A Few More Verses. Coolidge Susan

      ORCHID, chance-sown among the moorland heather,

      Scarce seen or tasted by the infrequent bee,

      Set mid rough mountain growths, lashed by wild weather,

      With none to foster thee.

      We watch thee fronting all the blasts of heaven,

      Thy slender rootlets grappled fast to rock,

      Enduring from thy morning to thy even

      The buffet and the shock.

      Never thy sun vouchsafed a cloudless shining,

      Never the wind was tempered to thy pain;

      No cloud turned out for thee its silver lining,

      No rainbow followed rain.

      Nourished mid hardness, learning patience slowly

      As hearts must do which know no other food,

      Duty and Memory, companions holy,

      Shared thy bleak solitude.

      Cold touch of Memory, strong chill hand of Duty,

      These held thee fast and ruled thee to the end,

      Until, with smile mysterious in its beauty,

      Came Death, rewarding friend.

      Earth gave thee scanty cheer, but earth is ended,

      Finished the years of thwarted sacrifice.

      We see thee walking forward, well attended,

      Led into Paradise!

      Heaven is twice Heaven to one who, hungry-hearted,

      Goes thither knowing no satisfaction here;

      And when we thank the Lord for those departed

      In this sure faith and fear,

      We think of thee, lonely no more forever,

      And tasting, while the eternal years unroll,

      That joy of Heaven, which like a flowing river

      Satisfies every soul.

      WE spend our strength in labor day by day,

      We find new strength replacing old alway;

      And still we cheat ourselves, and still we say:

      “No man would work except to win some prize;

      We work to turn our hopes to certainties, —

      For gold, or gear, or favor in men’s eyes.”

      And all the while the goal toward which we strain —

      Up hill and down, in sunshine and in rain,

      Heedless of toil, if so we may attain —

      Is but a lure, a heavenly-set decoy

      To exercised endeavor, full employ

      Of every power, which is man’s highest joy.

      And work becomes the end, reward the means,

      To woo us from our idleness and dreams;

      And each is truly what the other seems.

      So, Lord, with such poor service as we do,

      Thy full salvation is our prize in view,

      For which we long, and which we press unto.

      Like a great star on which we fix our eyes,

      It dazzles from the high, blue distances,

      And seems to beckon and to say, “Arise!”

      And we arise and follow the hard way,

      Winning a little nearer day by day,

      Our hearts going faster than our footsteps may;

      And never guess the secret sweet device

      Which lures us on and upward to the skies,

      And makes each toil its own reward and prize.

      To give our little selves to thee, to blend

      Our weakness with thy strength, O Lord our Friend,

      This is life’s truest privilege and end.

      THE last sweet flowers are dying,

      The last green leaves are red;

      The wild geese southward flying,

      By law mysterious led,

      Scream noisily o’erhead;

      The honey-bees have hived them,

      The butterflies have shrived them;

      All hushed the song and twitter

      And flutter of glad wing; —

      How could we bear the autumn

      If t’were not for the spring?

      To see the summer banished,

      Nor dare to bid her stay;

      To mourn o’er beauty vanished

      And joyance driven away;

      To mark the shortening day;

      To note the sad winds plaining,

      The storm cloud and the raining;

      To see the frost lance stabbing

      Each faint and wounded thing; —

      Oh, we should hate the autumn

      Excepting for the spring!

      To know that life is failing

      And pulses beating slow;

      To catch the unavailing

      Sad monotones of woe

      All the earth over go;

      To know that snows must cover

      The grave of friend and lover,

      To hide them from the eyes and hands

      That still caress and cling; —

      The heart would break in autumn

      If there were not a spring!

      For every sleep a waking,

      For every shade a sun,

      A balm for each heart breaking,

      A rest for labor done,

      A life by death begun;

      And so in wintry weather,

      With smile and sigh together,

      We look beyond the present pain,

      The daily loss and sting,

      And welcome in the autumn

      For the sure hope of spring.

      A LITTLE, tender word,

      Wrapped in a little rhyme,

      Sent out upon the passing air,

      As seeds are scattered everywhere

      In the sweet summer-time.

      A little, idle word,

      Breathed in an idle hour;

      Between