human life; it ever has been thus
With those before us, and will be with us.
Life is at best a disappointed dream,
Where selfishness has ruled and reigned supreme.
All is a failure, and must ever be,
Till blind humanity is made to see
The higher life. That which alone can give
The solid happiness for which men live;
Pleasure which satisfied is pleasure still,
Joy which the cravings of the soul will fill,
The spirit-life which spurning grosser things,
Mounts to a higher world on angel wings,
And seeing happiness through unvailed eyes,
Makes the dead earth a living paradise.
OUR MOTHER.
OLD? O no! she can never be old,
Though a score or more Summers be hers,
And her life's purple garners now hold
The rich fruitage of seventy warm years.
There are lives that grow wrinkled with time,
And hearts that get calloused with gold,
And young heads that are gray-haired with crime,
But a mother can never grow old.
She is faded and care-bent, I know,
Like a sheaf that is laden with ears;
Her footsteps are halting and slow,
And her cheeks bear the traces of tears.
But her heart is all mellow and ripe
With the ever-sweet juices of love,
Her speech is a fair-coined type
Of the free-spoken language above.
It is strange that we mark time by years,
And a name to each passing day give,
And say that life's ending appears
When we're only beginning to live.
Time may change, may cut down and renew;
Each season new scenes may unfold;
Things may please us, then fade from our view,
But a mother can never grow old.
Old? old? No, indeed! she is young
As ever she was in her life;
The fairest and dearest among
Ail women, with loveliness rife.
Her soul looks abroad through its vail
With a smile like the light of the morn;
And the dews of true feeling exhale
From the depths where her graces are born.
And some day the angels will come
For this beautiful mother of ours;
Will lead her away to their home
That lies close by the amaranth bowers.
And there, in her radiant youth,
Where the ransomed aye flourish and bloom
In the regions of sunlight and truth,
She will watch for her children to come.
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