LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 PS 2 8 7S 
 gfjaii GujtJjrisliT ^n 
 
 Shelf .-S2.L 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE FRAILTIES OF liyMAMlT 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS, 
 
 / BY 
 
 W. H. SMITH, M.D., Ph.D. 
 
 
 9rc/ 
 
 _ / 
 
 " ClO^ 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 THE IRVING CO., PUBLISHERS, 
 
 10 AND 12 Vandbwater Street. 
 

 Copyright, 1894, 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. SMITH. 
 
To all the noble army^ 
 
 Who toil for others' good 
 In daily lives that honor 
 
 Our common brotherhood^ 
 Thus showing that the spirit 
 
 In them hath been imbibed 
 To make the world the better^ 
 
 This volume is inscribed. 
 
PROEM, 
 
 Tills book is but a simple tome 
 
 Designed to cheer the heart and home, 
 
 To bring before the mind at ease 
 
 The thonghts that profit and that please. 
 
 And lead sojourners on the earth 
 
 To truths immortal in their worth. 
 
 A book when taken at its best 
 Is nothing but a welcome guest; 
 With pleasures that can never cloy, 
 A certain source of perfect joy. 
 That leaves its nutriment behind 
 lu pabulum to feed the mind. 
 
 The one who bows at wisdom's shrine. 
 And follows in her ways divine. 
 To knowledge that exalts the mind 
 Above the others of his kind, 
 Will learn this truth to comprehend: 
 Each worthy volume is his friend. 
 
 Books are with all their power fraught 
 The treasure-house of ancient thought, 
 That bring to view the days of ycre. 
 And reproduce the worthy lore. 
 As by the magic of the pen 
 Is kept alive the former men. 
 
VI 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 We, like the pebbles on the shore. 
 Are swept before the billow's roar, 
 A monient's life, a transient breath. 
 And then an endless rest in death. 
 Yet age to age tlie truth will last 
 As books anniliilate the past. 
 
 Within their pages may be sought 
 The gems of pure exalted thought, 
 AVith pregnant power to impart 
 A moral motor to the heart, 
 Becoming thus for paths untried 
 The human mentor, cliart and guide. 
 
 Full armed with power to enthuse 
 In others' lives exalted views, 
 The spirit of the master mitids 
 Through authors' tomes forever finds 
 Its vent in ways designed to please 
 And make us wisdom's legatees. 
 
 For on the conflicts of this age. 
 Directing yet the early sage 
 From out tlie antelucan night 
 Emits a steady glow of light, 
 More brilliant than the pyrosome's. 
 To guide us by his ancient tomes. 
 
 Companions in our hours of ease. 
 Adapted to instruct and please. 
 Enabling those of humble fate 
 To hold communion with the great 
 And master minds upon the eartli, 
 Good books are priceless in their worth. 
 
PROEM. 7ii 
 
 In hope this volume may commend 
 Itself to otliers as a friend. 
 In merit meet to play a part. 
 Ennobling to the mind and heart 
 Of those who read from day to day. 
 The author sends it on its way. 
 
THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY. 
 
 Though people's failings may appear. 
 If mentioned, rather strange and queer, 
 And cause those hit to rave and storm. 
 Yet thus perchance may come reform. 
 So I will indicate a few, 
 And tell how strangely people do, 
 While treading o'er life's changing way, 
 Appear and act from day to day. 
 
 Perhaps we first should say that man,. 
 So nobly formed on God's own plan. 
 Doth for his fall in sin and shame. 
 On woman seek to throw the blame. 
 Declaring that 'twas Eve that ate 
 The apple bringing baleful fate. 
 Yet quite forgets the counter-tale 
 That Satan ranks in sex as male. 
 
 Just think of that, then answer this: 
 Who was it gave the traitor kiss? 
 No woman did the thing abhorred. 
 Nor Peter-like denied her Lord, 
 Nor from the Jewish Rabbi fled. 
 But at the cross in duty led. 
 She lingered last, her love was brave 
 Who first appeared beside the grave. 
 
10 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Of woman so divinely meek 
 Dotli evil tongues in slander speak^ 
 As married monsters do declare 
 That she is versed in pulling hair. 
 Asserting one may feai- to sleep, 
 Or ride, or walk, or run, or leap, 
 But not to marry e'en a fop. 
 If he should but the question pop. 
 
 No greater dangers can be found 
 Than in the marriage state abound, 
 Yet woman braves these o^er and o'er; 
 And Horace taught in days of yore 
 That when she's asked to do the thing 
 A singer can't be led to sing, 
 But when she once performs a piece 
 It takes some tact to make her cease. 
 
 Should any of our women meet 
 An Eastern one in naked feet, 
 They would consider slie was rude 
 To have those parts exposed and nude. 
 While she in turn might scoff and sneer 
 To see our charming ones appear 
 Without a veil upon the face, 
 Believing this a deep disgrace. 
 
 Although against her man inveigh, 
 Yet he can learn from woman's way; 
 For what she cannot gain in fact 
 By force, she brings about by tact. 
 As seen when Samson found at length 
 That all his vaunted giant strength 
 Could not excite a woman's fears; 
 She whipped him with a pair of shears. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 11 
 
 Whene'er a liiisbaiid beats liis wife 
 And lives witli her m daily strife, 
 Some wonder how they get along, 
 Tiie weaker matched against the strong, 
 And think her lot is very drear, 
 Without a ray of hope to clieer; 
 But then she has this solace still, 
 Perchance he soon may make his will. 
 
 Who sees a gallon whiskey jug, 
 Borne by a man with battered plug. 
 May feel assured the poorest steak 
 Is wdiat he to his home will take. 
 Thus for the pleasure from the still 
 His wife and children jiay the bill; 
 Yet she such comforts should not scorn 
 Who married him to brino- j-eform. 
 
 Of frogs and toads I've learned in fact. 
 They will not do a single act 
 Against their own and highest good, 
 As using poisons for their food. 
 No frog will e'er tobacco chew. 
 And whiskey'd make a snake feel blue. 
 But man will use the baleful stuff 
 And rob his wife to get enough. 
 
 When joined beneath the nuptial yoke 
 Man claims to be the sturdy oak, 
 While woman as the clinging vine 
 Around his rugged form should twine; 
 But when with whiskey man's asoak. 
 Pie does not seem to be an oak. 
 While woman, stiri-ed by love divine. 
 Acts quite unlike a clinging vine. 
 
12 THE FBAILT1E8 OF HUMANITY 
 
 In speaking of the woman kind. 
 The weaker vessel, bear in mind, 
 Is what men say; but then I guess 
 She has her Avays to aid and bless. 
 And as they journey on in life, 
 ^Tis sometimes man, and sometimes wife. 
 Who mainly bears the work along; 
 The weaker vessel oft is strong. 
 
 In sickness also, one must see 
 How very cranky man can be; 
 For, when his family are in need, 
 The doctor's bills he's apt to heed; 
 But when the man himself is sick, 
 For cost he caretli not a nick. 
 As thoughtless he will then endure 
 The largest bills to gain a cui'e. 
 
 Though feigned diseases will appear, 
 With others brought about by fear, 
 Yet stranger still doth seem the trick 
 Of those who fancy they are sick. 
 As human beings surely can, 
 When naught in fact doth ail the man, 
 Who calls physicians for the cure 
 Of that which he cannot endure. 
 
 For such diseases, it is said, 
 The doctors make their pills of bread. 
 And with a remedy so pure 
 Effect by faith a wondrous cure; 
 As by the power of bread to save 
 They often keep men from the grave. 
 And whore its virtues will jiva,il 
 The patient soon becorneth hale. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 13 
 
 Physicians sometimes are coerced 
 To call eacli case tliey treat the worst, 
 For wlien in bed a man doth lie. 
 With any chance for him to die. 
 He'd rather have a bad disease 
 Than from a milder his decease; 
 Or, if restored, there's comfort in 
 The knowledge of how sick lie's been. 
 
 Whenever man is very ill. 
 To recompense the doctor's skill 
 He promises, whate'er the sum. 
 The money certainly shall come ; 
 But when restored to perfect health, 
 To live in pleasure and in wealth, 
 Enjoying life from day to day, 
 He often will forget to pay. 
 
 Of nostrums, that a qnack doth sell, 
 The people will with wonder tell; 
 About the way they can restore. 
 And bring the dead to life once more. 
 As remedies from strangers bought 
 Appear to them with marvels fraught. 
 While to physicians whom they know 
 They'd scarcely take the time to go. 
 
 An Indian doctor is the thing 
 To open wide the purse's string. 
 And reach the money for the art 
 Of healing graven on his heart ; 
 Wherein, 'tis thought, a savage can 
 Surpass an educated man; 
 Hence with disease and danger rife 
 To him is oft entrusted life. 
 
14 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Since human folly is so blind, 
 
 Physicians are of every kind. 
 
 Some using drugs, and some the shakes, 
 
 To cure the many ills and aches, 
 
 And patients' whims, that in their range 
 
 So varied seem exceeding strange ; 
 
 Yet lack of wisdom will appear 
 
 In other lines that are as queer. 
 
 As when the grangers of the land. 
 So honest, are by spite unmanned. 
 And show a trifling weakness too. 
 For with an enmity in view. 
 Forgetting cost, they sometimes draw 
 Their neighbors to the courts at law, 
 And, wdiile they seek each other's harm. 
 Will let the lawyer take the farm. 
 
 I have a picture now in mind 
 Which illustrates a case in kind: 
 Two farmers once began a row 
 About an old and brindle cow. 
 And anxious each to win the fight. 
 The picture showed the one aright 
 Was pulling horns, the other tail. 
 And lawyer milking in the pail. 
 
 A man who vainly tried to preach. 
 In order deathless souls to reach. 
 But failing, medicine assayed. 
 And though a like result was made. 
 Success in law quite quickly won. 
 Once being asked how this was done, 
 Keplied: *'For spite men pay far more 
 Than souls or bodies to restore," 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 15 
 
 E'en with the purpose of the court 
 Some actions scarcely will comport, 
 As when a witness, sworn forsooth. 
 To tell exactly all the truth, 
 Doth barely on his tale begin, 
 When lawyers put objections in. 
 And strive, cross-questioning so sly. 
 To make the witness tell a lie. 
 
 The clergy are the men of God, 
 Above their fellows of the sod, 
 A noble calling, true and grand. 
 No better found in all the land 
 Than those He summoned to the task. 
 And yet the wages paid they ask, 
 And of two churches choose the one 
 Which gives of cash the largest sum. 
 
 While all these men of righteous aim 
 Desire but sinners to reclaim, 
 Yet what the church demands they do 
 To draw and fill each vacant pew. 
 And while the Gospel way they teach 
 May even fail the poor to reach; 
 But wealthy sinners they must please. 
 And then the church can be at ease. 
 
 Some men are found so very loth 
 To use a low and vulgar oath. 
 Should they thus vent their spirits riled. 
 They would believe their hearts defiled; 
 But then they will by angry act 
 Express the self-same thing; in fact. 
 Their wooden swearing means a damn. 
 As when they give the door a slam. 
 
16 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 And hypocrites we often meet, 
 
 Whose polished tongues deceive and cheat; 
 
 Who tell with shameless brazen face 
 
 How other men are vilely base. 
 
 Forgetting that it must appear 
 
 That those esteemed most perfect here 
 
 Are men of unassuming worth. 
 
 And not too good to walk the earth. 
 
 The mote that's in a brother's eye 
 Man is quite prone to magnify. 
 But sees no beam within his own. 
 Or seeing will the same disown; 
 And in his sermons from the texb 
 The man too often predilects 
 The golden rule to others teach. 
 As theirs to practice, his to preach. 
 
 Although of idols men claim none. 
 We often can distinguish one. 
 Absurd enough to cause a laugh, 
 As being but a golden calf; 
 Yet by devotion most extreme 
 His love for it appears supreme, 
 As like the Israelites of old 
 He worships at the shrine of gold. 
 
 Whenever one departs from earth. 
 The people tell his wondrous worth. 
 And will his life as richly paint 
 As if the man had been a saint. 
 Contrast with those when life is o'er 
 The stories current long before. 
 And then perchance we'll have a sight 
 Of him shown up in truthful light. 
 
AND OTIlKll POEMS. 17 
 
 It may be well to pniise the dead, 
 But if good things ai-e to be said, 
 And kind words men desire to give, 
 IM rather hear them while I live; 
 The good that men may speak of me 
 Might thus become a source of glee. 
 But, if they wait till I am dead, 
 It matters little what is said. 
 
 Our cherished lost we should respect. 
 Yet people know, if they reflect. 
 That many bury in the grave 
 The money which they ought to save 
 To buy the living food to eat. 
 Forgetting that it is unmeet 
 Beyond one's proper means to go 
 To make a grand funereal show. 
 
 Again we always mourn for those 
 AVho have escaped from earthly woes, 
 !N"ot stopping oft to note that this 
 Is but the way to endless bliss. 
 And that our loved ones in the grave 
 A legacy of pleasure gave, 
 By bright companionship of worthy 
 To us while living on the earth. 
 
 All men are equal, so ^twas said 
 By those who for our freedom bled. 
 Which may be true before the law, 
 But otherwise will show a flaw; 
 As some with brains of largest size 
 In wealth and power will quickly rise. 
 While other heads of smaller space 
 In lower ranks will find a place. 
 
18 THE FRA ILTIE8 OF HUMANITY 
 
 The Publicans may kneel and pray. 
 But Pharisees will have their clay; 
 The soul of one is shown in grace. 
 The other's heart is proud and base. 
 Some men are honest, grand and true. 
 While others doth the vile pursue; 
 To call them equal would proclaim 
 That right and wrong were both the same. 
 
 The Hindoo makes a god of clay 
 To which he's wont to bow and pray, 
 And, though they worship things like these. 
 Such people, when their gods displease. 
 Will punish them with whip or rod. 
 And worship then the self-same god. 
 Divine the forms thus thrashed they hold. 
 Though how "'tis done cannot be told. 
 
 E'en so it is in things of state, 
 Where human-made the leaders great 
 Are worshipped, though so oft relax. 
 And punished with avenging whacks; 
 Yet confidence they do not lose. 
 Though varied trusts they may abuse. 
 For people strangely can believe 
 Such men will not again deceive. 
 
 In common life we see, in fact. 
 How singular the people act; 
 The social fib and pure deceit 
 AVill spring from lips to please or cheat. 
 While sham will have a ready place. 
 And walk the streets with brazen face. 
 To make a show and win esteem. 
 Thus men are rarely what they seem. 
 
AND OTUFAl POEMS. 19 
 
 On New Year's dny, man doth resolve 
 Th"t he will self from vice absolve. 
 He'll cense to smoke and stop his drink; 
 From filthy habits he will shrink; 
 A new life people then begin, 
 Exempt from every phase of sin. 
 And in this thing they are sincere. 
 But fall to start anew each year. 
 
 Thus men live on from day to day; 
 Though sometimes right they're oft astray; 
 Their fine reforms will come to naught. 
 As by old vice they're quickly caught, 
 And in the toils and meshes deep 
 The native self above will keep. 
 And raise them up to lives of worth — 
 Or actiiig sham they walk the earth. 
 
 THE PRESENT HUMANITY BETTER THAN 
 THE PAST. 
 
 Do not forget the progress. 
 
 While viewing the sham of the age. 
 For there is no brighter record 
 
 Inscribed on history's page 
 Than the grand and glorious present; 
 
 As the world forever moves, 
 And with all its vice and folly 
 
 The human race improves. 
 
 The mighty host of righteous, 
 
 Sui'passing in number the base, 
 And endowed with Chiistian fervor, 
 
 By virtue honor the race, 
 As they follow the Master's footsteps 
 
 In the way the spirit leads. 
 Through nobleness of manliood 
 
 To pure and lofty deeds. 
 
20 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Weave them the crown of honor 
 
 Belonging to excellent worth. 
 Who by grand, nnselfish action 
 
 Do good upon the earth, 
 Whose humanity is stronger 
 
 Than the sordid love of greed. 
 And never stoops to baseness, 
 
 But keejis the Christian creed. 
 
 TRUE COURAGE. 
 
 True courage consists in the doing 
 
 Of deeds with the manliest grace. 
 And never avoiding the dangers 
 
 Which duty may call one to face; 
 Thus tested though bad frightened soldiers 
 
 In battle were always about. 
 Yet those should be counted as heroes 
 
 Who didn't let their legs find it out. 
 
 UNNECESSARY. 
 
 I must live, said the dolt. 
 But a wise man replied. 
 
 That need, sir, no one 
 Could discern, if he tried. 
 
 THE GENTLEMAN. 
 
 By chance a lone washwoman, passing the street. 
 Some lads of the village once hap[*ened to meet, 
 AVhen one quickly raising his hat from his head, 
 ** Good-morning," politely and fittingly said. 
 His playmates deriding, declared it a shame, 
 'J'hat a lady and woman were treated the same; 
 Yet her standing, quoth he, is not questioned in fact. 
 But do I as a gentleman know how to act. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 21 
 
 That answer was noble, and gave a reproof, 
 
 Which otliers shoiihl heed, for ihe lad spoke the trntli; 
 
 As often one's acts to the lowly of earth 
 
 Eeveal nature's nobleman, peerless in worth, 
 
 Far better than treatment of wealthy and great. 
 
 Since all men will honor a lordly estate; 
 
 Bnt a gentleman's dress on the back of a boor 
 
 Is often disclosed when he meets with the poor. 
 
 No gentleman ever, with gibe and with jeer, 
 
 AVill rail at a woman howe'er she appear, 
 
 Or the mother who bore him, ashamed of her son, 
 
 AVould blush in deep sorrow for what he had done; 
 
 Forever around ns in visions so bright 
 
 Stand women as mothers, true angels of light. 
 
 And scorned be the monster whose heart is so base 
 
 That he would the sex of his mother disgrace. 
 
 No gentleman either in wrong will persist, 
 
 Or think to show courage by shaking his fist 
 
 In the face of another, or under his nose ; 
 
 Such acts show the ruffian, whatever his clothes , 
 
 No low, filthy habit like whiskey's misuse. 
 
 Nor chewing tobacco, or other abuse; 
 
 Not clothing nor jewels give greatness to man. 
 
 But by deeds that are noble you may lead in the van. 
 
 As honesty often will keep a man poor. 
 
 Who is steadfast to I'ight howe'er wealth may allure, 
 
 So civility spoils reputations for wit 
 
 When good breeding bars one from makiiig a hit; 
 
 For gentlemen never make light of men's woes, 
 
 But o'er others' failui'es their eyelids will close, 
 
 Since the latter were given by (jod from the skies 
 
 To prevent adverse vision by closing the eyes. 
 
22 TJiE FRAIL Tim OF BUM AN IT f 
 
 Yet better than maimers, aye, grandest of earth, 
 
 Is character ever of excellent worth, 
 
 Wheu witnessed by deeds that in spirit divine 
 
 Like those of the Master in purity shine ; 
 
 For stainless in heart are lininanity's best, 
 
 And this rule that is golden thy manhood will test: 
 
 If a gentleman, always to others you'll do 
 
 As you would that others should do nnto you. 
 
 THE CROWNING WORK OF CREATION. 
 
 AVhen God had made this Avorld of ours. 
 
 And set tlie stars in glory bright 
 W^ithin the heavenly firmament. 
 
 To give celestial light. 
 And brought the varied creatures forth, 
 
 W^itli wisdom superhuman 
 He crowned creation with that grand 
 
 And matchless work, a woman. 
 
 Divinely fasliioned and endowed 
 
 With love to rule the earth, 
 AVith beauty's fascinating charms. 
 
 And soul of peerless worth. 
 Supremely grand and pure of heart, 
 
 Angelic-like, yet human, 
 The fairest, brightest and the best 
 
 Of all God's works is woman. 
 
 EGOTISM. 
 
 Some men resemble cabbage. 
 
 Doing well at first. 
 But getting then the big-head. 
 
 They are apt to burst. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 23 
 
 THE MAKVELOUS AYORKS OF GOD. 
 
 Men talk about the miracles 
 
 In volumes old and sooty, 
 AVhile all around are miracles 
 
 In living forms of beauty ; 
 For every blade of growing grass. 
 
 And every blooming floAver 
 Attest in glory, as we pass, 
 
 Tlieir Maker's matchless power. 
 
 And every animal that lives, 
 
 On land or in the ocean. 
 By perfect plan in grandeur gives 
 
 A tribute for devotion ; 
 While farther still our vision brings. 
 
 From ages dim ajid hoary, 
 A vanished host of living things. 
 
 All miracles of glory. 
 
 For all the forms upon the earth, 
 
 The living and the fossil. 
 Declare the power that gave them birth 
 
 In grandeur was colossal; 
 While tiny types in wisdom pearled 
 
 Disclose upon inspection 
 That everything within the world 
 
 Is absolute perfection. 
 
 And later, when the somber night 
 
 Doth mantle all things over, 
 Beside the glow-worm's murky light 
 
 Each moth becomes a rover. 
 The dusky owl pursues its prey, 
 
 The song-birds cease their wooing. 
 While dew-producing mistic spray 
 
 The earth with gems is strewing. 
 
24 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Around the queen of niglit displayed, 
 
 In grandeur all combining, 
 Are myriad hosts of stars arrayed. 
 
 Like diamonds brightly shining, 
 That bear the soul on fancy's wing, 
 
 Above all worldly pleasure, 
 To view the universal king, 
 
 Whose glory none can measure. 
 
 Though earth will everywhere disclose 
 
 Rich themes for contemplation. 
 Yet 'tis the night that really shows 
 
 The vastness of creation; 
 For every distant star's a sun. 
 
 With worlds like ours, but greater, 
 A fiat of the Mighty One, 
 
 The Infinite Creator. 
 
 And in the distant realms of space, 
 
 Beyoud mere human vision, 
 The telescope new worlds will trace 
 
 V/ith wonderful precision. 
 Each one in workmanship divine. 
 
 Illumined to engender 
 The thought that God alone can shine 
 
 In omnipresent splendor. 
 
 NATURE SUBDUES MAN. 
 
 Though man boasts of liis triumphs o'er nature indeed, 
 And how of her forces the many he'll lead, 
 'Tis a wrong way of s})eaking of what hath been done; 
 In the conflicts with her it was nature which won; 
 Her laws have existed through ages long passed; 
 Unchanging and fixed they'll eti'i-nally last; 
 To utilize them man must work in her way; 
 Instead of subduing he must really obey. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 25 
 
 LITHOPHYLLS. 
 
 Th,e myriad leaves that grew on earth 
 
 A mi 11 ion years ago, 
 Tiieir form and outline on the rock 
 
 In firm impressions show. 
 
 They lived and fell as life must do, 
 
 And crumbled in decay, 
 But wrote their epitaphs in stone. 
 
 Which will not pass away. 
 
 Each midrib, vein, and dentate edge. 
 
 Thou oh eons intervene, 
 Unyielding as enduring stone. 
 
 Is still in beauty seen. 
 
 And thus, though frail and tender things. 
 
 And delicate at birth. 
 These fragile leaves by nature's laws 
 
 Are permanent as earth. 
 
 E'en so may we in ages hence 
 
 Have left our impress here, 
 In thoughts and words and actions done. 
 
 That will not disappear. 
 
 We are not born on earth to die. 
 
 For aye the spiiit thrives, 
 And what we are is reproduced 
 
 In other people's lives. 
 
 Each man may lose his name and place, 
 
 And seem to be foi'got, 
 Yet what he did and what he said, 
 
 From earth will perish not. 
 
S6 THE FRAILTIES OP HUMANITY 
 
 A coral host within the sea 
 
 Its reef niuy slowly raise. 
 And dying make an island where 
 
 A hungry herd may graze. 
 
 A host of microscopic life 
 
 Once swarmed upon the sands. 
 
 And through their bodies formed the bills 
 Where lliclimond proudly stands. 
 
 Thus tiny and insensate life 
 Hath made these nseful iiills, 
 
 And by completion of their work 
 Endure like lithophylls. 
 
 Before the pristine man appeared, 
 
 The ancient earth once trod 
 Unnumbered types and forms of life 
 
 Seen only by their God. 
 
 Though many such became extinct, 
 
 The record of their lives 
 From petrifactions in the rocks 
 
 The human race derives. 
 
 Though thoughtless of impressions made. 
 
 Bestirred by want alone, 
 These fossil forms have left behind 
 
 Their photographs in stone. 
 
 Like mummies from Egyptian tombs. 
 
 And all the human kind, 
 They fell before the reaper Death, 
 
 But left their trail behind. 
 
 A traveler up the mountain side 
 Once asked a guide the way. 
 
 But climbing hesitated when 
 He heard the other sav: 
 
AND OTTim POEMS. 21 
 
 it 
 
 Clieei' lip, my frieiirl, tlie way is rough. 
 But I lijive gone before, 
 And what I've done you also can. 
 Take heart and try once inoi-e." 
 
 That inspiration sent to him, 
 
 As voice from out tlie deep, 
 And stimulated by the woi-ds,- 
 
 He climbed the rugged steep. 
 
 Thus inspiration comes to us 
 
 In voices from the dead, 
 Who tell us as they've gone before 
 
 To follow in their tread. 
 
 In myriad ways the dead still speak 
 
 As through a great machine 
 Devised to do the work of man 
 
 Their toil and brain are seen. 
 
 For every great invention which 
 
 Our race may proudly gain 
 Is but the child tli rough ages grown 
 
 From some departed brain. 
 
 Though modern science proudly shines, 
 
 Resplendent evermore, 
 Yet all must trace its rudiments 
 
 In those who went before. 
 
 No scholar in these modern times 
 
 Astronomy could learn 
 Had not the long-departed ones 
 
 Observed the planets turn. 
 
 And none could master any branch 
 
 Wherein he might be leil 
 If forced to trace its rudiments 
 .Unaided by tiie dead. 
 
28 THE FRAIL TIES OF HUM A NITY 
 
 Instructed by the Saracens 
 In sines and surds and roots, 
 
 Tlie modern scholar proudly now 
 In algebra computes. 
 
 The old Phoenicians lived and gave 
 
 The world an alphabet. 
 They died, but still those letters are 
 
 In use among us yet. 
 
 The Indian scholars long ago 
 Through Arab channels sent 
 
 To Europe for arithmetic. 
 The figures grandly lent. 
 
 The Saracens through chemistry 
 
 Proclaim from pole to pole 
 A science that throughout the world 
 
 Shall human life control. 
 
 From Coster and through Guttenberg 
 The printing press imparts 
 
 The royal art preservative 
 Of all the other arts. 
 
 Hippocrates, and Themison, 
 
 And Galen all are dead. 
 But yet their obsei'vations made 
 
 In medicine are read. 
 
 Although Pare is in his tomb, 
 As wounds no longer burn. 
 
 The ligature benignly stands 
 A trophy o'er liis urn. 
 
 A Jenner dead may yet proclaim 
 His conquests o'er an«l o'er. 
 
 Through vaccination which declares 
 That small-pox be no more. 
 
AND OTHEll POEMS. 29 
 
 A Harvey speaks in flowing blood, 
 
 Jacquard still i-uns his loom, 
 And Hunter yet in aneurisms 
 
 Saves mortals from the tomb. 
 
 A Priestly shows us oxygen," 
 
 A Franklin flies his kite. 
 And Morse behind tlie telegraph 
 
 Still stands in living light. 
 
 A Hargreaves runs his jenny yet, 
 
 A Watt the throttle moves. 
 And Fulton lives in steamboat lines 
 
 As age on age improves. 
 
 A Leibnitz speaks through calculus, 
 
 A Kepler in his laws, 
 A Galileo moves the world. 
 
 And Newton shows the cause. 
 
 Inventing logarythmic lore 
 
 A Napier lives to-day. 
 Since doubling astronomic lifo 
 
 He could not pass away. 
 
 These men called dead will never die, 
 
 For lol in matchless worth, 
 Througli works that elevate the race 
 
 Their spirits walk the earth. 
 
 They are the dear departed ones. 
 
 Who, absent from us here. 
 In thoughts and acts and peerless deeds 
 
 Are still forever near. 
 
 Forever shine those lofty souls 
 
 Who from the glorious root 
 And tree of immortality 
 
 Have plucked the living fruit. 
 
30 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 For nobleness in other lines 
 
 The hnniun race enshrine, 
 The lofty souls wlio ilo the work 
 
 That seems to us divine. 
 
 Thus Sadi, who in Shiraz groves. 
 Through sweetness of iiis song, . 
 
 Became the Persian nightingale. 
 Immortal lives along. 
 
 A Hafiz, scorning every court. 
 
 With bright poetic fire. 
 Still lives amid the Persian vales 
 
 With magic in his lyre. 
 
 To stately verse a Milton yet 
 
 A rich profusioii givesj 
 And in the thoughts that cannot die 
 
 Immortal Shakespeare lives. 
 
 A Dante in his ^' Comedy " 
 
 Forevermore will shine, 
 As by his grand and matchless work 
 
 The man became divine. 
 
 Paul Gerhard ages past hath joined 
 The silent, sleeping throng. 
 
 But lives in* German sacred verse 
 Unequaled still in song. 
 
 A Macias in his strains of love 
 
 Lives on historic page. 
 As one who left tlirough human hearts 
 
 An impress on his age. 
 
 Camoens in his ^'Lusiad^' 
 
 Exalts his country's fame, 
 And Portugal its honors still 
 
 Bestow upon his name. 
 
ANIi OTHER POEMS. ai 
 
 Thongli EvaUrs soul went out in grief. 
 
 His verses pure and sti'ong, 
 Neglected once, liave now become 
 
 The Dauisli nation's song. 
 
 Bold Lodbrok stands in prison vile, 
 
 Inhales the serpent's breatli, 
 And fearless writes for ages hence 
 
 His famous song of death. 
 
 To Vondel, Father Cats and Bor, 
 
 A race its tribute brings, 
 And in the Netherlands to-day 
 
 The '' Swan of Holland " sings. 
 
 The persecuted Troubadours 
 
 0[)pressed by blighting wrong, 
 Produced in France a ^^ Court of Love,'' 
 
 Resurgent from their song. 
 
 Amid the darkness and the mists 
 
 A Geijer seeking truth, 
 Hath traced the haunts of mortals when 
 
 The earth was in its youth. 
 
 Tegner then follows in his track. 
 And from these ancient bones 
 A new inspired Saga comes, 
 . To speak in runic tones. 
 
 Of Christians battling with the Moors, 
 
 And Spanish life antique, 
 A thousand ballads still extant 
 
 Thi'ough nameless authors speak. 
 
 Unnumbered bards in every land 
 
 Thus shared the common lot. 
 Yet left their songs in human hearts. 
 
 From which they perish not. 
 
32 TUL: FnAILTll^:S OF nUMANIVY 
 
 Their ballads reaching back amid 
 
 The infancy of earth, 
 Beyond tlie childhood of our race, 
 
 Describe it from its birth. 
 
 Long ere the dawn of history, 
 
 Thus bards benignly stand 
 To voice the thoughts and hopes of man 
 
 Within the youthful land. 
 
 The annals that their songs have kept. 
 
 With gems of genius pearled, 
 In molding scholarship to-day. 
 
 Are potent in the world. 
 
 The tales of paganism dead 
 
 Tiie Servic poet tells, 
 Kesembling as they come to us 
 
 The chimes of distant bells. 
 
 The Pharaohs and the Ptolemies 
 
 Long since were overthrown, 
 Yet left the key to trace their lives 
 
 Upon Rosetta stone. 
 
 The Christly sermon on the mount 
 
 Unnntnbered hosts yet thrill. 
 And Peter, Matthew, Mark and Luke 
 
 And Paul are preaching still. 
 
 Immortal thus the record stands 
 
 Of those who lived of yore. 
 Whose thoughts and deeds will sway men's hearts 
 
 Till time shall be no more. 
 
 The nations rise, the nations fall, 
 
 But books tlie lands outlast. 
 In volumes tliat but garner up 
 
 The life of all the past. 
 
AND Til Ell POEMS. 33 
 
 Of ages gone the works produced 
 
 The bright coiisn inmate llower. 
 Abiding stil! to civilize 
 
 Appear with niatcliless power. 
 
 In other ways the deathless dead 
 
 Their accents still prolong, 
 Ke-echoed down the aisles of time 
 
 In ever-present song. 
 
 Unnumbered bards in modern times 
 
 Resetting but bequeath 
 To ns the flowers of ages gone, 
 
 In one grand floral wreath. 
 
 Thus authors in the present days 
 
 But rouse the dead once more, 
 And borrow for their polished works 
 
 From genius gone before. 
 
 An ancient trouvere lived and died. 
 
 Yet from his song Voltaire 
 Derived the thought that now appears 
 
 Rewritten in his "Zaire." 
 
 Another trouvere passed away 
 
 And seemed to be forgot, 
 Yet " Renard '' came from Goethe's pen 
 
 To prove he dieth not. 
 
 A Swabic legend makes a "Faust/^ 
 
 Whom authors dramatize, 
 And Goethe's genius reproduced 
 
 In verse that never dies. 
 
 In rincienfc Greece Euripides 
 
 x\ii '• I})Mi?zenia " wrote, 
 While lo ! Racine and Goethe's pens 
 
 That tale embellished quote. 
 
34 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 The beauty of tlie Gi-ecian thought 
 
 Is reproduced to view, 
 But changed by genius' lofty touch 
 
 To seem sublimely new. 
 
 '' Laocoon," that brilliant gem. 
 
 Is but an ancient lay 
 Eeset in modern German verse 
 
 As Lessing's borrowed lay. 
 
 By apologues that imitate 
 Tlie ones in J^sop's name, . 
 
 Lokman attained the topmost height 
 Of Oriental fame. 
 
 And joining with these fables new. 
 
 To glory Phgedrus rose, 
 While to the self-same apologues 
 
 Fontaine his honor owes. 
 
 Through '^Jack the Giant Killer" still. 
 And Blue Beard's broken tryst. 
 
 The ancient Scandinavic bards 
 In modern times exist. 
 
 Though Hungary her Josika 
 
 Exalts to rightful fame, 
 Yet all concede from Walter Scott 
 
 His borrowed model came. 
 
 The '' Faerie Land," from Spenser's pen. 
 
 Of life in times remote. 
 Was fashioned largely by the thoughts 
 
 Which Ariosto wrote. 
 
 A ^' Fatal Dowry" was produced 
 
 By Massinger of old. 
 And in a Rowe's *'Fair Penitent" 
 
 The story is retold. 
 
AND OTllKll rOKMS. 35 
 
 A formula for writin.g plays 
 
 Dumas obtained from Scribe, 
 Wiiich Ibsen's genius tben transformed 
 
 To please his Northern tribe. 
 
 A hint from Andreini came 
 
 To Milton's giant mind, 
 And Paradise sublimely Lost 
 
 Ennobles all mankind. 
 
 Resetting Milton's ''Paradise" 
 
 A Klopstock rose to fame, 
 And chosen gems of Vico's thought 
 
 Appear in Herder's name. 
 
 John Lydgate read Boccaccio's verse 
 
 And made the tale his own. 
 So from his pen and through his theft 
 
 The " Fall of Princes" shone. 
 
 The framework of that glorious hymn 
 
 That Coleridge fame hath won 
 Was lifted boldly to Mont Blanc 
 
 From Fred erica Brun. 
 
 is' pen 
 Is seen in ^' i^Iontemayor/' 
 Whose proud Diana tlms appears 
 In I orrowed Grecian lore. 
 
 Thence Tasso's bright "x\minta " came, 
 
 Guarini's ''Fido'^' too, 
 And Ramsey's "Gentle Shepherd" next 
 
 Upon the model grew. 
 
 The letters of Philostratus 
 
 Awoke Ben Jonson's lyre. 
 To ''Drinking Only with Thine Eyes," 
 
 In rich but borrowed fire. 
 
36 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 And so Philostratiis before 
 Through other authors trod, 
 
 And from our Saviour record cribbed 
 His ''Visit of a God/' 
 
 A Dnphnis and a Chloe's love, 
 
 The fond devoted pair, 
 Whom Longus traced in Lesbos isle. 
 
 Was cribbed by St. Pierre. 
 
 From Siillust, who in ancient Eome 
 
 Grew to enduring fame, 
 The model of Diego's war 
 
 Against Granada came. 
 
 And Sallust hath his style derived 
 
 From Gi'eek Thucydides, 
 While many of his brightest thoughts 
 
 Came from Isocrates. 
 
 Macauley's hit at Doctor Nares 
 Was filched from Boccalin, 
 
 And his well-knovv-n 'New Zealander 
 In Volney may be seen. 
 
 Dumont let fall the gems of thought 
 
 Which Mirabeau retook, 
 And Fox was often primed by Burke, . 
 
 And Burke by Bolingbroke. 
 
 And Paley's watch, which all admire. 
 
 Seems hardly his aright. 
 But cribbed to serve a noble aim 
 
 From learned Nieuwentyt. 
 
 Thus authors come and authors go. 
 But still their thoughts live on, 
 
 With potent might to move the world 
 When they are dead and gone. 
 
AND OTUm POEMS. 37 
 
 The greatest minds tlius often crib 
 
 From those who lived of old. 
 But always borrow silver gems 
 
 And set the gems in gold. 
 
 With giimt strength they grasp the truth. 
 
 Like diamonds meet to shine. 
 And polish it by genius touch 
 
 Until it seems divine. 
 
 ^Tis ever thus that we progress. 
 
 Since fire long ago 
 Our fathers through Prometheus stole 
 
 To set the world aglow. 
 
 The early men from others stole 
 
 The truths they learned of yoi'e. 
 The Greeks the proud Chaldeans robbed. 
 
 And Egypt of its lore. 
 
 The world in progress journeyed on 
 
 By adding truth to truth, 
 Forgetting not what others learned 
 
 When it was in its youth. 
 
 Tims all which Egypt, Gi'eece, and Rome, 
 
 And proud Judea k'arned. 
 And Babylon of old observed. 
 
 Is even yet discerned. 
 
 The golden age of Pericles, 
 
 And Rome's Augustan song, 
 And England's Queen Elizabeth, 
 
 Thus bear their thoughts along. 
 
 And all the knowledge Europe's gained 
 
 Of science and of art, 
 To us as ti-ibutary strejim 
 
 Its glory will impart. 
 
38 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Hence here within the western world. 
 The brightest and the best, 
 
 A nation rose sublimely grand, 
 Eclipsing all the rest. 
 
 But what is nov/ shall brighter be 
 
 As heirs of all the past, 
 Conjoined with all that now exists 
 
 Our own shall be at last. 
 
 The tributes that will come to us 
 
 Before our course is run, 
 Will see the highest hopes of man 
 
 Within this land outdone. 
 
 Divinely, too, the noble dead. 
 Who righted grievous wrong. 
 
 Implanted deep in human hearts 
 Their power still prolong. 
 
 Through lofty inspirations breathed. 
 
 To mortal man so dear, 
 Again in times that call for deeds 
 
 Their spirit wdll appear. 
 
 Forever thus the poet stands, 
 
 A leader in the fight, 
 As 'tis his soul that fires men 
 
 To battle for the right. 
 
 Defeated in Messenian war. 
 
 When lame Tyrteeus sang. 
 The Spartans, fired with ardor new. 
 
 To strife and triumph sprang. 
 
 The ancient ballads touching hearts 
 Of men who were oppressed. 
 
 Aroused the love of liberty 
 Within the human breast. 
 
AND OTHER POKMS. 39 
 
 An English poet cliants a song 
 
 Upon the Bridge of Siglis, 
 That touched a nation^s sense of wrong 
 
 And some injustice dies. 
 
 Cervantes saw fictitious aims 
 
 Control tlie lives of men, 
 And lo! a new-born race appeared, 
 
 The trophy of his pen. 
 
 Against tlie pope and Charles the Fifth, • 
 
 Who ruled the Christian world, 
 Bohl Luther in conviction firm 
 
 His grim defiance hurled. 
 
 Melanchthon toiled, Erasmus wrote, 
 
 And others sought for facts 
 Sustaining Luther^'s stnrdy strength 
 
 To swing his battle ax. 
 
 These great reformers dropped their pens. 
 But through the work they wrought, 
 
 Abide on earth, as soars the wind, 
 Unshackled still in thought. 
 
 The thirty years of blighting war 
 
 Reduced the Gei-man state, 
 Until he)" servile authors aimed 
 
 The French to imitate. 
 
 Then Lessing rose, a master mind. 
 
 Her glory to renew, 
 And brought the language Luther gave 
 
 Sublimely back to view. 
 
 Devoted sons of liberty, 
 
 The Germans still pi'opine 
 To those who served hor long and well. 
 
 Like Arndt and Borne and Heine. 
 
40 THI£ FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 The noble Mrs. Browniug lives 
 
 In words that cannot die, 
 Since all of England she aroused 
 
 To hear the *' Children's Cry/' 
 
 A Cowper touched the shackled slave^ 
 A Burns prolonged the note. 
 
 Till others roused the English heart, 
 Wliich human fetters smote. 
 
 Longfellow in his silver notes 
 
 Ee-echoed England's cry. 
 And Wliittier and Lowell sang. 
 
 This cruel wrong must die. 
 
 As Mrs. Stowe and others wrote 
 The human souls were stirred. 
 
 Until their words 'mid battling hosts 
 Immortal Lincoln heard. 
 
 Long years the German princes toiled 
 
 To make their nation one, 
 When lo! a Bismarck's master mind 
 
 Completes what they begun. 
 
 And yet beneath beclouded skies. 
 
 Appearing always murk, 
 They did not really toil in vain. 
 
 But live in Bismarck's work. 
 
 A giant still in intellect, 
 
 Alfonso lives because 
 His strength of mind in ancient days 
 
 Gave modern Spain her laws. 
 
 And there a Lope de Vega's work 
 
 Extends from age to age, 
 A moldin.g hand which shows him yet 
 
 Tlie monarch of the stage. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 41 
 
 llis pen hath dropped, yet Winkelmann 
 
 KesLirgent doth impart 
 To modern times an ancient world 
 Of sculpture and of art. 
 
 Immortal men abiding still 
 
 Their phantoms thus arise. 
 To lord it o'er the earth for aye. 
 
 And rule in thin disguise. 
 
 The ripened years and hoary age 
 
 Their liuman forms have bowed. 
 But yet they stand like mountain tops 
 
 With heads amid the clouds. 
 
 As sentinels they keep their posts 
 
 In endless watches tried, 
 Or stand as lofty beacon lights 
 
 The paths of men to guide. 
 
 The record of such lives but proves 
 
 A story often told, 
 That where the brute in man is crushed 
 
 The spirit may unfold. 
 
 Thus led to lofty heights attained. 
 
 And summit of renown, 
 They stand w^ith power npon the earth 
 
 Above the sceptered crown. 
 
 For ruling us with potent might. 
 
 Our vauntiugs to impeach, 
 Adown the ages from the past 
 
 The hands of dead men reach. 
 
 Commingled with their matchless work. 
 
 Which must our pride deplume. 
 There rises from the ages gone 
 
 An incubus of gloom. 
 
42 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 For in the outline of the past, 
 
 Less promiuent to view, 
 Remain the ghosts of man's disgrace 
 
 Set firmly in each creux. 
 
 The iron maid of Nuremberg, 
 
 With beauty in her face, 
 But veils the horrid spikes within, 
 
 And terror of embrace. 
 
 The thumbscrew, rack and ducking stool 
 
 As faithful relics keep 
 Still fresh the tale of former days 
 
 When mercy was asleep. 
 
 To all such emblems of our race. 
 
 So shocking now to view. 
 Attesting man's inhuman acts. 
 
 We fain would bid adieu. 
 
 The warriors who have lived and fought 
 
 To win a deathless name. 
 Exhibit deeds that move the world 
 
 Commingled with their fame. 
 
 As Alexander's conquest spread 
 
 A nobler Greece arose 
 Through learning gleaned upon the march 
 
 Against their distant foes. 
 
 Tlie culture that an Athens graced. 
 Where sculpture had its home, 
 
 The ancient eagle's victor tread 
 Transplanted thence to Rome. 
 
 The Roman nation grew by war. 
 And paved the way forsooth, 
 
 In its disruption for the spread 
 Of new-born Christian truth. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 43 
 
 In turn the Saracens arose 
 
 And Allah's flag unfurled, 
 Instructinp^ men in science lore, 
 
 And arts that move the world. 
 
 The ancient Normans came to France 
 
 As bold piratic foes, 
 Yet from the conquest which they wrought 
 
 A line of authors rose. 
 
 New poets struck the lofty lyre 
 
 To notes of rugged strife, 
 In bold, heroic, warlike deeds. 
 
 Not love and idle life. 
 
 Misguided rash fanaticism 
 
 Begat the fierce Crusades, 
 And led the pride of Europe forth 
 
 In bloody, futile raids. 
 
 Yet there amid those scenes of strife 
 
 A new-born commerce sprung, 
 And broader views of brotherhood 
 
 Each bard returning sung. 
 
 Then too the progress of the race 
 
 In Europe was increased, 
 As from the Holy Land her knights 
 
 Brought learning from the East. 
 
 A Bonaparte in haughty pride 
 
 His grim defiance hurled. 
 And led his mighty legions forth 
 
 To conquest of the world. 
 
 But then his proud dominion fell; 
 
 No more the ^Ips and Rhine 
 Composed, as in the ancient days, 
 
 Of France the bounding line. 
 
I 
 
 44 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 And he who ouce gave crowns away 
 
 Was doomed to lose bis own. 
 And die an outcast from ills home 
 
 In prison sad and lone. 
 
 But still his record tells the world 
 
 How vain ain})itions are, 
 Disclosing in his rise and fall 
 
 The bright and waning star. 
 
 In contrast stands a Washington, 
 
 Opponent of tbe wrong, 
 Embalmed in love and sanctified 
 
 In history and song. 
 
 And lo! the nation that he formed 
 
 In glory still shall be 
 The home of millions yet unborn. 
 
 And pride of all the free. 
 
 These men, who changed the maps of earth 
 
 And bounds of many lands. 
 In potent power to sway the world 
 
 Still issue their commands. 
 
 For sturdy blows that free the mind 
 With proud advancement fraught. 
 
 Will often come in feats of arms. 
 And in the battles fought. 
 
 As pure becomes the atmosphere 
 
 Before the lightning's flash, 
 So changed appears tlie state of man 
 
 When mighty armies clash. 
 
 Thus dread volcanoes shoot their flames 
 
 To fertilize the earth, 
 And lands eifete in war will fall, 
 
 And others have their birth. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 45 
 
 The world in times of peace seems bound 
 
 To worship wealth alone, 
 But in the shock and clash of arms 
 
 Bold manhood claims its own. 
 
 The rulers on men's rights encroach 
 
 Till liberty seems dead, 
 When freedom summons men to arms. 
 
 And follows in their tread. 
 
 Beneath tlie sound of clashing swords. 
 
 Where fields of blood arise, 
 And manhood claims the rights of man. 
 
 The despot's power dies. 
 
 The widow's wail, the orphan's cry 
 
 For those who are no more. 
 Is but the price the race has paid 
 
 For progress o'er and o'er. 
 
 Amid the middle ages' night. 
 
 When Europe idly slept, 
 The monks v/ithin the cloistered cells 
 
 The ancient learning kept. 
 
 When by Mohammed's bloody sword 
 
 Constantinople fell. 
 And mosques replaced the Christian church. 
 
 And silenced each cresselle. 
 
 The Grecian scholars in dismay 
 
 To western Europe fled. 
 And carried thence their manuscripts 
 
 An.d writings of the dead. 
 
 The books and scholarship tlius saved, 
 
 Renascent there again, 
 Became the great renaissance power 
 
 In civilizing men. 
 
46 THE FRAILTIES OF IIUMANITT 
 
 New commerce dawned upon the earth, 
 AVhen, scorning ocean gales, 
 
 Around the rocky Cape Good Hope 
 The brave De Gama sails. 
 
 Col nm bus firmly hehl his course 
 
 Mid mutiny and storm. 
 Until the Occident appeared 
 
 To human life transform. 
 
 For matchless bold intrepitude 
 
 Magellan still is crowned. 
 As lacking pilot, wind and chart. 
 
 He proved the earth was round. 
 
 Heroic men, immortal souls, 
 
 Transcendent and divine. 
 As those who changed the trend of life. 
 
 Their deeds will ever shine. 
 
 To speak of death for such as they, 
 
 It is a senseless word, 
 For in the changed conditions here 
 
 Their voice is ever heard. 
 
 Men do not die. There is no death; 
 
 Our bodies but decay; 
 But still our nobler selves will live 
 
 And never pass away. 
 
 The nations grow effete and die. 
 But what was grand and true. 
 
 As other nations take their place. 
 Will spring again to view. 
 
 Immortal thus are human deeds; 
 
 Our brothers gone before 
 Still live with potent power to sway 
 
 The world for evermore. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 47 
 
 All of the past is living still: 
 The vile, the good, the true, 
 
 Are present find imniortiil here, 
 Though veiled from human view. 
 
 And so all men who now exist, 
 
 Of high or humble mien, 
 In ages hence, through others' lives, 
 
 Will walk the earth unseen. 
 
 THE SHAMS OF THE AGE. 
 
 In this model great Republic 
 
 We've reversed the fathers' plan. 
 Politicians seek the office. 
 
 Not the office seek the man; 
 Filled-up coffers make the statesmen. 
 
 Money each election gains. 
 Riches raise to high position, 
 
 AVealth conceals a dearth of brains. 
 
 False this standard of our manhood 
 
 Patent in the land to-day; 
 Base the spirit it inculcates 
 
 For our children to obey. 
 Character well-nigh_ forgotten, 
 
 Poverty akin to sin. 
 Scoundrels rank as men of honor. 
 
 If they only have the tin. 
 
 Cupid often yields to mammon, 
 
 Making love-scenes our lost art. 
 Diamonds forming bonds of marriage. 
 
 Not attachments of the heart. 
 And engagements, though once sacred, 
 
 Oft appear of trifling force. 
 Even holy matrimony 
 
 May be severed by divorce. 
 
48 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Fashion sways the hearts of people. 
 
 Bringing serfdom to our race. 
 When h.er beck and call men answer 
 
 Who are tailor-made in grace, 
 And our noted dudes and dandies . 
 
 Find the intellect and brain 
 Less a proof of lofty manhood 
 
 Than the flourish of a cane. 
 
 Beauty made with pad and bustle 
 
 Is a secret phase of art, 
 While the elegance of lacing 
 
 Woman only knows by heart; 
 As the form by nature given 
 
 Seems not fit for man's embrace. 
 So behold the added luster 
 
 Paint and powder give the face. 
 
 Also we've adulterations; 
 
 Since deodorized benzine, 
 In tiiis age of substitution. 
 
 Takes the place of kerosene. 
 And in giving wine its color 
 
 Men have learned the use of poke. 
 While replacing our tobacco 
 
 Cabbage makes the modern smoke. 
 
 Chicory will do for coffee, 
 
 Varied leaves suffice for tea, 
 Brifkdust, ochre, fats and iron 
 
 In om- chocolate may be; 
 Peas and beans ;irt' ground in flour, 
 
 Alum atlded to our yeast, 
 U i "ose in the phice of sugar 
 
 Furnish man a chance to feast. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 49 
 
 In the fiuer grades of clothing 
 
 Cotton tlireads the wools replace, 
 Linen woven forms the damask, 
 
 Ric-rac answers well for lace, 
 Common leather hurnt to figure 
 
 Makes the alligator shoe. 
 While the sheepskin changed in tanning 
 
 Often forms the kangaroo. 
 
 Flocks and noils, and other refuse, 
 
 With the product of the shears. 
 Blent and fulled in shoddy fabric. 
 
 Make the modern cassi meres; 
 Plush appears for costly sealskin. 
 
 Common prints replace nankeen, 
 While instead of honest velvet 
 
 People use the velveteen. 
 
 Paper serves for table linen, 
 
 Bogus jewelry is sold, 
 Paste is used to" make the diamond. 
 
 Roll-plate takes the place of gold; 
 Even in exchanging money 
 
 Counterfeited lead may pass, 
 While in intellect there's nothing 
 
 To compare with cheek and brass. 
 
 Though about unstable buiklings 
 
 Man is often wont to croak. 
 Yet in that which he's erecting 
 
 Painted pine resembles oak; 
 Everywhere appears deception: 
 
 In the ceiling, floor and jamb, 
 While the furniture he uses 
 
 Is a multiple of sham. 
 
50 THE FUA ILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 E'en in daily conversation 
 
 We beliold a striking change 
 From the oUl and classic English, 
 
 Wliich appears exceeding strange. 
 As the language in which Milton, 
 
 Dryden, Pope and Byron sung. 
 Is enhanced in rich expression 
 
 By the slangy, modern tongue. 
 
 Also in our mental culture 
 
 We have left the fathers' ways. 
 By selecting for our reading, 
 
 In these sickly, modern days. 
 Weakly fiction and sensation, 
 
 Not the lofty prose and. rhyme. 
 But the sentimental story 
 
 Always full of vice and crime. 
 
 Even literary workers 
 
 Are prolific in their shams, 
 Writing oft in stately measure. 
 
 Only trashy paragrams; 
 Or, degrading more their manhood. 
 
 They endorse with fulsome praise 
 Any prevalent corruption. 
 
 Thus producing nostrum lays. 
 
 Congressmen are famed for speeches 
 
 Which some humbler authors write; 
 Husbands gain repute for wisdom 
 
 Which their better halves indite; 
 And the papers sound the gi;eatness 
 
 Of the man with cash enough, 
 And the weakness to disbuivse it. 
 
 For insertion of the puff. 
 
AND OTllFAl P0EM8. 51 
 
 Ladies at tlie summer beaches, 
 
 Who would not their fingers soil, 
 Oft the balance of tlie season 
 
 In a humble manner toil; 
 Wiiile the men of seeming riches 
 
 May be mortgage-burdened too. 
 And the rushing ones in business 
 
 Have but little work to do. 
 
 Brush away this imitation, 
 
 Down with every kind of bam. 
 Build thyself a nobler manhood, 
 
 IS^ever stoop to vice or sham; 
 But by grand and peerless action 
 
 Do your part upon the earth. 
 So that others may commend you 
 
 For your candid, honest worth. 
 
 LIFERS JOUKNEY. 
 
 We are growing, ever growing 
 
 Older in the march of life; 
 Fleeting are the years behind us. 
 
 Present moments still are rife. 
 Are we using or abusing 
 
 These so swiftly passing by? 
 Do we guide to action upward. 
 
 Or let error heedless lie? 
 
 Words are flowing, lightly flowing 
 
 From our lips upon the way; 
 Are they such as we v/ill wish them 
 
 In the final judgment day? 
 Are they full of love and kijidness, 
 
 Making others pathway bright? 
 Or of biileful hate and censure, 
 
 Poisoned thus with error's blight? 
 
52 THE FRAIL TIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 We are sowing, daily sowing 
 
 Seeds on every glade and hill; 
 As we journey on life's pathway 
 
 Fruit will grow for good or ill; 
 Hence ahout tlie after reaping 
 
 Careful we should think to-day; 
 Shall we gather figs or thistles 
 
 As we harvest on the way? 
 
 Winds are blowing, freely blowing 
 
 O'er life's current deep and wide. 
 Bearing onward through the ages 
 
 Germs that we have cast aside; 
 Germs that grow for good or evil. 
 
 Wafted round on every breath; 
 Some bear fi'uit to life eternal, 
 
 Others lead to endless death. 
 
 We are going, surely going 
 
 To a land beyond the tomb, 
 Witii its brilliant streets of jasper, 
 
 Brighter than the flowers that bloom; 
 May we go with sheaves we've garnered, 
 
 Purer than the stars of light, 
 Not with talents from concealment 
 
 Dark as emblems of the night. 
 
 Men are showing, often showing 
 
 Acts in fact they fain would hide. 
 Yet the impress left behind them 
 
 Ever will on earth abide; 
 E'en as light goes on forever, 
 
 Though the star may lose its place. 
 So the sequence of our actions 
 
 Even death cannot erase. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 53 
 
 AN OBJECT LESSON. 
 
 With pompous ostentation, 
 
 By varied arts increased, 
 A dude in stately clot In ng 
 
 Once traveled in the East; 
 Beholding whom a Moslem 
 
 His little boy addressed, 
 Achmet, son of Allah, 
 
 A child among the blest. 
 Be true and keep the Koran; 
 
 Let naught its precepts dim. 
 Lest you suffer degradation. 
 
 And thus become like him. 
 
 BE SURE YOUTiE EIGHT, THEN GO AHEAD. 
 
 When once a grand and noble man 
 
 O'erheard a'cringiug finnkey^s view. 
 That men's behests should shape our course^ 
 
 And we sliould do as others do. 
 Away with this, rejoined the man. 
 
 And let it nevermore be said 
 You cringe and fawn at custom's calls; 
 
 " Be sure you're right, then go ahead. "" 
 
 That lesson was both true and grand, 
 
 A?id taught how noble deeds are done: 
 By marking out a royal path 
 
 Alone success in life is w^on, 
 For never hero shirks and fawns. 
 
 And ne'er by others is he led, 
 Nor ci-aven-like deserts his cause; 
 
 Once sure he's right, he goes aliead. 
 
64 TEE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 If lives of worth are now your aim, 
 
 This motto comes with force to you: 
 To do whatever with your miglit 
 
 Your hand on earth may find to do. 
 And make a record tliat shall live 
 
 When you are numbered v/ith the dead, 
 As people ever honor those 
 
 Who^re sure they're right, then go ahead. 
 
 What though your fate may be to fall. 
 
 And see your hopes eclipsed in night. 
 And die a martyr ere your prime? 
 
 They grandly win, w!io die for right ; 
 Their heads may fall, their bones decay. 
 
 Their blood for principle be shed, 
 But ill their death they move the world, 
 
 Who^'re sure they're right, then go ahead. 
 
 There comes to man a time to die, 
 
 ^Tis when he dies at duty's call. 
 Hence noble deeds are grandly done. 
 
 And royal worth is shown by all. 
 Who whether on the field of fame. 
 
 Their blood like heroes nobly shed. 
 Or in the quiet rounds of peace, 
 
 Are sure they're right, tiien go ahead. 
 
 Wliat boots to ns the useless life 
 
 That shows no duty grandly done? 
 What profits e'en the senseless yeaj's 
 
 That bring no crown of glory won? 
 Far better make the many few 
 
 With rich and lustrous deeds o'erspread 
 Than living long, but blessing not, 
 
 Be sure you're right, then go ahead. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 55 
 
 The world forever needs the men 
 
 Who shower blessings on tlie earth. 
 And by their grand and matchless deeds 
 
 Attest their sterling regal worth ; 
 Their stay below is all too brief ; 
 
 Men mourn for them when life has fled. 
 Because their every act declares 
 
 We're sure we're right, then go ahead. 
 
 'Tis only nature's noble souls 
 
 Who rise above the flunkey's way, 
 And lift our race to lives of worth, 
 
 Eegardiug not what men may say ; 
 These live for others, not for self. 
 
 Thus doing noble acts instead 
 Of cringing down at custom's call ; 
 
 Once sure they're right, they go ahead. 
 
 Then go where duty points the way. 
 
 And keep this sterling truth in view: 
 No matter how or when you fall. 
 
 If to thy manhood thou art true. 
 So live that when you're called to go. 
 
 Of you it may be truly said, 
 Here sleeps the one who on the earth 
 
 Was sure 'twas right, then went ahead. 
 
 A TEST OF HONESTY. 
 
 The clerk has a character truly his own 
 Who tempted is honest when left all alone. 
 
 A BORE. 
 
 The visit of one 
 
 May well excite gloom, 
 Who, when it is over. 
 
 Cannot leave the room. 
 
56 THE FRATLTIE8 OF HUMANITf 
 
 TKUTH AND FALSEHOOD MINGLE. 
 
 Triitli and falsehood strangely mingle 
 In this wondrous world of ours. 
 
 Here is light and there is darkness 
 Touching us with subtile powers. 
 
 ♦ Thus in all the great religions 
 
 That diversely are commended 
 To the millions blindly groping, 
 
 There is truth with falsehood blended. 
 
 From the tombs of ancient Egypt, 
 With its systems that have perished. 
 
 Blent with fables rightly banished, 
 
 There are truths that should be cherished. 
 
 In the Eddas of the Northland, 
 Mixed with much that is pernicious 
 
 There are rules of life and conduct 
 That are really meretricious. 
 
 In the Koran and the Vedas, 
 
 And the proud Brahminic teaching, 
 
 There are gems of truth and beauty 
 Out beyond the error reaching. 
 
 In the Persian Zend-Avesta, 
 
 And the pagan Hindoo Shaster, 
 There are precepts that resemble 
 I Many taught by Christ, the Master. 
 
 Truths that lead to higher living. 
 Making men uprightly pious, 
 
 And as noble in a j^agan 
 
 As if taught by the Messias. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. ^^ 
 
 Yet in learning a religion 
 
 Men are like tlie catechumen, 
 Who behokls the truths but dimly 
 
 Which at last liis soul illumine. 
 
 What is grand in all religions 
 
 Human souls should fondly cherish ; 
 
 What is base, and what is vicious, 
 That alone deserves to perish. 
 
 This despite the narrow bigots 
 
 Whose contracted views but libel 
 Christ and all the love fraternal 
 
 Taught within our blessed Bible. 
 
 For behind all heathen idols 
 
 Seen as objects of- devotion, 
 God Supreme above the fetich. 
 
 Still to lofty souls is procheiu. 
 
 Hence, although we scorn the error, 
 
 Tending downward to perdition. 
 And despise the idol worship 
 
 As a baleful superstition. 
 
 Yet as truth and falsehood mingle 
 
 Thus in these religious annals, 
 We should i-ecognize what's noble, 
 
 Though it comes thorough pagan channels. 
 
 What care we if taught by Buddha, 
 
 Or Confucius was the preacher. 
 Truth is ever grand and lofty, 
 
 Though a pngan be its teacher. 
 
 Kot tlie m:in, but Giiristlike teaching. 
 
 Not one's birth, but exaltation, 
 Not the source, but trutii in^. mortal. 
 
 Should command our admiration. 
 
58 THE FRAIL TIEIS F HUM A NITY 
 
 THE CELESTIAL UNIVERSE. 
 
 The vast celestial universe, 
 
 Unfolded every night 
 As planets, stars and satellites, 
 
 With zodiacal light. 
 Are mirrored on the firmament 
 
 In brilliancy serene. 
 Conceals a depth of wonders far 
 
 Beyond the glory seen. 
 
 For lo ! the myriad stars thus viewed. 
 
 That deck the heavens o'ei-, 
 Are joined on telescopic sight 
 
 By twenty millions more. 
 A binary host rotates around 
 
 Each other day by day, 
 While night by niglit their multitude 
 
 Brings forth the milky way. 
 
 The ancients mapped the firmament, 
 
 And classified in groups 
 The clustered gems of brilliant points. 
 
 That keep tlieir place as troops. 
 And relatively in their course 
 
 Along the vaulted arch 
 Appear and form a marshaled host. 
 
 Like armies on the march. 
 
 Orion leading thus his hounds. 
 
 In ways he cannot clioose, 
 Entranced by beauty's magic spell 
 
 The Pleiades pursues. 
 While hare and lion join the chase 
 
 Across the starry plain, 
 And see the hunter's glory fade 
 
 in storms of wind and rain. 
 
AND OTHER POh'MS. 59 
 
 Andromeda is there uiichuined 
 
 Beside the winged steed, 
 While Perseus with lover's zest 
 
 Can rival hi in in speed, 
 For nowhere in the universe 
 
 Is there a resting place, 
 But motion, life, and action rule 
 
 Throughout tlie realm of space. 
 
 Bootes with his club in hand 
 
 The hunting dogs control. 
 As held in leash they help him drive 
 
 The bears around the pole, 
 AVhile dragon, lizard, lynx, and king 
 
 And queen within her chair. 
 Strange fantasies of ancient thought. 
 
 Are clustered round their lair. 
 
 The constellations we thus view. 
 
 Which in their courses fly, 
 Are made of fires sparkling bright 
 
 Set in the somber sky, 
 Like goldeTi nails in crystal vault. 
 
 Each varied bright and fair. 
 And diamond-like shows in itself * 
 
 Its own resplendence there. 
 
 Thus Myra's glory fades away 
 
 Before our watchful eyes^ 
 And Algol's light is growing dim 
 
 With others in the skies, 
 While Betelguese two hundred days 
 
 Of changing light we greet. 
 And many in a siiorter time 
 
 This story will repeat. 
 
60 THE FRAlLltES OP SUMANITT 
 
 Capella yields her yellow flame. 
 
 And Betelguese is red. 
 While some in 'twinkliiii? rays of light 
 
 A greeiiisli luster shed. 
 Tims spangled o'er the firmament. 
 
 From out eacli stellar sphere, 
 In God's grand work through rays of light 
 
 Diversities appear. 
 
 So distant are those twinkling stars 
 
 Wiiich gem the heavens at night. 
 That sixteen billion miles a day, 
 
 Which marks the speed of light, 
 Would take some thirteen hundred days 
 
 To reach the nearest one; 
 Not those four billion times as far 
 
 From earth as is our sun. 
 
 The vortex of unnumbered worlds 
 
 Beyond the milky way 
 May have their seasons like our globe. 
 
 With night succeeding day. 
 Yet all we know is from their suns 
 
 The light which had its birth 
 In seven hundred thousand years 
 
 Would only reach our earth. 
 
 Immense as are the depths of space. 
 
 Unlimited, profound. 
 Yet gemlike there the firmament 
 
 Is pierced and stellar crowned. 
 While suns and stars and planets all 
 
 The self same laws obey. 
 Since every one is kept in place 
 
 By gravitation's sway. 
 
AND OTHER FOKMK 61 
 
 Who knows what lies beyond the stars? 
 
 Who sets tlie bounds of space? 
 What tliought can fathom or conceive 
 
 Of Goil's abidino- place? 
 We dwellers on tiiis pnnj earth, 
 
 Mere grov'lings of the sod, 
 Completely fail to compi-ehend 
 
 The greater works of God. 
 
 The snn, that brilliant orb of day, 
 
 In photospheric robe, 
 Which, fourteen hundred thousand times 
 
 The volume of our globe, 
 Though one and ninety million miles 
 
 Removed from us afar, 
 Still seems transcendent and sublime. 
 
 Is but a little star. 
 
 Who contemplates the heavens at night. 
 When they in graiuleur shine, 
 
 May find amid the JMaster's work, 
 
 . So matchless and divine. 
 
 The wisdom of the child, who said, 
 That in the azure blue, 
 ^' The twinkling stars were gimlet holes 
 To let God's glory through." 
 
 Or he may catch another thought 
 
 Revealed sublimely there, 
 That if the outside view is found 
 
 In glory everywhere. 
 Supremely grand and beautiful. 
 
 As viewed by mortals here. 
 When we shall see the other side 
 
 How then will heaven appear? 
 
6^ THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 GOD'S AVAY THE BEST. 
 
 At Jupiter's accustomed way 
 
 Of sending needed rain, 
 An ancient Greek was often wont 
 
 To grumble and complain; 
 And when the god his murmurs heard^ 
 
 He issued this command: 
 ** The grumbler shall control the storms 
 
 To irrigate the land." 
 
 The man essayed the master's task, 
 
 Putfed up with haughty pride, 
 That storms should follow his behest 
 
 As universal guide; 
 But in his folly could not see 
 
 The thiugs which Zeus had known, 
 That first his neighbor's crops would fail 
 
 And last of ail his own. 
 
 Methinks that men resemble him 
 
 In folly every day. 
 As self-conceited, vain and proud. 
 
 They grumble by the way 
 At what God does, yet fail to do 
 
 Their duties one by one, 
 As striving oft to do God's work 
 
 They leave their own undone. 
 
 THE IMPOTENCY OF WEALTH. 
 
 Wealth is never happiness. 
 
 Nor can it even buy. 
 Glory, fame or honor, 
 
 Or the deeds that deify; 
 Nor exemption from the ailments 
 
 That vex the human kind; 
 Nor furnish compensation 
 
 For deficiency of mind. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS, 63 
 
 WASTE OF TIME. 
 
 Men may neglect their duties. 
 And their time be idly spent. 
 
 Yet later on this waste of time 
 One surely will repent. 
 
 JUS VIKCET. 
 
 "Wickedness in varied forms, 
 
 With pestilential breath, 
 As baleful ns the di-ead simoon," 
 
 Runs faster far than death. 
 Thus vice exhibits engle-speed, 
 
 While truth is like the snail; 
 Yet at the last, by Grod's decree. 
 
 Shall right alone prevail. 
 
 SELLI^^G THE SOUL. 
 
 Men tell about a miser once. 
 
 Who for a sixpence sold 
 His soul unto Beelzebub, 
 
 Because he wanted gold; 
 And thus he* lost through sordid greed 
 
 His never-dyiug soul. 
 And went to live in torments while 
 
 Eternal ages roll. 
 
 Methinks that many are like him, 
 
 While traveling o'er the earth, 
 For gold they sell their principles. 
 
 And all they have of worth. 
 They seek their treasure here below. 
 
 Forget their future weal. 
 Have naught where neither moths corrupt^ 
 
 Nor thieves break through and steal. 
 
64 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMAN ITT 
 
 Will sncli a bargain really pay? 
 
 Since life will soon be o'er, 
 And riches they must leave on earth, 
 
 Enjoy them nevermore; 
 But still while ceaseless ages roll. 
 
 And time is flying past, 
 Throngh countless never-ending years 
 
 Eternity shall last. 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF MA;N". 
 
 What though the skin of one be black. 
 
 Or red, or brown, or yellow? 
 When by the trace of lineage back 
 
 Each nnm beholds his fellow 
 Descended from a common pair, 
 
 One father and one mother. 
 So each the other's blood must share. 
 
 And man to man be brother. 
 
 What if perchance a man were born 
 
 Upon some pagan islands, 
 Or heard the bagpipe and the horn 
 
 Amid the Scottish highlands? 
 Erom Afric's sun to Greenland's snoW; 
 
 The father and the mother 
 Of both were one long years ago. 
 
 And man to man is brother. 
 
 What though the one be Greek or Jew, 
 
 Or servant of the Master? 
 Mohammedan, or Brahmin too. 
 
 Or worship Zoroaster? 
 Religion cannot make the man. 
 
 Nor faith his manhood smother. 
 For back of chnrch, and creed, and clan 
 
 Lo every man's a brother^ 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 55 
 
 Wluit thongli the one may rule tlie kirk, 
 
 Another be a dervis, 
 And many poor be forced to work 
 
 At humble types of service? 
 Their blood that flowed through ages past 
 
 Beyond the bounds of clanhood 
 Proves still, despite all rank and caste, 
 
 The oneness of their manhood. 
 
 "What though the few the wealth may win. 
 
 And many be enslaven. 
 And some have valiant souls within. 
 
 And others basely craven? 
 God made them all, the vile and pure. 
 
 In every rank and station. 
 Of common blood, which should secure 
 
 Unbounded fraternation. 
 
 What though our race hath left a track 
 
 Of blood and devastation. 
 And human annals bear us back 
 
 Through crime and depredation? 
 To see the famous nations rise. 
 
 In rude barbaric manner. 
 O'er mounds of human sacrifice 
 
 That tarnish every banner? 
 
 What though injustice ruled the world 
 
 When men were fratricidal, 
 And underneath its flag unfurled 
 
 Base passions would unbridle? 
 A better day is dawning fast. 
 
 And love to one another, 
 Now dimly seen, will prove at last 
 
 That man to man is brother. 
 
66 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 What if by hundreds sects on earth 
 
 In discord have arisen. 
 That martyr lives of peerless worth 
 
 Have sacrificed in prison? 
 As bigotry so often led 
 
 Our race througli malediction, 
 The blood of other men to shed 
 
 For honest soul conviction. 
 
 Wliat though with noble Christian creeds 
 
 Were mingled execrations, 
 When back of all the fiendish deeds 
 
 And horrid immolations 
 There stands the truth the Master taught 
 
 That every man's our brother, 
 And all our actions should be fraught 
 ^ With love to one another. 
 
 What though the church hath left the course 
 
 Of persecutions brutal? 
 Yet naught but love can give it force, 
 
 And make its being utile; 
 Thus wealth may hedge the flock about. 
 
 And hire a famous pastor, 
 But these are dross and vain without 
 
 The spirit of the Master. 
 
 What though tlie clergyman attend 
 
 In frequent exhortation, 
 And wordy pray6rs from all ascend 
 
 In earnest supplication? 
 
 As proved by deeds that have their source 
 In love to one another. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 67 
 
 What boots to God or man the creeds, 
 
 Or pniyers for life etonial, 
 Unless conjoined with loft}- deeds 
 
 And strewn with love fraternal? 
 Since faith and work alike combined 
 
 Is proof of conseci'ation, 
 But faith when not the working kind 
 
 Is simply profanation. 
 
 What profit thongh the modern church 
 
 Escape tlie ancient error, 
 And lets a man in conscience search 
 
 For truth nnawed by terror? 
 Since unbelief within may grow 
 
 Unless to faith supei-nal 
 Its membershi}) divinely show 
 
 A love that is fraternal. 
 
 What good is also noble art. 
 
 Or higher education, 
 Unless devoted from the heart 
 
 To human exaltation? 
 Thus leading ns to ever act 
 
 In love to one another 
 By fecoo^nition of the fact 
 
 That every man's onr brother. 
 
 What though the claims of men we shun, 
 
 And leave the path of duty. 
 Or wrong to thetn by us be done 
 
 To gain a robber's booty? 
 Beyond the crime in truth we know. 
 
 As conscience reaches deeper, 
 T^iiese men our brothers are, and lo! 
 
 We are our brother's keeper. 
 
TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 THE SCHOOL TEACHERS. 
 
 Amid tlie glory of this age, 
 
 Of lightning and of steam, 
 There rises on the living page. 
 
 Like pliantoms in a dream. 
 The trace of superstition gone. 
 
 As error holds its sway 
 With light that moves forever on, 
 
 Like dark spots in our day. 
 Asmaculas and photosphere 
 
 Commingle in the sun, 
 And plants necrosed will oft appear. 
 
 Denoting death begun; 
 So in this age with glory dight, 
 
 To learning preordained, 
 Some melanotic spots of blight 
 
 And error are maintained. 
 Thus, though the world appear so wise. 
 
 Some nations have their Jan, 
 And evil spirits exorcise. 
 
 With charm and talisman, 
 While amulets and sortilege, 
 
 And hocus-pocus spell. 
 Beneath the social outer cledge, 
 
 Of superstitions tell. 
 And wizard necromancy feigns 
 
 Its black, bewitching art. 
 And fetish worship still retains 
 
 Its hold upon the heart,. 
 And error in a thousand forms. 
 
 Though clad in thin disguise. 
 Like insects that appear in swarms. 
 
 The cultured mind descries. 
 Against which false theurgic claims 
 
 The schoolhouse is the light, 
 Where teachers stand with lofty aims 
 
 To guide the race aright. 
 
" AND OTUEll POEMS. 69 
 
 Implanting in the youthful mind 
 
 Those truths that yet shall sway 
 The human hearts of every kind, 
 
 And change our night to day. 
 Thus as our country's future hope 
 
 Instructors lead the mind, 
 Far-sighted as by megascope. 
 
 To leave tlie false behind, 
 And gather up those nobler views, 
 
 Those broader concepts rife. 
 That heaven-born the race enthuse. 
 
 And lift to higher life. 
 For as a lofty beacon-light 
 
 Above the rock-bound cliff 
 Sublimely stands in peerless might 
 
 Implanted on its Teneriffe, 
 Though round its base the ocean's tide 
 
 In angry billows leap, 
 And storm-capped waves in power ride 
 
 Across the briny deep. 
 Yet through its rays in glory bright, 
 
 Above the sui-ging tide, 
 Still sends afar a flood of light. 
 
 The paths of men to guide ; 
 So by their influence teachers stand 
 
 Upon a lofty steep, 
 And from each schoolhouse in the land. 
 
 Where they their vigils keep. 
 Doth shine a steady stream of light 
 
 In regal virtue crowned, 
 Transforming by its potent might 
 
 The people all around. 
 
70 TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 ORNITHOIDICHNITES. 
 
 On tlie red Connecticut sandstone 
 
 Of the Mesozoic age 
 Are imprinted myriad footmarks 
 
 Very puzzling to the sage ; 
 As the animal that made them 
 
 Science faileth to disclose, 
 Whether monstrous bird or reptile 
 
 Still no human being knows. 
 
 Dinosaurs, prodigious reptiles, 
 
 Partly mammal-like in form. 
 With their massive limbs posterior. 
 
 Triple-toed, as was the norm. 
 Biped in their locomotion. 
 
 Of ornithic type and mold, 
 May have left upon the sandstone 
 
 Footprints in the days of old. 
 
 Then again a giant moa. 
 
 Or some other mammoth bird, 
 Like a huge, colossal ostrich, 
 
 By the want of food bestirred. 
 Wading o'er the plastic sandstone, 
 
 May, in seeking for its prey. 
 Thus have left behind the footprints 
 
 That are still extant to-day. 
 
 Possibly some other monster. 
 
 Still to science quite unknown. 
 In that early age existing, 
 
 Left its vestiges in stone; 
 Or creation might have fashioned 
 
 Footprints on the yielding sand. 
 In a way no human being 
 
 Even yet can understand. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Thus the nature of these footmarks 
 
 Shrewd philosophers raay guess; 
 Or again tlie liighest wisdom 
 
 May its ignorance confess; 
 Or the proof of their existence, 
 
 Being made so long ago, 
 Some agnostics in their doubting 
 
 Might declare we do not know. 
 
 E'en so human reputations 
 
 Of the famous and the great, 
 Living onward through the ages 
 
 In exalted high estate, 
 Deathless in their proud attainments, 
 
 Standing like a monolith. 
 When assailed by modern ci-itics 
 
 Are pronounced a doubtful myth. 
 
 Bacon, proud, commanding genius. 
 
 Justly famed in many ways, 
 Gains new honors as the author 
 
 Of immortal Shakespeare's plays; 
 William Tell iiad no existence; 
 
 And our famous Captain Smitli, 
 And the noble Pocahontas, 
 
 Now are found to be a nivth. 
 
 Also Romulus and Remus 
 
 With the wolf must disappear; 
 And Napoleon in his glory 
 
 Never had existence here; 
 And lo! Nineveh, proud city. 
 
 While its relics men exhume, 
 Never, as we learn, existed, 
 
 Nor was buried in the tomb. 
 
7S THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Berkeley even goes still further. 
 
 And conceited doth insist 
 That this truth he hath discovered: 
 
 We ourselves do not exist, 
 All is but a vain delusion, 
 
 As philosophy serene 
 Shows this world cognizes nothing — 
 
 Only images are seen. 
 
 Thus the world in growing wiser 
 
 Hath the truth with myth allied, 
 And the facts that erst existed 
 
 Now by sages are denied, 
 While the vaunted type of culture 
 
 Found in high scholasticism 
 In this ago of groat advancement 
 
 Only leads to Pyrrhonism. 
 
 In such times when wondrous critics 
 
 All the knowledge of the ages flout, 
 And some think the highest wisdom 
 
 Ouly teaches men to doubt. 
 It is well if we remember, 
 
 In assuaging human grief, 
 Heretofore the noble workers 
 
 Have been men of firm belief. 
 
 Those have all believed in something 
 
 Who have been a power here, 
 And to stand for their convictions. 
 
 Never fjiiled through donbt or fear; 
 For convinced beyond a question 
 
 That the cause espoused was right. 
 Firm in faith, they -knew no halting 
 
 Howsoever went the fight. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS, 73 
 
 ^Tis belief that prompts to action, 
 
 Spurring men from day to day, 
 When they make the reputations 
 
 That abide and live for aye, 
 While the tiny, loutish critic 
 
 Like a puppet snarls and nips 
 At this source of strength and power. 
 
 Yet expires in eclipse. 
 
 In the work of man's advancement. 
 
 Or of woman from a neif, 
 Never yet was strong exertion 
 
 Made by men of unbelief; 
 As to break the human fetters 
 
 Men are only borne along 
 In determined, constant action. 
 
 Who believe the thing is wrong. 
 
 In this age when human learning 
 
 To producing doubtance tends. 
 And philosophy so vaunted 
 
 In agnosticism ends, 
 Wisdom says that greatness only 
 
 Hitherto has been achieved 
 By the men of steadfast purpose. 
 
 Who in something have believed. 
 
 Noble faith, thou giant power. 
 
 Leading men to action high. 
 Source of every grand endeavor. 
 
 And the deeds that deify — 
 May you stand throughout the ages 
 
 Towering o'er the wrecks of time. 
 Bearing fruit of thy inspiring 
 
 In the deeds that are sublime. 
 
74 THE FRA IL TIES F HUM A NITV 
 
 THE BLIND ANIMALS IN THE MAMj. 
 CAVE. 
 
 With power to send the liglitning's flash. 
 
 To thunder in resounding crasli, 
 
 And bid the solid earth to quake, 
 
 And hills and lofty mountains shake. 
 
 And even force old ocean dry, 
 
 Or move the planets through the sky, 
 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 Witli power to sway the universe, 
 And through the firmament disburse. 
 Beyond the ken of human sight, 
 T'he twinkling stars that gem the night, 
 • Controlling planets in their course. 
 The emblem of eternal force. 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in Kentucky's cave. 
 
 With power to make an armored host 
 Surpassing any man can boast. 
 As Polycystines are bedight, 
 Cuirassed in si lex like a knight. 
 And diatoms with matchless skill 
 Are fashioned by creative will. 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 With power the world that greets the eye 
 With matchless grace to beautify. 
 Attested by the shady bower, 
 The growing plant, and blooming flower. 
 And gems predestined here to sliine 
 In richness that appears divine. 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
AND OTHER POKMF^. 75 
 
 Witli power to make tlie insect host 
 Eclipse the proudest litiniaii boast. 
 Ami cause its j'iclmess to unroll 
 A wealth of beauty to the soul, 
 In varied forms which all attest 
 That what God does he does the best. 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 With power to form an endless chain 
 Of dwellers for the land and main, 
 From giant whales to tinv mites. 
 From pteropods to belemnites, 
 And forms unnurnbei-ed and untold. 
 Each perfect in its t3'})e and mold. 
 Yet sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 With power to cause in varied ways 
 
 The universe to sound his praise, 
 
 As through the woijd and realms of space 
 
 Wherever God's handiwoi-k we trace. 
 
 Diversity designed to please 
 
 Js what the vision always sees, 
 
 So sightless orbs creation gave 
 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
 With power to make the human eye 
 The glory all around descry, 
 And cause the mind to contemplate 
 The grandeur of a world so great, 
 Yet needless would be orbs of sight 
 To those who live in endless night. 
 Hence sightless orbs creation gave 
 To creatures in the Mammoth Cave. 
 
76 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 CIVILIZED MAN A BARBARIAN STILL. 
 
 Whoever reflects on the crimes of our race. 
 
 In rapine or war so ready to kill. 
 This truth in the record assuredly will trace: 
 
 That civilized man^s a barbarian still. 
 
 The one who with whip upon driving the street 
 Will strike at a brute, needless pain to inflict. 
 
 By the spirit of torture with which he's opplete. 
 His claims to a civilized state interdict. 
 
 The person who carries a chicken head down. 
 Or follows up hunting and fishing for sport. 
 
 Has a heart, whether found in the plebe or tlie crown, 
 With civilization that's not en rapport. 
 
 The civilized man, with transition complete, 
 
 Will find sometliing better than murderous skill: 
 
 'Tis acting uprightly, so none can repeat 
 That civilized man's a barbarian still. 
 
 Our race, when transformed, will be kind to the brute; 
 
 Infliction of torture will not appear smart, 
 And the rights of another none ever will loot 
 
 When civilized man has a civilized heart. 
 
 All hail to the day when in righteousness here 
 Man drops from his nature the barbarous part, 
 
 And doing what's right will thus make it appear 
 That civilized man has a civilized heart. 
 
 A SOURCE OF SAFETY. 
 
 As the world is prone to slander 
 All the great men who appear. 
 
 To escape abuse and envy 
 One must be a cipher here. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 77 
 
 MARS. 
 
 Our neighbor Mars, what gives thy light its ruddy 
 
 glow? 
 What climate keeps thy poles enwrapped in fields of 
 
 snow? 
 Old when this globe was young, and yet so like our 
 
 earth, 
 What mighty throes creation witnessed at thy birth? 
 
 On thee the living, and all things inanimate. 
 
 By gravitation are reduced one-half in weight; 
 
 So shocks from falls and jumps need not excite one's 
 
 fears. 
 Though solar light in equal ratio disappears. 
 
 Thy atmosphere, resembling ours, and yet more dense, 
 May for thy lesser solar heat bring recompense, 
 While gorgeous clouds, with changing winds and length- 
 ened year. 
 Make summer pleasant, though thy winter seems severe. 
 
 With hemispheres diversified in land and sea, 
 By hoary age from earthquakes and volcanoes free,' 
 AVe recognize in thee the world of worlds most fair. 
 And envy those who have their habitation there. 
 
 THE NOBLE AIM. 
 
 Though very many here aspire 
 
 To be of the noblesse. 
 Yet back of this there stands the truth. 
 
 In which all acquiesce: 
 The highest aim upon the earth 
 
 Seeks not for wealth or gaudy dress, 
 But acts of love and deeds of worth. 
 
 With sterling truth and righteousness. 
 
78 TEE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 THE COQUETTE. 
 
 A flirt is a woman, the trotli should be told, 
 
 Who has trifled with love till her heart has grown cold; 
 
 And for winning her favors fools only will yearn, 
 
 As she's not true affection to give in return; 
 
 l^ut men of a mind, we can truthfully say. 
 
 Will let her go on in her own heartless way; 
 
 Since her habits are such, by the life she has led. 
 
 She could only bring sorrow to him she might wed. 
 
 Incapable e'en to be constant and true. 
 
 In a month she'd exchange her last love for a new; 
 
 By the training she's taken, she nevermore can 
 
 Be the faithful companion of any one man; 
 
 Her old habits controlling, howe'er she might start. 
 
 In a brief space of time she'd have change of the heart; 
 
 And life thus be wrecked, as no man can- forget, 
 
 Who is wedded forsooth to a heartless coquette. 
 
 We're a bundle of habits, the good and the bad. 
 And slaves to our acts, though repentant and sad; 
 For each deed, that we're doing, but helps forge a chain 
 That shall bind us forever in sunshine and rain; 
 And of all that is blighting and bad from the first, 
 The foolish coquette must appear as the worst; 
 For she trifles with that which is noble on earth. 
 E'en priceless in value and peerless in worth. 
 
 Eventually too, to her sorrow she'll find, 
 
 Tiie anguish of others was only a blind, 
 
 And a snare to her feet, that hath led her along 
 
 To fetter herself in the pathway of wrong; 
 
 Like a slave driven on in her own chosen track. 
 
 To go she'll find easy, but hard to turn back; 
 
 And the trifling with others will not be forgot. 
 
 When she's borne by her habits oft whither she'd not. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 79 
 
 And tbiTsa coquette, once confirmed in her way, 
 
 A slave to her passion will probably stay; 
 
 Her jewel of woniaiiliood, almost divine, 
 
 AVhich truly in glory should regally shine, 
 
 Perverted and lost, like a gem in the night, 
 
 A reflection of error and misery's blight; 
 
 Tier heart calloused o'er by the ruin she's spread, 
 
 So that marriage with her would be wedding the dead. 
 
 IN WHAT SPIRIT. 
 
 Not every one is qualified 
 
 Beseemly to endure 
 The fact that fate has cast his lot 
 
 On earth among the poor. 
 As only true philosophers, 
 
 Unvexed by needless care. 
 Have in themselves the proper mind 
 
 Dread poverty to bear. 
 
 A MEASURE OF BRAIN. 
 
 Men only do their vaunting 
 O'er the finest things possessed. 
 
 Hence none will boast of money 
 Unless that is his best. 
 
 RATIONIS EXPERS. 
 
 Some men have safety in the fact 
 They have not mind enough to act. 
 And do a thing in their career 
 Which people would deride and jeer; 
 Thus one who here remains a blank 
 No man will ever call a crank, 
 Nor find a brute devoid of brain 
 That ever yet has gone insane; 
 Hence, sheer stupidity, though sad. 
 May save a man from going mad. 
 
so THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 TKANSGRESSION BRINGS PUNISHMENT. 
 
 A boy in faiicy once I saw, 
 
 A kind of monstrous one, 
 Whose arm was long enough to reach 
 
 Completely to the sun; 
 He thrust it in that blazing orb 
 
 And knew naught of the pain, 
 Because sensation did not pass 
 
 That distance to his brain. 
 
 Three score and ten the years elapsed 
 
 Before he could discern. 
 By swift sensation on the nerves. 
 
 About that early burn; 
 But tlien he found that blighted arm 
 
 A steady source of grief, 
 For which he sought both near and far. 
 
 But never found relief. 
 
 This story but exemplifies 
 
 An oft-forgotten ti-uth. 
 That those v/lio tread forbidden ways 
 
 Quite recklessly in youth, 
 Will find that nature hath her laws. 
 
 Which mortals must obey. 
 And for transgression's foolish acta 
 
 Humanity must pay. 
 
 Diseases that are born of vice 
 
 In early thoughtless years. 
 Some then escape, though later on 
 
 Their punishment appears; 
 And as inheritance transmits. 
 
 So in the course of time 
 The children yet unborn may pay 
 
 Their sire's debt for crime. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 81 
 
 OPTIMA. 
 
 Some may claim that tlieir jewels, or Croesus-like wealth. 
 
 Should rank as transcendent in worth; 
 Yet actions of love which can never be bought 
 
 Are the most priceless things on the earth. 
 
 THE LONG TONGUE. 
 
 In nobleness did Doctor Gill 
 His sacred office always fill, 
 And such instruction did impart 
 As gained from all a friendly heart. 
 
 Yet he in pride himself would deck 
 With bands of white about the neck. 
 Which really gave a startling shock 
 To one good sister in his flock. 
 
 Who seeking him to right the wrong 
 Declared the bands were far too long. 
 And sadly had her spirits tried 
 To find that he possessed such pride. 
 
 Along her scissors had been brought. 
 And thus equipped, she only sought 
 Permission just to make a clip, 
 And take from them a needless slip. 
 
 The doctor, though indeed amused. 
 Allowed the scissors to be used. 
 While she with ready, dextrous hands 
 Eeduced to proper length the bands. 
 
 The task was done, she turned to go. 
 He bade her stop and said he'd show 
 A thing of hers was quite too long; 
 Might he in turn correct the wrong? 
 
82 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Said she, " You may. That I should do 
 A thing which causes pain to you 
 'I must regret, and only ask 
 That you will now perform your task/' 
 
 " This thing,'' said he, '^ is quite too long, 
 And oft does others grievous wrong; 
 By it I've seen them foully stung; 
 So, sister, now hold out your tongue." 
 
 This story, if but read aright. 
 Will bring this weakness to the light: 
 A lack of conscience for our own 
 While we'd our neighbor's sins atone. 
 
 For others' faults we have a sight, 
 And magnify each tiny mite. 
 While our own wrongs we fail to find — 
 Indeed to them we're always blind. 
 
 THE MASTER'S RULE. 
 
 In the days when the race was inhuman 
 Christ never its laws would disown. 
 
 But said that to punish a woman 
 Let those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 This precept should govern our actions. 
 Controlling the plebe and the throne: 
 
 In chastisement of all malefactions 
 Let those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 Too deep in our hearts and too many 
 • Are the errors that all of us own. 
 For us to be censors of any 
 
 When those without sin cast the stone. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 83 
 
 So none at anotlier should grumble 
 
 As each to misconduct is prone, 
 And conscience would make ns all humble 
 
 If those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 And not to the villainous mister 
 
 WouLl society honors be shown, 
 Witii scorn for the frail erring sister. 
 
 If those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 The heart that is prone to philander 
 With the faults of a neighbor alone. 
 
 Will learn to desist from its slander 
 When those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 The conscience that rails at a brother 
 
 The sins of one's self will atone. 
 Instead of assailing another, 
 
 When those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 Who stands like a rock in disaster 
 ^lay the weakness of others condone. 
 
 Recalling the words of the Master, 
 Let those without sin cast the stone. 
 
 AFFECTATION RIDICULOUS. 
 
 One truth I've learned of monkeys: 
 
 Though seeming proud and vain. 
 Yet in the highest climbing 
 
 Of every quad ru mane 
 His caudal part is patent 
 
 Above the glen and dale, 
 And " the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
84 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Some men resemble monkeys 
 
 In imitative ways. 
 As gormands of ambition 
 
 And cormorants of praise. 
 Who fancy that an office 
 
 For wisdom will avail, 
 Though *' the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
 A man who wealth inherits 
 
 May dress exceeding fine. 
 And vaunting this as princely 
 
 May tiiiuk himself divine, 
 While underneath the gilding 
 
 The truth will still prevail. 
 That ^' the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
 Exalted dudes and dandies, 
 
 In haughty dress and mien, 
 Combined with lack of knowledge. 
 
 On every hand are seen; 
 Though scorning their pretensions 
 
 The people jeer and rail. 
 Since '^ the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail. 
 
 The man who of his country 
 
 Has grown to be ashamed. 
 For supercilious baseness 
 
 A fool has been proclaimed. 
 Who unabashed exhibits 
 
 Himself as paravail. 
 For ^' the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 85 
 
 In all the prond positions 
 
 Aspiring men attain, 
 A snob by such distinction 
 
 But ridicule will gain, 
 For witnessed by his greenness 
 
 This truth will never fail, 
 That " the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail/' 
 
 For one of lofty station 
 
 Who malapertness shows. 
 And those in ostentation 
 
 Most pompous of their clothes. 
 The people count as dullards 
 
 Devoid of true morale, 
 Hence ^' the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail.*' 
 
 No haughtiness of conduct 
 
 Within the human span. 
 Or arrogant assumption. 
 
 Can make a dolt a man. 
 As nothing of pretension 
 
 Will grossness overvail — 
 So *'the higher the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
 A man is never noble 
 
 By the title that he bears, 
 A man is never courtly 
 
 By the clothing that he wears. 
 When boorishness of conduct 
 
 His standing will assail, 
 For "the higlier the monkey climbs 
 
 The more he shows his tail." 
 
86 THE FRAILTIEIS OF HUMANITY 
 
 'TIS THE TKUTH ALONE THAT HURTS. 
 
 In the quiet rounds of duty, 
 
 Disregarding all your worth, 
 Slanderous tongues will oft assail you 
 
 In your walk upon the earth; 
 For the world is full of envy. 
 
 Which its venom often spurts, 
 Yet this fact you should remember, 
 
 ^Tis the truth alone that hurts. 
 
 As the mud of youthful throwing 
 
 Often finds a lodging place. 
 Yet will disappear in cleansing, 
 
 Leaving of itself no trace. 
 So with regal, lofty manhood 
 
 Slander hath its woik in vain; 
 Robbed by virtue of adherence, 
 
 It can have no chance to stain. 
 
 Only roughness on the surface 
 
 Will enable plants to twine; 
 Up a wall of polished granite 
 
 Even ivy fails to climb; 
 So with character that^s spotless 
 
 Slander loseth all its sting. 
 Since defects alone in manhood 
 
 Giveth it the power to cling. 
 
 Then erect a lofty standard 
 
 In thy secret inmost soul. 
 That against thy perfect manhood 
 
 Slander ne'er can reacli its goal, 
 Since protecting from its power 
 
 Conscience will a ciiarm sup})ly. 
 And the man whose life's untarnished 
 
 Can all calumnies defy. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 87 
 
 THE WOULD WOULD BE A PARADISE. 
 
 If men would never learn the use 
 
 Of vile, debauching liquor. 
 And never of tobacco juice 
 
 AVoiild make tlieir months the bicker. 
 If filthy habits that intrude 
 
 To sully man's demeanor, 
 With proper firmness were tabooed. 
 
 The world would be the cleaner. 
 
 If men as trusts for worldly goods 
 
 Would not combine to plunder, 
 There would be fewer '' Brotherhoods" 
 
 To rend the land asunder; 
 For all in equity Avould share 
 
 Of nature's great redundance. 
 Supplied so amply everywhere 
 
 That each might have abundance. 
 
 If men were not so worldly wise. 
 
 Despoiling those who labor, 
 But rich and poor would recognize 
 
 Each other as a neighbor. 
 And in the place of sordid greed. 
 
 Exacting to the letter, 
 Would substitute the Christian creed. 
 
 The world would be the better. 
 
 If men looked less to selfish needs, 
 
 And more to benefaction. 
 If they cared less about their creeds. 
 
 And more for honest action. 
 If social fibs they would despise. 
 
 And tongues would cease to slander, 
 And all appear without disguise, 
 
 The world would gain in candor. 
 
88 THE FRAILTIES OP EUMAmTY 
 
 If men, instead of brutish force 
 
 And arrogant behavior, 
 Would only follow in their course 
 
 The precepts of tlie Saviour, 
 The present world transformed by this> 
 
 As in milleuic vision, 
 Would truly be a scene of bliss, 
 
 Or paradise elysian. 
 
 If Christian-like men would but speak 
 
 In kindness of each other, 
 And like the Master help the weak. 
 
 Yet often erring brother, 
 The glory of the second birth 
 
 To mortals would be plainer. 
 While by such conduct all the earth, 
 
 In fact, would be the gainer. 
 
 If men would draw no color line 
 
 Against the weaker races, 
 But only practice the divine. 
 
 Transforming Christian graces, 
 Discarding as a thin device 
 
 Appearances external, 
 Tlie world might be a paradise 
 
 With more of deeds fraternal. 
 
 If men would always do the right 
 
 In noble, manly action. 
 We nevermore would need to fight 
 
 Against the power of faction. 
 For heart with heart would then combine 
 
 In honest, true endeavor, 
 AVhile deeds fraternal and divine 
 
 Would strew our paths forever. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 89 
 
 THE IDEAL MAKES THE MAN. 
 
 As outward acts from deep within 
 
 The human lieart outflow, 
 Hence those who iiave a low ideal 
 
 In action will be low, 
 While on tlie other hand the truth 
 
 Will just as well apply 
 That men w-ho have a high ideal 
 
 In action will be high. 
 
 Thus those who have a lofty aim 
 
 And purpose here below 
 Will rise above the baser kind 
 
 Whose thoughts are ahvays low, 
 Since in the making of a man 
 
 His thoughts and acts will chime. 
 And lofty meditations lead 
 
 To deeds that are sublime. 
 
 INSULTS UNWORTHY OF NOTICE. 
 
 Remember this fact, as you^re passing along 
 
 O'er the pathway of life, with light hopes or with strong. 
 
 An insult 'tis said people often receive. 
 
 And over this men who are foolish will grieve; 
 
 But it's not worth the wiiile, sii^ce 'tis true as you live 
 
 That none but a gentleman insults can give; 
 
 And certain it is that no gentleman would 
 
 Degrade thus himself, as he only could. 
 
 From others such actions we'd even expect. 
 
 Though excused by their dullness would never correct. 
 
 As ignorance surely is always the cause 
 
 V/hen a boor rudely tramples society's laws; 
 
 To take note of either, though any one can. 
 
 But ))roves him a fool in the guise of a man; 
 
 For the gentleman wont to meet wrong with the right 
 
 Is too dignified even to notice a slight. 
 
90 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 The habit of stickling for oiie^s little rights, 
 And quickly iivenging tlie smallest of slights, 
 Will make one inipleasaiit to otheis you know, 
 And prove that his staiidanl of manhood is low. 
 Then mold not your conduct on any such plan, 
 But strive to become an agreeable man. 
 For happy is he whose su})eiior mind 
 To the frailties of others forever is blind. 
 
 THE LESSON OF THE TOMB. 
 
 Sad and mournful are our spirits, 
 
 And our hearts and heads are bowed 
 At the vision of a loved one 
 
 In the casket and the shroud 
 When our sorrow tells the pleasure 
 
 His companionship once gave 
 As it's measured by bereavement 
 
 In consignment to the grave. 
 
 For beyond the cheei'less dirges 
 
 With their sweet, yet sad refrain, 
 And the voice of lamentation 
 
 Sending forth its moui-nful strain, 
 There are visions of our loved one, 
 
 Truly sanctified in gloom, 
 Growing brfghter as we view them 
 
 In the shadow of the tomb. 
 
 Strange we better prize his virtue 
 
 Since God called him to depart; 
 Strange we realize his manhood 
 
 Better through a broken heart; 
 Strange we felt appreciation 
 
 Less for him when he was near. 
 And can sound his praises loudest 
 
 When he can no longer hear. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 91 
 
 So the words in anger spoken 
 
 Harshly now witliin us burn. 
 As they seem like bitter censors 
 
 When beside the funeral nrn; 
 Yet our anguish cannot better 
 
 In a life tlie baleful blight, 
 When tlie one whom we have wounded 
 
 Cannot see the wrong made right. 
 
 Would we profit by the lesson 
 
 Coming from the funeral urn. 
 It should be the part of wisdom 
 
 For iiumanity to learn 
 That the living friends around us 
 
 Are the ones whom we should cheer; 
 Not the cold and silent sleepers, 
 
 Past discernment in the bier. 
 
 There are lips that still are pulsing, 
 
 There are living hearts that beat. 
 There are dead ones in the morrow 
 
 Which our voices cannot greet; 
 Then give out thy rays of sunshine. 
 
 Speak to-day thy words of cheer. 
 Make the friends around thee liappy 
 
 Ere their ears shall cease to hear. 
 
 There is music all around us. 
 
 There's enjoyment all our own; 
 Catch and prize it ere the singer 
 
 With his sweet- toned notes has flown 
 Y\^ait not for the mournful morrow, 
 
 Which in bitterness may come; 
 Prize and show tlie i)leasure given 
 
 Ere the giver's lips are dumb. 
 
on THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 There are flowers blooming for us, 
 
 There are thorns along the way; 
 Leave the thorns and gather roses 
 
 With tlieir fragrance while ye may; 
 Sup the nectar and the honey 
 
 That on every hand are found; 
 Look not to the doubtful morrow, 
 
 Wherein thorns v/ill oft abound. 
 
 There are visions of the future 
 
 Strewn along life's changing way, 
 Yet we know not of the sorrow 
 
 Waiting us from day to day; 
 Then enjoy the living present, 
 
 Prize the sunshine ever near; 
 Make the most of rays of brightness 
 
 Ere the cloudy skies appear. 
 
 You can do your acts of mercy 
 
 To the living, not the dead; 
 You can brighten others' pathway 
 
 Ere their course in life has sped; 
 Then be up and nobly doing, 
 
 Make thy life of peerless worth. 
 Catch enjoyment and transmit it. 
 
 Be divine upon the earth. 
 
 SIGNIFICANCE OF BLUSTER. 
 
 'Tis worth the observation 
 
 How placid men can be. 
 Though steadfast in their purpose 
 
 Opposition's shafts to dree. 
 When in the cause of justice 
 
 Conviction makes them strong, 
 Wiiile those are prone to bluster 
 
 Who know that they are wrong. 
 
AND OTREll POEMS. 93 
 
 THE CAT AND THE MOUSE. 
 
 By licedlessness once a too venturesome mouse 
 
 Accidentally fell in a bicker 
 Containing humanity's poisonous drink, 
 
 Debauching and ruinous liquor. 
 
 Assistance the sufferer sought from the cat, 
 
 And for it attempted to dicker; 
 But eating the rodent was what pussy asked 
 
 For helping it out of the liquor. 
 
 The mouse had the choice to be eaten or drown, 
 
 And floated around growing sicker, 
 Till death, it declared, by the jaws of a cat. 
 
 Less horrid than drowning in liquor. 
 
 Intent on a meal pussy sprang to its aid, 
 And took the poor mouse from the bicker; 
 
 But when this was done the cheat ran in a hole. 
 And left pussy smelling the liquor. 
 
 '* Your promise now keep," said the cat to the mouse; 
 
 But the latter replied with a snicker: 
 ** Xot much, I am free, and that promise don't count, 
 
 Because it was made when in liquor.'^ 
 
 "Who takes to the still and its product will find 
 His brain, like his tongue, growing thicker; 
 
 And all his morality oft will be lost. 
 If mingled too freely with liquor. 
 
94 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 THE HERODS OF TO-DAY. 
 
 A Herod, fearful for Lis tbroue. 
 
 Commanded in his day 
 His hireling band in Bethlehem, 
 
 Tlie little babes to slay, 
 Begetting mourning in the land, 
 
 Thus drenched in infant gore, 
 Of Rachels \veei)ing for their kin, 
 
 Whom they should see no more. 
 
 We shrink with horror from the thought 
 
 Of what that Herod did; 
 Yet in our modes of modern life 
 
 Abaddon's form is hid, 
 And though we sadly mourn for those 
 
 Whom he hath borne away, 
 The slaughter of the innocents 
 
 Goes on from day to day. 
 
 Dame Fashion wields the venomed shafts 
 
 These tender plants to kill, 
 While liquor and the cigarette 
 
 Their tieadly mission fill; 
 And many modern factories 
 
 Are juggernauts to slay. 
 And sickness ignorance bespread 
 
 Out-Herods him to-day. 
 
 A thousand forms of needless death 
 
 Are stalking through the land. 
 And Herod, in a modern dress. 
 
 Still issues his command 
 In fashion's mandates armed with power 
 
 The race to re-enslave, 
 Till Azrael leads to freedom through 
 
 The pathway of the grave. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 9J 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE. 
 
 Redolpliiis Jason built a house. 
 
 Magnificent and grand. 
 On which lie lavished boundless wealth 
 
 With an unsparing hand. 
 Its massive wails were flinty stone, 
 
 Its roof of hardest tile, 
 While front and rear the portico 
 
 Made an aniphiprostyle. 
 
 Aluminum instead of wood 
 
 Was used to form the doors. 
 While finely tessellated stone 
 
 Made bright mosaic floors. 
 In short, the woik was fireproof. 
 
 So stable every way. 
 It seemed to Jason and his kin. 
 
 That it Avould last for aye. 
 
 To guard against all accidents 
 
 The house was well insured; 
 So Jason thought his happiness 
 
 Had surely been secured. 
 But yet a horrid corpse was hid 
 
 Beneath the massive wall. 
 And flitting through the rooms at night. 
 
 Its ghost pervaded all. 
 
 Intruding into ev'ry room 
 
 Stalked this unwelcome guest. 
 And nowhere in the haunted house 
 
 Was found a place of rest; 
 So that, instead of happiness 
 
 AVith joyous day and night. 
 The family saw but wretchedness. 
 
 Combined with sad affright. 
 
96 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Kedolphus found, the story runs, 
 
 Tlie source of all bis grief 
 Had been tbat be in early days 
 
 Disposed of murrained beef; 
 So people sickened by bis act. 
 
 And many even died, 
 And one was buried on the spot 
 
 Which he had beautified. 
 
 This victim of that grievous wrong. 
 
 Though long in his decease. 
 On viewing such prosperity 
 
 Oould never be at ease; 
 But coming from his grave at night. 
 
 Gave sad, heart-rending moans. 
 And filled the house, bought with his blood. 
 
 Throughout with dying groans. 
 
 No purifying cleansed that house 
 
 From ghostly step and thud, 
 As in its massive walls was hid 
 
 The price of human blood; 
 So many a man hath built a house, 
 
 While in the closet lay 
 The skeleton of wrong once done 
 
 Which would not wash away. 
 
 Within the gorgeous palace thus 
 
 Blood often is congealed. 
 For back of all the outward show 
 
 The corpse may be concealed; 
 And though to cover it one burn 
 
 The incense of a saint. 
 Yet its decay, unseen by all, 
 
 Imparts a loathsome taint. 
 
AND 'I'll Eli POEMS. 97 
 
 Man's liouso, tlie symbol of himself,' 
 
 On suporficial view 
 May seem to be magnificent;. 
 
 Yet shabby through and tlirongli. 
 Hence structui-es of imposing kind. 
 
 Appealing really grand, 
 When tested by the searching winds 
 
 The storm cannot withstand. 
 
 So character is often seen 
 
 In outward form so pure 
 It seems to human view the man 
 
 Of heaven was secure. 
 When deep within his cankered heart 
 
 An awful secret lay, 
 And gnawing conscience told of crime 
 
 Too vile to wash away. 
 
 Let him who reads this lesson right, 
 
 Then keep the soul Avithin 
 Free from injustice, wrong and vice. 
 
 And every kind of sin, 
 So that in later years of life 
 
 His conscience may not bring, 
 Ghost-like, the penalty of vice, 
 
 A deep, abiding sting. 
 
 TO SEE ONE'S SELF. 
 
 In the frailties of our manhood 
 
 Each with the other shares, 
 And the way to learn our failings 
 
 Is to tell our neiglibors theirs; 
 When they in retribution 
 
 Will seek in ns the same, 
 And call to our attention 
 
 Every source of grief and shame. 
 
98 THt: FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 LOVE IS BLIND. 
 
 When scorning vestal virgin's ire 
 Bold Cnpiil stole the sacred fire, 
 He placed it where 'twould ever glow 
 In maiden beauty here below. 
 
 The woman thus with tact and skill 
 Endowed the human heart to thrill. 
 In wealth of love will ever shine 
 Angelic-like and seem divine. 
 
 For in her grand and peerless worth. 
 The grace and elegance of earth 
 Blend with the flame of holy love, 
 Transplanted from the realm above. 
 
 We worship at the sculptor's shrine. 
 Creations of the art divine. 
 But life and love a beauty own 
 Transcending that produced in stone. 
 
 For love, above all human art, 
 AVill paint its visions on the heart, 
 And in its sacred precincts hold 
 The favored one as purest gold. 
 
 Bedecked with dew, the floral stems 
 May sparkle with a thousand gems. 
 But brighter than the flowers or dew 
 The one beloved appears to view. 
 
 For Venus with her finger-tips, 
 Her brush in burnished beauty dips, 
 To paint with charms beyond compeer 
 The one of all esteemed most dear. 
 
AND OTUKlt POEMS. 
 
 Eiulowed with all snch cliarms men seem 
 To think the maid of whom they dream 
 Surpassing in her matchless worth 
 All human beings on the earth. 
 
 Thongh frailties that annoy and vex 
 Pertain to others of her sex, 
 Yet in the one his love has crowned 
 No trace of weakness caii be found. 
 
 Thus men will think and always paint 
 Their fair enchantress as a saint. 
 Above all of the earthly kind, 
 A fancy proving love is" blind. 
 
 'Tis true of others, as you see, 
 This blinded love, but'not of me. 
 For my affianced, mark it well. 
 All other women doth excel. 
 
 99 
 
 THE NOBLE. 
 
 Seeking once to find the noble 
 In the famous golden age. 
 
 One accosted many people, 
 And at last a dry old sage. 
 
 Who in wisdom thus responded, 
 *' Yes, I know the thing you seek. 
 Which you surely will discover. 
 If you list to w^hat I speak. 
 
 '' Would you find the truly noble? 
 Seek it by the fevered cot, 
 Where a patient, anxious woman 
 Strives to ease the sufferer's lot. 
 
100 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 '^ Find it in tlie true and faithful 
 
 Wife when cursed by drunken man. 
 Yet who, in a humble manner, 
 Always does the best she can. 
 
 " See it in the trusting mother, 
 In the sister's boundless love, 
 Which appear in acts so noble 
 
 They seem sent from heaven above. 
 
 *• You can find the truly noble, 
 If you fathom woman's heart, 
 jFor wiien souls are bowed in anguish 
 She will do a noble part/^ 
 
 MONEY WITHOUT BRAINS AN INJURY^ 
 
 Jepthiah Hale, a humble man. 
 Divinely formed on God's own plan. 
 Not bright indeed in intellect. 
 Was made to labor we suspect. 
 
 An nnobtrusive man was Hale, 
 With shortage in his dinner pail, 
 As all the merchants felt they must 
 Decline to give him further trust. 
 
 But yet he mingled with his peers, 
 Enjoyed with them the jokes and jeers, 
 As pleasant boon com])anions then 
 His equals were his fellow men. 
 
 Thus Jep was happy in his way. 
 And lived along from day to day 
 With men he liked, nor sought the great. 
 But those he could appreciate. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 101 
 
 A cliiklless uncle in tlie West, 
 A millionaire without bequest, 
 Tiien (lied and left old Jep to share 
 His foriune ;is a kindred heir. 
 
 No greater change was ever heard 
 Than that which then in Jep occurred. 
 As he forsook the humble crowds 
 And held his head amid the clouds. 
 
 The woman he had vowed to love 
 
 He found himself so far above 
 
 That through divorce he shipped the wife 
 
 Who'd been his mate thus far in life. 
 
 When sacred ties no longer hold 
 A human heart so dead and cold 
 As thus to break this plighted troth 
 Such moneyed monster men should loath. 
 
 Now as befitting his estate 
 He sought among the rich and great;, 
 With men of culture and of mind 
 Alone, companionship to find. 
 
 These gentlemen so wont to scan, 
 And take the measure of a man, 
 Considered one in brain so poor 
 Intruding thus was but a boor. 
 
 These measured men of Jeptha's kind 
 By- want of brain and lack of mind, 
 Devoid of use except to fleece 
 As is their wont the fattest geese. 
 
 Hence Jeptha had companionships 
 Unfitted to his many slips, 
 And bled so oft, he found the worst 
 By money he was only cuised. 
 
102 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 No longer training with his kind, 
 But meeting men of cultured mind^ 
 The butt of laugh and ridicule, 
 He now appeared a wealthy fool. 
 
 Jep also tried to run the town 
 Wherein he lived, which would not down, 
 As men of brains, to put it frank, 
 Yield not unto a moneyed crank. 
 
 So in the place that was his home 
 He could not call two votes his own. 
 As brain will rule, and thus debarred 
 His fondest wish none would regard. 
 
 Companionships not of his kind, 
 In politics considered blind. 
 Despised by all for senseless pride. 
 This wealthy Jeptha lived and died. 
 
 His happiness had been transformed. 
 
 At losing which he often stormed. 
 
 In brain a pauper and the worse, 
 
 His wealth had proved its power to curse. 
 
 However strange this tale appear. 
 The moral should be very clear: 
 The surest source of ridicule 
 Is money given to a fool. 
 
 And would you profit by the tale, 
 Parental love should never fail, 
 Tiiy children well to educate. 
 Til us fitting them for high estate. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 103 
 
 THE BEST OF SOME THINGS. 
 
 The noblest man 
 
 In God's great plan 
 Is he who will persever, 
 
 Throngh boundless love, 
 
 Like that above, 
 In deeds that live forever. 
 
 The grandest birth 
 
 Upon the earth 
 Is not of rank or fashion, 
 
 But one who shows 
 
 At others' woes 
 His love and great compassion. 
 
 The highest claim 
 
 To endless fame. 
 Surpassing creed and faction. 
 
 Is found in man, 
 
 Divine in plan, 
 As proved by lofty action. 
 
 The greatest wealth, 
 
 Debarring health, 
 Which moi-tals can inherit. 
 
 Produces deeds 
 
 Surpassing creeds 
 In grand and peerless merit. 
 
 The noblest craft 
 
 Will well engraft 
 On work the art of giving. 
 
 And ever find 
 
 The soul inclined 
 To higher types of living. 
 
 The highest post 
 That men can boast, 
 Opplete with matchless beauty, 
 
1C4 THE FRAILTIES OF EUMANITf 
 
 Is where tliey stand 
 At God's command 
 And fearless do their dutji 
 
 The noblest course 
 
 Will have its source 
 In streams of living watei^ 
 
 Of love to run 
 
 And ever cun 
 The world away from slaughter. 
 
 The grandest rule 
 
 To learn in school 
 Is every man's a brother. 
 
 And ahvays true 
 
 To never do 
 Injustice to another. 
 
 The truest belle 
 
 Who would excel 
 Will ever fail to handle. 
 
 In act or word, 
 
 Wherever heard, 
 A piece of filthy scandal. 
 
 The sweetest wife 
 
 To have in life 
 May not be versed in science. 
 
 But can impart 
 
 To man a heart 
 In royal soul alliance. 
 
 The ricliest dress, 
 
 One must confess. 
 Is not of silk or satin. 
 
 But iiolds a form 
 
 Of perfect norm, 
 Unlearned or versed in Latin. 
 
AND OTUER POEMS. 105 
 
 Tlie noblest lodge 
 
 Will never dodge 
 Its bonds and claims fraternal, 
 
 But always seek 
 
 To help the weak, 
 And do it hodiernal. 
 
 The best faquir 
 
 Is not the seer, 
 Or one who is ascetic. 
 
 But he who proves 
 
 His spirit moves 
 With sorrow sympathetic. 
 
 The truest strife 
 
 To have in life 
 Is found in noble doing, 
 
 Surpassing men 
 
 In action when 
 The earth with love they're strewing. 
 
 The noblest faith, 
 
 Above the wraith 
 Of spirits often mirksome. 
 
 Will only ask 
 
 To do its task. 
 However hard and irksome. 
 
 The Godlike church 
 
 Will ever search 
 For ways to save a brother. 
 
 And prove its creed 
 
 In time of need 
 By aiding one another. 
 
 The only man 
 Who ever can 
 Become a proper pastor 
 
106 ^SE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Will always work 
 Within the kirk 
 As servant of the Master. 
 
 The noblest soul 
 
 Will find its goal 
 In love and deeds fraternal. 
 
 And when at last 
 
 The earth is past. 
 Will go to life eternal. 
 
 GETTING mSUEED. 
 
 A life insurance man came round. 
 
 Said Josh, the other day, 
 And talked about the company 
 
 Which after death should pay 
 My widow handsome sums ,of cash 
 
 To get another man, 
 And made the thing appear so bright 
 
 I thought rd try the plan. 
 
 He asked me questions many a one 
 
 Of how my life was spent; 
 How many relatives I had, 
 
 And how my business went; 
 Just who 1 was, and then my age; 
 
 How old I was at birth, 
 And how my parents knew ^twas I 
 
 Appearing on the earth. 
 
 He asked if 1 knew how to vote 
 
 Repub. or Democrat, 
 And lis to brains he'd like to know 
 
 The number of my hat; 
 And was I blind, deformed, or deaf; 
 
 And could I speak by rule. 
 Or did I ever lose my sense. 
 
 And turn into a fool. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 107 
 
 If ipecac I'd ever liad, 
 
 Or gout, or tremens blue. 
 Or panted from a want of breath, 
 
 And died of palsy too; 
 And were my parents still alive. 
 
 Or were they ever born; 
 And if I took my lager beer. 
 
 Or tumbled to a horn. 
 
 And was I married, or a bach 
 
 AVithout a girl in view; 
 Or did my babies cry at night 
 
 With pains of colic too; 
 How many brotliers I had had, 
 
 And sisters, what a shame! 
 Tiiat he should want to know of each 
 
 The age and sex and name. 
 
 When he had pumped me clearly dry, 
 
 Though mucii against my will, 
 He kept on pumping all the same. 
 
 And made me answer still; 
 Though when I'd told him all I knew, 
 
 And other things I guessed, 
 He shut his trap and took me to 
 
 A doctor for the rest. 
 
 The latter asked still stranger things, 
 
 Then peeled me off and went 
 For my internal revenues, 
 
 And soon with fury sent 
 A rasping-jack clear down my back. 
 
 Next thumped me to a jell, 
 Tlien tied me with a string, aiul made 
 
 Me sneeze and cotigh and yell. 
 
108 THE FMAILTIES OF HIIMANITY 
 
 He felt my pulse and tried my teeth. 
 
 And punched my liver too; 
 Then in his ears with stethoscope 
 
 He nearly bored me through. 
 While as an ohl pulf adder can 
 
 He tlionght I could inflate 
 My body with a breadth of beam 
 
 Beyond the usual state. 
 
 And when he'd got enough of this 
 
 He said that I would do; 
 You bet I was a bappy man 
 
 To find that I was through; 
 And should you wish to be insured 
 
 Why learn the way from me. 
 So you may know what to expect. 
 
 And not be found at sea. 
 
 jli\d now, my friends, one pjirting word. 
 
 For, when 1 fiml my rest, 
 That same insurance man will be 
 
 My widow's brightest guest; 
 When others come with bills to pay^ 
 
 And draw what is their due, 
 He'll come again with joyful cheer. 
 
 And bring her money too. 
 
 Although it takes a little cash 
 
 To carry on the thing, 
 I don't begi'udge a sitigle cent. 
 
 For joy 'twill surely bring; 
 The dearest one on earth to me. 
 
 My wife, when sorely tried. 
 Will bless me that I thought of iier, 
 
 3-nu SitW her vvants su[>plied. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 109 
 
 TO x\ SABBA.TH SCHOOL SUPERINTENDENT. 
 
 WIiGii tiny twigs first come to light. 
 And burst upon tlie luiman sight, 
 Tliey arc so young and tender still 
 One crooks or bends tlieni as he will. 
 
 E'en so it seems tlie human mind 
 May be in youth to God inclined. 
 Or borne with swiftest strides along 
 Far down the way of sin and wrong. 
 
 The children, whom we often meet 
 As little Arabs on the street, 
 May some day be the men of state. 
 Of lowest rank, or nobly great. 
 
 Endowed with souls to live for aye, 
 They should be taught in wisdom's way. 
 That they may gain the better part. 
 That priceless gem, a noble heart. 
 
 'Tis thine the task their sonls to win 
 Away from vice and shame and sin, 
 And show tjiem iiow by daily strife 
 To reach the highest type of life. 
 
 And as this work you've nobly done, 
 A way into our hearts you've won, 
 And hence this tribute to your worth 
 We give for teaching man's new birth. 
 
 For in the virtue that controls 
 Thy life insj)ired with zeal for souls. 
 We see the Master's spirit leads 
 Your heart to pure, unselfish deeds. 
 
1 1 TUI£ FRA IL TIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Hence wlieii tliy days on earth are o'er, 
 Eeoeived upon the mystic shore, 
 As thy reward to ever shine 
 A crown of glory shall be thine. 
 
 For to that future heaven of rest, 
 Allied with those supremely blest 
 In all that nobleness achieves. 
 You'll go at last with garnered sheaves. 
 
 BEUNION OF THE BLUE AND GRAY. 
 
 At Gettysburg, July 3, 1887. 
 
 Four and twenty years have vanished. 
 
 Like tlie shooting stars of night. 
 Since on Gettysburg's round hilltops 
 
 Marshaled legions stood in fight; 
 When two hundred thousand heroes. 
 
 Some in Blue and some in Gray, 
 With the fury of the tempest. 
 
 Met in battle's stern array. 
 
 Three long days of deadly conflict. 
 
 Filled tlie earth with woe and pain. 
 When it seemed, by flight so rapid. 
 
 Spirits jostled spirits slain; 
 As with measured tread those armies. 
 
 Heeding not the cannon's breath. 
 Kept the step to weirdest music, 
 
 Khythmic with the dance of death. 
 
 There the high tide of rebellion. 
 
 Reached amid the rush and roar 
 Of contending hosts in battle, 
 
 Broke like billows on the shore. 
 Where that line of Union heroes 
 
 Stood knee-deep in death and blood, 
 Dying by tlieir loyal standards. 
 
 Dashing back the rebel flood. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. HI 
 
 Oil that liigli tide Soutlierii lieroes 
 
 Glory^s bright refulgence slied. 
 Where, as cogent proofs of valor, 
 
 liose tlie ghastly lieaps of dead; 
 And, as backward rolled their armies. 
 
 Hearts in Gray were filled with gloom 
 When they saw the downward marching 
 
 Of rebellion to its doom. 
 
 For the end of their retreating, 
 
 Which at Gettysburg began, 
 Never ceased till Appomattox 
 
 Stood in glory grandly won; 
 And the ensign of the Union, 
 
 From the lakes unto the sea, 
 Floated o'er a land united, 
 
 And a people truly free. 
 
 Four and twenty years have faded. 
 
 And behold another scene. 
 Not of brother fighting brother. 
 
 But of happiness serene; 
 When again those mighty armies. 
 
 Both in Gray and Union Blue, 
 Meet around that famous hamlet. 
 
 Ties of friendship to renew. 
 
 O! the grandeur of their meeting 
 
 In fraternal bonds anew. 
 Pledging, where they stood in carnage. 
 
 Brotherhood forever true; 
 Heaven itself no brighter vision 
 
 E'er unrolls to mortal sight, 
 And the angels seem rejoicing 
 
 Over deeds so pure and bright. 
 
112 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Kome may point her march of triumph, 
 
 When the captives thronged her car. 
 And the glory of his pageant 
 
 Marlced tlie victor in her war; 
 But this nation shows a grander 
 
 Scene than came to ancient days. 
 For our once contending foemen 
 
 Meet to sound each others' praise. 
 
 Vanquished meeting with the victors, 
 
 Brothers standing hand in hand, 
 Elhows touch in moving column, 
 
 Blue and Gray have but one land; 
 Kebel yells from Mississippi, 
 
 Symbol of a foeman's vow, 
 Answer cheers from Pennsylvania, 
 
 Both are for the Union now. 
 
 Thus methinks of peace the victory 
 
 Grander is than thjit of war, 
 As, with heart to heart responding. 
 
 Brethren gather from afar, 
 And in pride they bear our ensign. 
 
 As a beacon full of light. 
 Which their fathers nobly dying, 
 
 Once upheld in valiant fight. 
 
 Of this meeting see the promise 
 
 In the prophets' olden books, 
 Wlien the spears be turned to plowshares. 
 
 And the swords to pruning hooks; 
 For this grand, fraternal greeting 
 
 Echoes friendship o'er and o'er. 
 And foretells when, in the future, 
 
 Nations shall learn war no more. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 113 
 
 And it says that for our country, 
 
 Come whatever woe or weal, 
 Bine and Gray in common honor 
 
 Pledge a love that's deep and real; 
 For, in loyalty surpassing, 
 
 Hearts grow nearer day by day. 
 Swearing that our nation's ensign 
 
 Shall float proudly on for aye. 
 
 JUDGE NOT. 
 
 As men of regal, lofty worth 
 
 Have gained an honored name and station 
 By noble lives npon the eartli. 
 
 Yet sometimes yield to strong temptation; 
 Hence charity belongs to all, 
 
 And mercy should the soul illumine 
 With kindness for the ones who fall. 
 
 When falling only proves them human. 
 
 The man who fancies he is strong. 
 
 And able to resist temptation. 
 Quite often fails of doing wrong 
 
 And sinking in base degradation; 
 Not near so much by manly foi-ce 
 
 As that from vice he's been exempted^ 
 And in the shaping of liis course, 
 
 Like those who fell, has not been tempted. 
 
 The boy who can endure the taunt 
 
 Of city Arab or street gamin, 
 And men who suffer from the want 
 
 Of clothing, hunger, food or famine. 
 And all who keep their honor bright 
 
 When bravely facing want and dangers. 
 Evince a lofty sense of right. 
 
 To which the rich are often strangers. 
 
114 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 The potent promptings of the heart. 
 
 And trials that beset a brother. 
 We never see, but view the part 
 
 Of outward conduct in another; 
 So that to our contracted sight 
 
 Some acts appear both vile and shameless. 
 Which, viewed in broader, truthful light, 
 
 In noble purpose may be blameless. 
 
 And e'en the thing which seems to mar, 
 
 Divinely judged, when life is ended, 
 May be proclaimed an honored scar, 
 
 Received where strife and triumph blended; 
 While tlios9 who seem depraved and base. 
 
 To our imperfect, narrow vision, 
 God may esteem the sons of grace. 
 
 In merit meet for joys elysian. 
 
 would we had the power bizarre 
 
 To see with that divine precision 
 Our fellow-beings as they are. 
 
 And not with our constricted vision; 
 How those we censure might appear 
 
 In spirit pure, devout and moral. 
 And some esteemed unworthy here 
 
 Be recompensed with bays and laurel. 
 
 The strongest, most convincing chain 
 
 Of circumstances ever woven 
 To stamp with an enduring stain 
 
 A human being's life as cloven. 
 May be of innocence the blight, 
 
 A proof that man is narrow-minded. 
 And in his lack of mental sight. 
 
 Construing facts, is often blinded. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 115 
 
 A living hero in Marseilles, 
 
 Guyon is called the sordid miser, 
 Yet o'er his tomb the town bewails 
 
 In him her aqueduct ])rovisor; 
 With love and honor riclily due 
 
 To one who, scorning base decrial, 
 Had ivept his purpose firm and true 
 
 To help the race through self-denial. 
 
 A Staszic slandered in his day, 
 
 Witli purpose to the future reaching, 
 Hath left results that far outweigli 
 
 The common type of moral teaching; 
 And Poland weeps in pride for him, 
 
 Whose testament gave serfdom voices. 
 With luster that no age should dim 
 
 Since freedom in his name rejoices. 
 
 Some ethel souls, who led the way 
 
 To consecrated Christian giving, 
 And taught mankind from day to day 
 
 The highest type of noble living. 
 Were first misjudged and then denied 
 
 The right of thought, which freedom charters. 
 As shown in every homicide. 
 
 Enforced to make the host of martyrs. 
 
 E'en He who taught '^Good will on earth," 
 
 The ethel paths of peace pursuing. 
 And through his truths of peerless worth 
 
 Hath led the race in noble doing. 
 Was deemed seditious to his land. 
 
 Deserving only malediction. 
 And by the rul^-'s stern command 
 
 Was doomed to death by crucifixion. 
 
116 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Too oft the world has been inclined 
 
 No new-born truth to quickly swallow. 
 And unprogressive lacks the mind 
 
 Its thinkers in reforms to follow. 
 Hence those, who lead the van of thought 
 
 From mental pinnacle or steeple, 
 Are deemed the cranks for Mors onslaught 
 
 By self-conceited, stagnant people. 
 
 Judge not. You cannot here be just. 
 
 And may bestow on true endeavor 
 A censure, like a dagger's thrust . 
 
 That cuts and pains and wrongs forever. 
 And men of honest, noble aim, 
 * May meet your scornful detestation 
 While leading lives that really claim 
 The highest type of veneration. 
 
 EVIL SPEAKING. 
 
 Good Elder Jacobs as a man 
 Possessed a very striking plan 
 Of giving needed dry reproof. 
 And teaching men to tell the truth; 
 So when the sisters spoke of one 
 As strangest person 'neath the sun. 
 Into the room the elder came 
 And found a way to check the same. 
 
 He said, ^^ She's strange beyond compeer. 
 And what to many may seem queer, 
 In fact she is so very weak 
 As ill of others not to speak; 
 For as a Oliristian, grand and true. 
 She guards her tongue discreetly too. 
 And never would a friend defame. 
 Or bring reproach upon his name.'* 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 117 
 
 Keproof like that most persons need. 
 And better far if all should heed, 
 And guard their lips lest they defame 
 Some other person's spotless name; 
 Since envy aims its poison dart 
 At those who are most puie in heart, 
 AVhen falsehood would a shadow cast 
 On those above its power to blast. 
 
 The Christian rule says to proclaim 
 The faults against another's name. 
 Thus seeking malice to impart, 
 But shows tlie vileness cf tiie heart; 
 And one who stoops to such an act 
 Thereby degrades himself; in fact. 
 By doing what is base 
 He only points his own disgrace. 
 
 Some persons, whom we truly think 
 Would from disgraceful lying shrink, 
 And scorn to do an act that's vile. 
 Will still the name of friends defile. 
 And even with base falsehood tinge 
 The words they use to sear and singe 
 And blight the lives of those they meet. 
 And as their friends are glad to greet. 
 
 As thistle seeds by children strewn. 
 
 And by the winds so v/idely borne 
 
 Tiiat none can follow in their track 
 
 To biing the fleeting rovers back, 
 
 So no one can undo what's done 
 
 By slander's vile, corrupting tongue; 
 
 Unjustly ruined by its blight 
 
 Man's hopes lie crushed in darkest night. 
 
118 THE FRAILTIES OF HIIMANITT 
 
 By cutting throats with vvhispVings base 
 Man often does himself disgrace. 
 When envy seeks to raise a name 
 By ruining another's fame; 
 Aiul often those prone so to speak 
 Are liypoci'ites who only seek 
 By blighting thus another's weal 
 Their own misdoing to conceal. 
 
 The tongue that is so evil starred 
 Appears with walls securely bari'ed. 
 As by the teeth and lips shut in 
 ^Twould seem beyond its power to sin; 
 Yet often still it comes about 
 The mouth is opened widely out. 
 And tongues are robbed of their defense 
 To speak at other men's expense. 
 
 Take as your guide the Cliristian way. 
 And learn this precept to obey: 
 If others' faults appear in truth 
 Deserving even of reproof, 
 In secret tell the erring one 
 About the wrong which he hath done^, 
 And never let your tongue disgrace 
 Yourself by doing what is base. 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 Words are the soul's ambassadors 
 On many missions sent, 
 
 Which in their varied ranges 
 Fulfilled the mind's intent. 
 
 Words are the bolts of lightning 
 From truth's own Galling gun. 
 
 Where error shall be vanquished 
 And wrong shall be undone. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 119 
 
 Words are in all the conflicts 
 
 Of truth and falsehood seen. 
 Each army's ammunition, 
 
 The furnished magazine. 
 
 Words are the ships of progress 
 
 That sweep the human kind. 
 Forever on upholding 
 
 The commerce of the mind. 
 
 Words are in soul communion 
 
 The current mental coin, 
 With power in thought exchanges 
 
 All lands as one to join. 
 
 Words are the tools of science. 
 Which, peerless in its worth. 
 As learning's hrilliant sunshine 
 • Irradiates the earth. 
 
 Words are the stars of midnight, 
 
 AVith power to unroll 
 New glories in the heavens, 
 
 Ennobling to the soul. 
 
 Words are the tongue-coined caskets. 
 
 With primal truths inwrought, 
 Of prehistoric ages, 
 
 The burial-grounds of thought. 
 
 Words are the lingual fossils. 
 
 The megatheres of mind. 
 Within their roots enclosing 
 
 The footprints of mankind. 
 
 Words, through the learning buried 
 
 In roots and primitives, 
 Are, to the toiling student. 
 
 The crowns Sandalphon gives. 
 
120 THE FRAILUES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Words, like the weights and measures 
 Used in exchanging grain. 
 
 Are in the works of authors 
 The measures of the brain. 
 
 Words in diplomatism 
 
 Are missiles sent afar. 
 The weapons of the statesman 
 
 In waging paper war. 
 
 Words are to evildoers ^ 
 
 The sword of Damocles, 
 As through the courts of justice 
 
 Are issued stern decrees. 
 
 Words are the wheels of progress 
 Which bear the race along 
 
 On higher planes of living. 
 To leave behind the wrong. 
 
 Words are the steps to greatness. 
 Once trod by all the wise. 
 
 In steady new attainments. 
 As Alps on Alps arise. 
 
 Words are, to earnest workers. 
 Who in this earthly strife 
 
 Attain immortal honors, 
 The monuments of life. 
 
 Words are the aids to freedom. 
 
 The Paladins of right. 
 That fire the soul with ardor 
 
 For stern and deadly fight. 
 
 Words are the tools of slander 
 With power to barb the dart. 
 
 And basely plaut its dagger 
 Deep in the human heart. 
 
AND OTHElt POEMS. 1J>1 
 
 Words are tlie race Megaera, 
 
 Or Eriniiys of f.ite, 
 Tluit follow like Alecto 
 
 The objects of tbeir hate. 
 
 Words are witli power of torture 
 
 A car of Juggernaut; 
 Or Abderite of laughter, 
 
 Who pulls his merry-thought. 
 
 Words are the shafts of Momus, 
 
 All barbed iu ridicule; 
 Or touched with commendation. 
 
 The race in love to school. 
 
 Words are in human folly 
 
 The seeds producing fruit. 
 As often blent with falsehood 
 
 They show the cloven foot. 
 
 Words are the bonds of pleasure 
 
 Our paths on earth to cheer, 
 And make a bed of roses 
 
 To mortals dwelling here. 
 
 Words paint the brilliant future, 
 
 Wlien all the earth shall ring 
 With praises of Jehovah, 
 
 And love of man be king. 
 
 Words are for one's salvation. 
 
 And wondrous growth in grace. 
 As mentors to tlie spirit, 
 
 The life-blood of the race. 
 
 Words may be rays of sunshine 
 
 To those beside the tomb. 
 The lamp of an Aladdin 
 
 To light the hearts in gloom. 
 
122 THE FRAIL TIBS OF HUM A N1T7 
 
 Words fire the bread of friend sliip. 
 And love tiie souvenir. 
 
 The source of all enjoyment 
 To. man in his career. 
 
 Words are the lover's tokens 
 To one bewitching fair. 
 
 That asks the Amaryllis 
 Her suitor's lot to share. 
 
 Words are the voice of music. 
 Like some sweet philomel, 
 
 That sends its notes of gladness 
 Enraptured joys to tell. 
 
 Words are the wings of wisdom, 
 The Mercuries of right, 
 
 Or Pegasi of genius 
 In Asmodeus flight. 
 
 Words are Hesperian gardens 
 O'erhung with golden fruits, 
 
 Where men of steadfast purpose 
 May drink from living puits. 
 
 Words are electric flashes 
 That thrill the heart of man. 
 
 And rouse the soul in action 
 To do the best it can. 
 
 Words are as rich as Croesus 
 With power to sway mankind, 
 
 And lift the race to culture. 
 Ennobling to the mind. 
 
 Harsh words, like swift Camilla, 
 
 So rapid on the wing, 
 May leave their trail behind them 
 
 In many a painful sting. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 123 
 
 Kind words may follow after, 
 
 Yet to the hearts that ache 
 May never in their swiftness 
 
 The evil overtake. 
 
 Hence we should see the wisdom 
 
 Of faithfulness to right, 
 As thoughtless words once spoken 
 
 Have endless power to blight. 
 
 For in the varied changes 
 
 Of life upon the earth, 
 Words are the strongest agents 
 
 To which the world gives birth. 
 
 Eternal in existence, 
 
 The Durandals of power. 
 Words are to human beings 
 
 Jehovah's priceless dower. 
 
 Which on the earth abiding 
 
 Their richness will display. 
 In soul communion fruitage 
 
 For ever and for aye. 
 
 THANKSGIVING. 
 
 Our pilgrim fathers, who forsook 
 
 The old world for the new, 
 Hath started what should ever live- 
 
 Tliis custom, gnmd and true; 
 As on one day within the year. 
 
 In gratitude and love, 
 AVe lift our hearts in thankfulness 
 
 To him who reigns above. 
 
124 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANll T 
 
 Oft thonglitlessly we tread life's way, 
 
 AVhen everything is briglit, 
 Forgetting wliat we owe to liim 
 
 AVho is the source of light; 
 But when disease our bodies rack 
 
 In anguish and in pain, 
 Our hearts will thrill with gratitude 
 
 As health returns again. 
 
 If cannon thunder in the land, 
 
 And drench the earth with gore, 
 ^Tis then we pray to God for peace. 
 
 And bless him when 'tis o'er; 
 But if the years in rolling round 
 
 From war shall leave us free. 
 His constant guiding care in this 
 
 We often fail to see. 
 
 In all things should we here below 
 
 Discern our Father's hand. 
 That showers blessings I'ichly down 
 
 On us and on our laiul; 
 Our numbered hairs are in his care^ 
 
 He gives what seemeth best; 
 Our country by his guidance too. 
 
 With peace is truly blest. 
 
 Then recognize the hand that leads 
 
 Along life's changing way, 
 And fills the cup of joy for us, 
 
 Transforming night to day; 
 For when our sky by clouds o'ercast 
 
 Seems gloomy, dark and drear. 
 At God's behest the sunshine, bright 
 
 With glory, will appear. 
 
AND OTUER POEMIS. 125 
 
 LET THE DAYLIGHT IN. 
 
 Along life's rugged pathway, 
 
 If to brooding one's inclined, 
 This truth, in uU its bearing. 
 
 It is well to bear in mind: 
 No day is ever so gloomy. 
 
 But a darker might have been; 
 No sorrow's ever so fearful. 
 
 But a worse might enter in. • 
 
 Though crosses often heavy 
 
 Supervene along thy way. 
 Yet think of others' trials. 
 
 And remember, day by day. 
 No lot is ever so cheeriess. 
 
 But a worse God might assign; 
 No path is ever so thorny. 
 
 But a harsher might be thine. 
 
 Behind the clouds of darkness. 
 
 When appearing most malign. 
 The sun in bright refulgence 
 
 Never yet has ceased to shine; 
 And rays of beauteous splendor 
 
 Through the mistic clouds will break. 
 To light with heavenly comfort 
 
 All the weary hearts that ache. 
 
 Amid thy darkest troubles. 
 
 When the soul seems nigh undone. 
 Beyond tlie clouds of sorrow 
 
 Then belioM the shining sun. 
 Whose I'ays of glorious comfort 
 
 Are to happiness akin. 
 And on thy gloomiest sorrow 
 
 Always let the daylight in. 
 
126 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 GOING HOME. 
 
 Lines Suggested by the Death of M. Early, of 
 Detroit, Michigan. 
 
 Cast aside those sable garments; 
 
 Black is nnbecomiiig here. 
 There's lio sliade or tint of sadness 
 
 Suited to a good man's bier. 
 
 From his many years of labor, 
 Leaving scenes of earthly strife, 
 
 Summoned by his father's message. 
 This man goes to endless life. 
 
 Through a }>ath of many trials, 
 From our father's house we roam; 
 
 On this earth Ave're only strangers — 
 Death is our returning home. 
 
 Though we mourn for friends departed, 
 Yet the welcome truth we own: 
 
 There's no cause for grief or sadness 
 In the thought of going home. 
 
 Prodigals and pilgrims truly. 
 Here on earth for years we roam, 
 
 Shrinkingdeath as some dread monster. 
 When 'tis only going home. 
 
 Storms and tempests are around us. 
 Yet a father's heart must yearn 
 
 For his children as they wander 
 Till death bids us to return. 
 
 Sickness, trouble, pain, and sorrow, 
 
 All of earthly life annoy. 
 When one sleeps to wake in glory. 
 
 It should be a time of joy. 
 
AND OTllEU POEMS. 127 
 
 Put away those sable garments — 
 
 Death is not a monster drear. 
 But translation home to heaven, 
 
 Through the pathway of the bier. 
 
 THE EARTH TRANSFORMED. 
 
 Within a dream my fancy once 
 
 Serenely bore me on. 
 To view this earth so changed it seemed 
 
 That every vice was gone. 
 Society was then transformed. 
 
 And ceased its sham parade. 
 As none were counted gentlemen 
 
 With tailor bills unpaid. 
 
 Then envy, jealousy, and strife 
 
 No longer held their sway, 
 But love and human brotherhood 
 
 Produced millennial day. 
 No woman suffered direful want, 
 
 Or humbly begged for aid. 
 Since no man was a gentleman 
 
 With washing bills unpaid. 
 
 As love and true fraternity 
 
 Made everything serene. 
 No shoddy, sham aristocrats 
 
 Appeared to mar the scene; 
 Nor women dressed in gaudy silk 
 
 Unpaid for were arrayed, 
 As none could rank as ladies there 
 
 With sewing bills unpaid. 
 
128 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Injustice tluis in every form 
 
 From earth had passed away. 
 And in its place equality 
 
 In righteousness held sway. 
 Hence no one died in abject want, 
 
 Or lived in need of aid, 
 Since earth contained enongh for all 
 
 When honest debts were paid. 
 
 The real earmarks of snobbery, 
 
 The cold and stony stare, 
 And women wedding foreign dudes. 
 
 Were never witnessed there. 
 Nor duel code allowed a man 
 
 To take another's life, 
 But made him not a gentleman 
 
 For eating with his knife. 
 
 The mothers from receptions too. 
 
 Society relieved. 
 That left for them no time in which 
 
 Their children were received; 
 Hence no attractions were so great 
 
 Which others could employ. 
 As every family circle found 
 
 At home their truest joy. 
 
 When error thus in all its forms 
 
 No longer could be found, 
 But people proved by deeds of love 
 
 That righteousness was crowned. 
 The world appeared a paradise 
 
 To wrong no longer given. 
 But gave to mortals everywhere 
 
 A foretaste here of heaven. 
 
AND OTHER POKMH. 129 
 
 HUMILITAS ELATA ERIT. 
 
 Though man in the fleali to misconduct is prone. 
 
 And each lieir of Ailarn luis faults of his own. 
 
 Yet nobleness veiled in humility's guise 
 
 In acts that are ethel the race deifies; 
 
 And as the Eternal, discerning aright. 
 
 In spirits of meekness will find a delight, 
 
 So those who are humble, though sometimes at fault, 
 
 Eor motives of purity God will exalt. 
 
 CHOOSING A LOVE BOUQUET. 
 
 I'm culling now with pleasure 
 
 A bright bouquet for you. 
 And choose a passion flower. 
 
 Type of devotion true; 
 And send along a dahlia 
 
 To say forever thine, 
 Combining with a jonquil 
 
 In hope that you'll be mine. 
 
 By rosebuds Vm confessing, 
 
 When tongue is strangely mutO;, 
 And fine mimosas showing 
 
 My heart's a broken lute; 
 While Asian Amaranth us 
 
 Its story shall repeat. 
 And say my love lies bleeding 
 
 At beauty's graceful feet. 
 
 Geraniums, for color 
 
 On rose my choice shall fall. 
 As others may be lovely. 
 
 Yet you exceed them all; 
 And snowballs saying virtue 
 
 Doth cluster round thee now. 
 While language of the holly 
 
 Is think upon thy vow. 
 
130 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 V\\ show by fine peach blossoms 
 
 That here I Wx my choice. 
 And hope by love retiiriiing 
 
 You'll bid my lieart rejoice; 
 And next by whitest lilies 
 
 I'll typify thy worth, 
 And say that you are looking 
 
 By far too pure for earth. 
 
 And then I'll send a speedwell 
 
 Engraven with thy name. 
 For deatliless when 'tis kindled 
 
 True love's a holy flame; 
 While ivy in affections 
 
 Of females bears a part. 
 And says in floral language 
 
 I've found one truthful heart. 
 
 This bay will show affection 
 
 Which changes but with death. 
 And bids us to be faithful 
 
 Until life's latest breath; 
 While pink, a single red one. 
 
 Tells what the heart can keep, 
 As love both true and holy 
 
 Dwells in its fountain deep. 
 
 Unchanging arbor vitae 
 
 Is like my love for thee, 
 Whose type the everlasting 
 
 Guaphalium si i all be; 
 Acacias may in friendship 
 
 Their sweetest fragrance rise, 
 But I will send Acanthus 
 
 Indissoluble ties. 
 
AND OTIIini POimS. 131 
 
 May orange flowers biidal 
 
 Festivity soon show, 
 Since tliy unconscious beauty 
 
 llath set my heart aglow; 
 Hence in these graceful flowers 
 
 Atfection makes its plea, 
 As every one selected 
 
 Attests mv Jove for thee. 
 
 THE PROTECTOIIATE FROM VICE. 
 
 To human eyes some men appear. 
 
 By lofty heights attained, 
 As chosen leaders of the race 
 
 To noble work ordained; 
 And yet such men are seen to fall 
 
 Because the fount within 
 Is full of vile, debauching thought, 
 
 Productive here of sin. 
 
 1^0 greater error could be made. 
 
 Or more with danger fraught. 
 Than harboring within the mind 
 
 A vile and evil thought, 
 That demon-like from every man 
 
 His highest hopes may proll. 
 And leave him stramied ere he learns 
 
 Our thoughts our lives control. 
 
 As birds of bi-illiant plumage oft 
 
 Their glory will display, 
 While filthy jiarasites within 
 
 Are eating life away; 
 So oft beneath the richest garb, 
 
 In beauty's magic form. 
 The soul-destroying parasites 
 
 Of evil thoughts may swarm. 
 
132 TUli: FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Tliongli some may think the soul immured 
 
 In bodies may be derned, 
 Yet ^tis a truth tliat everywhere, 
 
 The wisest men have learned; 
 Tl)e casket may be beautiful, 
 
 And faultless in its preen, 
 Yet thoughtless jokes and acts reveal 
 
 A heart that is obscene. 
 
 By nature's mode in outer dress 
 
 Kich beauties are concealed; 
 E'en thus in homely m.ussel shells 
 
 Pearls surely are revealed, 
 And from the darkest caves of earth 
 
 The choicest gems are mined; 
 So in ill-fashioned bodies oft 
 
 The hearts of gold we find. 
 
 And when despite the outer garb. 
 
 Serenely there amid 
 Ungainly gait and homely form 
 
 A royal soul is hid; 
 It, through the actions nobly done 
 
 In making others blest, 
 In varied ways without intent, 
 
 Its presence will attest. 
 
 For mirrored from the heart within. 
 
 Its secrets to disclose, 
 In divers ways, the hidden thought 
 
 To outer action grows; 
 And body-like with myriad pores 
 
 From every dark recess, 
 A thousand voices in the soul 
 
 Its wishes will express. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 133 
 
 What others thijik iiulnces men 
 
 To make themselves appear 
 Unblemished in their open acts. 
 
 And rigidly austere; 
 Yet stripped of hypocritic cunt 
 
 Beyond the touch of guile, 
 Unguarded actions often show 
 
 The soul within is vile. 
 
 Deceptive masks may cover np 
 
 A heart to disobey, 
 But yet in time the outer acts 
 
 The inner man betray; 
 Hence far above all outward show. 
 
 Which cannot long endure. 
 Is that protectorate from vice, 
 
 A heart divinely pure. 
 
 ACTION EVERYWHERE. 
 
 Life is action, life is motion. 
 Moving creatures only thrive; 
 
 Both the land and briny ocean 
 Are with myriad forms alive. 
 
 Movement reigns throughout creation 
 To the outmost bounds of space, 
 
 Whereby worlds in perturbation 
 God's own workmanship we trace. 
 
 Rays of sunshine ever changing, 
 Like the worlds that are in need 
 
 Of their potent rearranging, 
 On their mission swiftly speed. 
 
 Heat by mild evaporation 
 
 Ever raises from the sea 
 Clouds that by precipitation 
 
 Are refreshing hill and lea. 
 
134 TBE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Kcigiiig winds, that rouse the ocean 
 Till its angry billows leap 
 
 Like a fury in commotion. 
 Only purify the deep. 
 
 Air is purified by sigliing, 
 Tempests and the hurricane. 
 
 Cyclones and tornadoes flying 
 With destruction in their train. 
 
 Living streams have running water 
 From the center to the brink, 
 
 Stagnant ponds are full of slaughter 
 And unfit for human drink. 
 
 E'en the atom hath its circle. 
 Bringing motion out of force. 
 
 Like the wife with claims novercal^ 
 Or a planet in its course. 
 
 From the tiny cotyledon. 
 That exhibits herbal birth, 
 
 Sap ascending makes an Eden 
 Universal on the earth. 
 
 ^Tis its power forms the fucus. 
 And in cellules doth instil 
 
 Colors from an ochroleucous 
 To a white or chlorophyll. 
 
 Hearts are beating, veins are coursing 
 Full of changing streams of blood. 
 
 Wasted tissue reinforcing 
 With the life-renewing flood. 
 
 Living forms have changing matter. 
 Lifeless ones but pass away, 
 
 As the rest within the latter 
 Is the signal for decay. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 135 
 
 Life is ever effervescent 
 
 Till our course on earth is run. 
 Corpses only are quiescent. 
 
 Telling that the souTs undone. 
 
 Perfect rest with life is never. 
 
 Even when we are asleep; 
 Change is going on forever. 
 
 Death alone can silence keep. 
 
 Even in decomposition 
 
 There are living forms that play. 
 For the body's demolition, 
 
 Roles to bring about decay. 
 
 Thus the world is in commotion, 
 
 Action reigning every wiiere, 
 And the man of tiiie devotion 
 
 Finds his own allotted share. 
 
 Duty summons souls to action; 
 
 Not to idle life away. 
 A^irtue calls to benefaction; 
 
 Not to vain, inert decay. 
 
 Duty calls for earnest laboi-; 
 
 There is here no place for rest. 
 Every one should help his neighbor; 
 
 Work alone is truly blest. 
 
 Yet within this world of action, 
 
 Mummy-like in stiffened pride. 
 Souls may undergo contraction. 
 
 And be very dignified. 
 
 Dignity that marks refinement. 
 
 By perversion often can 
 Cover up the non-alignment 
 
 Of a soul with work for man. 
 
i36 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Dignity is then quiescence, 
 Like a body that is dead; 
 
 Life is like the phosphorescence 
 Which the Noctiluca shed. 
 
 Dignified to petrifaction 
 
 Come such fossil souls to view. 
 
 While replete with earnest action 
 Shine the hearts forever true. 
 
 Dignity in churches ever 
 May a luster seem to shed. 
 
 Yet betray by lost endeavor 
 That the soul within is dead. 
 
 Death attested by the shirking 
 
 Of the claims that they should meet, 
 
 Kever knowing, in their working, 
 Brothers whom they ought to greet. 
 
 Churches that by consecration 
 In God's spirit have their root, 
 
 Show results of supplication 
 
 In their sheaves of garnered fruit. 
 
 For the spirit thus supernal 
 AVill, in love of man divine. 
 
 With fruit-bearing deeds fraternal. 
 All their acts with God align. 
 
 THE SENTINEL OF THE SOUL. 
 
 As bovine herds in Mexico, 
 
 With bodies past the nape 
 In mud interred sagaciously, 
 
 From insects to escape, 
 Have their commander at his post 
 
 As guard against dread foes 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 137 
 
 In Marangouins who essay 
 
 To reach the mam mars nose; 
 So men their bodies may inimure 
 
 Within the cloistered walls. 
 Yet there may find the secret thought 
 
 Producing sinful falls, 
 Unless against the foes that swarm 
 
 Unseen as scent of nard. 
 About the soul God's spirit stands. 
 
 Its avenues to guard. 
 
 THE WAY TO SUCCESS. 
 
 Pizarro stood upon tlie sand 
 Beside his cliosen, faithful band. 
 And as he slowly forward paced 
 A line upon the earth he traced. 
 
 '^ Beyond," he said, *Mie fields of gold 
 W^hich may be yours, if warriors bold; 
 Behind is ruin and dismay. 
 Each one may now select his way.'' 
 
 Then stepping o'er that line in sand 
 He turned and thus addressed his band: 
 '* Eor me you see the die is cast, 
 I'll go ahead while life shall last." 
 
 Without a thought of turning back 
 His men all followed in his track, 
 Tlius designating they would go 
 Defiantly against the foe. 
 
 Sublime and grand the wonders wrought. 
 The dangers braved and battles fought. 
 Till finally their longing eyes 
 By conquest saw Peru their prize. 
 
138 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 'Tis always thus in life> we think, 
 The men who will from danger shrink 
 No glorious deeds have ever done, 
 The brave alone have victories won. 
 
 Decision is the thing man needs 
 To lead him up to valiant deeds, 
 As trembling cowards never press 
 AVith vigor on to reach success. 
 
 The men, who standing idly by 
 But wait for fortune to draw nigh. 
 Will wait until life's fleeting breath 
 Shall leave them sleeping cold in death. 
 
 Though others are disposed to shirk, 
 
 The hero rises to the work. 
 
 And first deciding wliat to do 
 
 With courage then will drive it through. 
 
 Success one cannot fail to win 
 Who in this spirit doth begin, 
 And then but press with firmness on 
 Until all opposition's gone. 
 
 Art thou to noble deeds inclined? 
 Attain the power of valiant mind. 
 First choose the work you wish to do, 
 Then to thyself prove grandly true. 
 
 TRUE POLITENESS. 
 
 In a car full of men on its way down the street 
 
 Came an invalid lady in need of a seat; 
 
 Yet the passengers tiiere, though in dress recherche. 
 
 No heed to the woman seemed ready to pay. 
 
 Till attracted by features so pale and so wan 
 
 A poorly clad vvorkingman beckoned her on 
 
AND OTUER POEMS. 139 
 
 To the eud of the cur, where he rose in his phice 
 
 And offered his seat with the manliest grace, 
 
 And said, as she came to his place from afar, 
 
 '•' It would seem that no gentlemen lide on this car." 
 
 Said she, *' You mistake, as the act you have done 
 
 Evinces the fact there is certainly one." 
 
 MAMMA'S CROSS TO-DAY. 
 
 Quite peevishly a little girl, 
 
 AVhen summoned from her play, 
 
 Struck by her mother's altered tone. 
 Said ''Mamma's cross to-day." 
 
 " If mamma's cross you should be good 
 And helpful every way, 
 Yet learn instead of being cross 
 That mamma's sick to day." 
 
 Thus spake the mother, and the child 
 
 Then hastened to obey 
 Her every wish because she said, 
 *' My mamma's sick to-day." 
 
 That child's example so sublime 
 Should teach the older men. 
 
 That when their friends nre cross or ill 
 To be the better then. 
 
 It was on its exalted height. 
 So Godlike, grand, and true, 
 
 That it may teach the highest course 
 For mortals to pursue. 
 
 When angry words from others fall 
 
 In harshness on thy ear. 
 Do not respond in kind, but let 
 
 Thy nobler self appear. 
 
140 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITr 
 
 . ENVY OR JEALOUSY. 
 
 A bird of fine plumage, both brilliant and gay, 
 Was singing along in the merriest way, 
 When an envious owl overheard tlie refrain, 
 And said to the bird, '' You are haughty and vain; 
 I hate you as others most surely should do, 
 And never could fathom the love borne for yon." 
 Said the bird, '' Neighbor owl, let your jealousy pass, 
 And to learn why you're hated just look in the glas§." 
 
 Those words would be wisdom for all men to hear. 
 For whenever one jealous and loveless appear. 
 And thus' move along in his pathway on earth. 
 He should find in himself is the lack of true worth; 
 Then in life's rugged path would you learn how to rise, 
 Not envy nor jealousy brings one the prize; 
 But bury these ever as onward you pass, 
 Detecting your faults by a look in the glass. 
 
 ANCESTRAL PRIDE. 
 
 Like the peacock that's strutting o'er the spread of his 
 
 tail. 
 Although after a shower all its glory will fail, 
 So is man in his folly, when recalling a ghost. 
 Even those who are worthless will of pedigrees boast. 
 
 EFFECTUAL PRAYER. 
 
 When once a Scotchman broke a limb. 
 His neighbors met to pray for him. 
 That from affliction tried and sore, 
 God might the man to health restore. 
 
 And there beside the suiferer's cot 
 They asked of God to e;ise his lot, 
 With souls in earnest effort wrung, 
 While in between the hymns were sung. 
 
t( 
 
 AND OTllKll POEMS. 141 
 
 While thus engaged was lieard a knock, 
 Which gave to all a startling shock 
 To tind their prayers pure and grand 
 Were checked with sacrilegious hand. 
 
 And when the door ajar was thrown. 
 The sacrilegious one was shown 
 To be a farmer's boy forsooth, 
 Who said in accents real uncouth: 
 
 My dad, unable to attend, 
 Resolved his prayers here to send; 
 They're out in yonder cart, you see; 
 Examine and find what they be." 
 
 On going out to view the cart 
 The crowd found prayers from the heart: 
 Potatoes, cabbage, meal, and meat, 
 And other needed things to eat. 
 
 That farmer's act by God was heard 
 Above tiie man's who plead by word. 
 Since noble deeds to heaven rise 
 And waft as incense in the skies. 
 
 For those alone v,ill God delight 
 In whom both toil and prayer unite. 
 As his apostle truly said • 
 That faith devoid of works is dead. 
 
 DOCTORS PAY. 
 
 Believing his days on the earth about o'er, 
 Av,d seeking escape from tlie Stygian shore, 
 A miserly cuc'moo distressingly sick 
 Once sent for a doctor to come to him quick. 
 
142 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 'Beseeching the latter to cure up his ill. 
 
 And said he'd care naught for how steep was the bill. 
 
 If only his aihnent was really allayed, 
 
 The whole of the price should be speedily paid. 
 
 The doctor most skillfully helped him along, 
 But when Mr. Cuckoo grew rugged and strong 
 The bill for the service he never would pay. 
 Thus acting indeed in a dastardly way. 
 
 When dunned for the fees. Mi*. Cuckoo replied: 
 *' You did me no good, and I'd surely have died 
 Had I kept up your treatment, I can truthfully say; 
 I'm surprised at your cheek, sir, in asking for pay.''' 
 
 Like that bird in its conduct too often is man. 
 Refusing to honor his bills when he can; 
 But worse than all that, and far more to liis shame, 
 Returning for help wrongful censure and blame. 
 
 Though all forms of ingratitude truly are cursed. 
 Still man's treatment of doctoi-s appears as the worst. 
 Since in sickness their aid he'll beseechingly pray. 
 But in health may forget for the service to pay. 
 
 He'll grumble o'er prices, and often will say: 
 *' Too much," when 'tis only a dollar a day 
 For curing his children and healing his wife. 
 Or even protecting and saving his life. 
 
 No questions like this in his business arise. 
 Since talent in that he will certainly prize. 
 Securing the best, and no matter what sum 
 Is asked for tiie service 'twill readily come. 
 
 Hence, judging of men by the prices they pay 
 For business success, or for health, we might say 
 Man prizes his money far more tiian his life, 
 Or the health of his children, or that of his wife. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 143 
 
 CHOICE OF FRIENDS. 
 
 A stream of water, pure and grand. 
 Runs silently through Syrian land. 
 Till joining in its onward course 
 An impure brook gives added force. 
 
 Its current holds on to tlie sea, 
 Though pure it nevermore can be. 
 As by that flood of waters soiled 
 Its purity's forever spoiled. 
 
 E'en so in life the friends we meet. 
 And as companions kindlv greet. 
 Will lift us up by God like" grace. 
 Or make us vile, if they are base. 
 
 The heart that's once been foully stung. 
 And had by vice its conscience wrung, ' 
 Its virtue never may regain, 
 E'en though repentance comes with pain. 
 
 It thus behooves us all to ward 
 Away the false, and keep a guard 
 On those companions whom we choose. 
 That they may not our faith abuse. 
 
 Select your friends of lofty mind 
 AVith hearts to truth and God inclined. 
 So that their touch mav but inspire. 
 And raise you up to something higher. 
 
144 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 MOTHER, DEAR MOTHER, MY HEART 
 
 LONGS EOR THEE. 
 
 Wherever on earth fute may call me to roam, 
 
 AVhatever of joy I may happen to find. 
 My heart will return to its earliest home. 
 
 For hallowed in thought is the mother so kind, 
 That viewed in the light of her love and her care 
 
 1 learn, as I journey afar o'er the earth. 
 There's nothing of pleasure to even compare, 
 
 AVith the home of my childhood, the place of my birth. 
 
 Cho. : mother, dear mother, my heart longs for thee, 
 This form that thy arms as an infant caressed, 
 Now a wanderer far over life's troubled sea, 
 Would return as a babe and repose on thy breast. 
 
 Thus though I may wander my thoughts will return. 
 
 In visions of bliss that will never depart. 
 To the home of my childhood and friends that I learn. 
 
 Have graven their impress so deep on my heart, 
 Wliere adored were the brothers and sisters I knew. 
 
 And father translated and sainted above; 
 Yet dearest of all was the mother so true, 
 
 Conceived in affection and christened in love. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 Her record of kindness I fondly recall. 
 
 The songs that hath lulled me to sleep in the night, 
 The bounties of morning, that surely would fall 
 
 As my portion of love, in remembrance are bright; 
 And liow, when dread sickness my form had distressed. 
 
 And tossed me about in delirious rage, 
 She slept not, but nestled me close to her breast. 
 
 Are indelibly written in memory's page. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 145 
 
 Far better than riches are treasures above, 
 
 And the wealth of the worhl I esteem as but dross. 
 Compared to the mother, whose bounteous love 
 
 Ilath taught tne in childhood the way of the cross: 
 Hence the angel, who guarded my footsteps in youth. 
 
 So gentle in manner coi-recting the wrong. 
 And guiding me ever to goodness and trutii. 
 
 In affection I garland and worship in song. 
 
 Chorus. 
 
 My mother, dear mother, who wouhl compare, 
 
 The treasures of earth with a glory like thine? 
 For what hath the world that in grandeur can share 
 
 Thy peerless devotion? predestined to sliine 
 As gems in thy crown when translated above, 
 
 And clad like the seraphs in raiment of white, 
 For soul-saving grace and immaculate love 
 
 Thou shalt shine as the stars everlastingly bright. 
 
 " Chorus. 
 
 WEALTH. 
 
 Wealth is noble in the aidance 
 
 It may give to human needs. 
 But ignoble in decadence 
 
 When devoid of lofty deeds; 
 Since the proper use of money. 
 
 Sanctified in brotherhood. 
 Makes men's lives sei-ene and sunny 
 
 By its power of doing good. 
 
 Wealth is noble when divjnely 
 
 Pointing upward to the stars. 
 But demonic when malignly 
 
 Used to murder men in wars; 
 Though for valor so exalted 
 
 Should the heroes be adored. 
 Yet by love should men be halted 
 
 From resortinof to the sword. 
 
146 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Wejilth is noble when concurrent 
 
 With the wish to work and plan. 
 But from action when deterrent 
 
 Proves a blighting curse to man; 
 Being thus a means of culture. 
 
 Varied graces to impart, 
 Or again a horrid vulture 
 
 Eating out the moral heart. 
 
 Wealth is noble to inherit 
 
 When emplo3'ed for human aid, 
 But devoid of any merit 
 
 When it^s used for self-parade; 
 For the only type of action 
 
 Underneath the shining sun, 
 Crowned with endless satisfaction 
 
 Is the good that may be done. 
 
 Wealth is noble when refulgent 
 
 With the deeds that are divine. 
 But when only self-indulgent 
 
 It will often be malign; 
 One appearing like an idyl 
 
 In the sweetness of its verse. 
 And the other suicidal. 
 
 Proving but a moral curse. 
 
 Wealth is noble as its able 
 
 To exalt the human race, 
 But with minds that are unstable 
 
 It may lead to their disgrace; 
 Since within the marble palace 
 
 It may prove a source of strife. 
 Leaving as a poisoned chalice 
 
 Moral death instead of life. 
 
AND OTUELi POEMS. 147 
 
 THE FLOUNDER. 
 
 The bnby flounder born is free 
 
 And sportive in its play, 
 And swims about like other fish 
 
 Throughout its early day; 
 Yet after but the briefest spell 
 
 Its mode of life is changed. 
 So all tlie organs which exist 
 
 Appear to be deranged. 
 
 Like varied fishes of the tribe 
 
 With which it is allied, 
 It ceases soon to be erect 
 
 And falls upon its side; 
 And is predoomed to lowly life. 
 
 And by its action led 
 To living on the ocean^s slime. 
 
 Or swimming near its bed. 
 
 The light air-bhidder nature gave 
 
 To help the fishes rise. 
 Becomes, through lack of proper use. 
 
 Too small to recognize; 
 So that the flounder, first from choice. 
 
 And afterward compelled 
 By want of true development. 
 
 Is at the bottom held. 
 
 Resembling flounders, every man 
 
 Hath powers organized 
 To lead him to exalted life, 
 
 If wisely exercised; 
 But which may shrink to rudiments 
 
 By lack of proper use, 
 Beyond his own capacity 
 
 Again to reproduce. 
 
148 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Learn well^ my sonl, the lesson taught, 
 
 A higlier life is thine; 
 Thou wert not born to grovel here. 
 
 But prove thyself divine; 
 Then rise to lead that ethel life. 
 
 As God hath thee designed, 
 And make thyself a noble man — 
 
 Be not the flounder kind. 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Though the world is but a Babel 
 
 AVhere confusion seems to run. 
 Love is yet the golden cable 
 
 That can bind all hearts in one; 
 Since within the Christian palace, 
 
 Or the heathen bungalow, 
 It is true communion's chalice. 
 
 Setting human hearts aglow. 
 
 Love with selfishness is laden. 
 
 Which all brutish life controls. 
 Whether carp or low menliaden, 
 
 Or the humble, siglitless moles — 
 Making some like the ichneumon 
 
 In the quest of blood athirst. 
 And humanity inhuman. 
 
 Doing deeds that are accursed. 
 
 Thus we have the desperado 
 
 Who his manhood will inurn. 
 And to gain a small crusado 
 
 Stoop to murder, rob and burn; 
 Yet no better are those nations 
 
 That, to brigandage inclined, 
 Seek unworthy aspirations 
 
 Through the slaughter of mankind. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. I49 
 
 Hence the world is rent asunder, 
 
 Torn by baleful crime and strife. 
 As the parasites but plunder 
 
 Others in the course of life — 
 All intent upon the reaping 
 
 What another man hath sown. 
 And dishonest bent on keeping 
 
 What a fellowman should own. 
 
 Yet the world hath nobler manhood 
 
 Which in righteousness erect, 
 Broader than mere petty clanhood. 
 
 Doth the rights of all respect, 
 And presents the gracious giver. 
 
 Who, when touched by human woe. 
 Drops his wealth that like a river 
 
 In benevolence shall flow. 
 
 Love with selfishness is burdened 
 
 Steeling man against his kind. 
 Though the higher type is guerdoned, 
 
 As the worthy deeds enshrined; 
 Viewed through self's keen-eyed detector 
 
 By the nobleness of heart. 
 Sweeter than the sweetest nectar, 
 
 Kich enjoyment will impart. 
 
 Selfishness, that baleful giant. 
 
 Only proves that love is strong. 
 Though perverted and defiant. 
 
 Caring naught for right or wrong; 
 Love cf self's the necromancer 
 
 Spurring men to toil and plan. 
 Yet may be tiie moral cancer 
 
 Eating up the nobler man. 
 
150 ^'HE FRAILTIES OF HUMANIl T 
 
 Still the type above decrial, 
 
 Pure, unselfish, and serene. 
 Springs by peerless self-denial 
 
 From the humble Nazarene; 
 Knowing in its gracious action. 
 
 And exalted power for good, 
 Neither race, nor creed, nor faction. 
 
 But a common brotherhood. 
 
 Noble love, the moral giant, 
 
 Lifting men from sordid strife. 
 With fraternal deeds compliant 
 
 Leading on to higher life; 
 Crushing out all chance concision. 
 
 Spurning selfishness and vice. 
 Stands a messenger elysian. 
 
 Fitting man for paradise. 
 
 WAR^S DOUBLE PUKPORT. 
 
 War only is glorious 
 When it's victorious; 
 But when a defeat 
 Compels a retreat. 
 Or every defender 
 Is forced to surrender, 
 Then no laurels abound, 
 And no heroes are crowned. 
 
 War full of barbarity 
 Brings popularity 
 When crowned with success, 
 Caring naught foi- distress. 
 And horrors inflicted, 
 Or rights interdicted. 
 Since the victors alone 
 Men as heroes will own. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 151 
 
 War born in rapacity, 
 Waged with audacity. 
 In the popular mind. 
 To causes all blind, 
 Yet always so mobile. 
 Will rank as the noble, 
 When the crime is concealed 
 In the glory revealed. 
 
 War, trait of insanity, 
 Killing humanity, 
 Reflects on the race, 
 And bespeaks man's disgrace, 
 Yet the sword's demolition 
 May bring manumission. 
 When a halo divine 
 Round its luster will shine. 
 
 War, waged for nihility. 
 Proving nobility. 
 Incongruous here, 
 Yet the truth will appear. 
 This monster of trouble 
 In purport is double. 
 Either baleful in fight. 
 Or securing the right. 
 
 War often malignantly. 
 Sometimes benignantly. 
 Hath humanity cursed. 
 Or its fetters hath bui'st; 
 Thus this work of the demon. 
 Or shield of the freeman. 
 Is the vilest of eartli, 
 Or most peerless in w^orth. 
 
163 TEE FRAILTIES OP HUMANITT 
 
 DEEDS BETTER THAN CREEDS. 
 
 As evening shades were settling clown 
 Witliin a wealthy Eastern town, 
 A little girl in shabb}^ dress, 
 Compelled by want and dire distress. 
 Was found upon the city street 
 Accosting those she chanced to meet — 
 In timid style, with open palms. 
 Yet urgently beseeching alms. 
 
 To eacli in cliildish way she said, 
 ** My n)amma's sick, my papa's dead. 
 Our house is cold, we have no meat, 
 Nor bread, nor anything to eat.'' 
 Revealing thus a tale of woe 
 That touch the hearts of men aglow. 
 With love of man, which ever leads 
 In sorrow up to lofty deeds. 
 
 A churchman passed along that way. 
 Who for the poor was wont to pray. 
 And for the lost in heathen lands 
 W^ould nobly give at God's commands; 
 Yet somehow in his Christian creed 
 The poor at home would scarcely heed. 
 And on a night extremely wild 
 He could not stop to help this child. 
 
 Thus others came, and others passed. 
 
 As heedlessly as did the last, 
 
 'Till finally there came along 
 
 A man whose faith was clearly wi'ong; 
 
 In fact of. boasted unbelief, 
 
 Yet with a heart foi- human grief. 
 
 And touched by sonow, want and pain. 
 
 To him her plea was not in vain. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 153 
 
 For heeding not the passing throng, 
 He took the chikl and went along 
 By stately church and lofty dome, 
 Tiiroiigh street and alley, to her home; 
 And there, commingled with distress. 
 Saw want and woe and wretchedness. 
 By wliich his pnrse was opened wide 
 That needed aid might be supplied. 
 
 Who dares to say in God's pure light 
 What did the recording angel write 
 Against the churchman with his creeds 
 And for this man of noble deeds? 
 Since this one seemed divinely led. 
 As he v/ho gives, the Master said, 
 A cup in mercy to the poor 
 Of his reward shall be secure. 
 
 A box thus given to the poor 
 Tiie donor's standing may secure; 
 For when God's spirit's in the box. 
 We ask not is he orthodox, 
 As noble acts of mercy shine 
 In hearts when touched by fire divine. 
 And maii may prove by gracious deeds 
 A faith transcending all the creeds. 
 
 THE FARM. 
 
 Within the handles of the plow, 
 
 The share the sod upturning. 
 And every clod beneath our feet 
 
 Are lessons worth the learning. 
 Thus pregnant is the soil with truth. 
 
 As round each atom hovers 
 The story of the pristine earth, 
 
 And all its past uncovers. 
 
154 TBE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 For in the structure of the soil 
 
 Resounds througli ancient eons 
 The tale of fire and water's strife 
 
 With frost and glacial paeaur, 
 When chaos reigned in power supreme. 
 
 And old forms were dissolving, 
 Like Ixion on his fiery wheel 
 
 For evermore revolving. 
 
 It brings to mind a time ore earth 
 
 With sun and moon were lighted. 
 But firmament and all the deep 
 
 In chaos were united; 
 When earth was rocking from lier base. 
 
 And in the fiery surges 
 The birth of planets echoed forth 
 
 Commingled with the dirges. 
 
 It tells about the primal earth 
 
 In nebulous cotuiition. 
 Condensed to make a solid crust. 
 
 And its decomposition; 
 When all the varied elements. 
 
 By chemical attraction. 
 Combined in forming neutral salts 
 
 And oxidized reaction. 
 
 It shows hov/ metamorphic power 
 
 Effects its transformations, 
 And pseudomorphic forms have come 
 
 By filling eliquatious. 
 As often all the pristine rocks 
 
 Have undergone refusion 
 AVhere many fissures have been filled 
 
 By precious ore intrusion. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 155 
 
 It speaks of times when Typliou boiled 
 
 With fire-breatliing gases, 
 And Vulcan in his power forged 
 
 Fierce floods of molten masses, 
 That rolling onward in their course, 
 
 All things to overpower, 
 Yet left in their destructive path 
 
 Of earth another dower. 
 
 It will suggest the earthquake shock. 
 
 In primal forming matter, 
 With miglit to rend the continents. 
 
 The cnist again to shatter; 
 As Pkito held his fiery reign 
 
 And kept the land and ocean, 
 Slow forming from the seething flame, 
 
 Oft boiling in commotion. 
 
 It speaks of continents that rose 
 
 By nature's grand upheaval, 
 And lofty chains of mountains made 
 
 Within the times primeval; 
 While underneath the seething sea, 
 
 Like man from man's deridance. 
 There slunk away the plastic crust 
 
 From waters in subsidence. 
 
 It tells about an atmosphere 
 
 Surcharged with acid gases. 
 That decomposed by surplus heat. 
 
 The old volcanic glasses; 
 And of the early forming ruin. 
 
 Which in its deposition 
 Produced upon the heated rocks 
 
 A 'constant ebullition. 
 
156 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 It speaks of water tearing down 
 
 The moinitains by erosion, 
 And frost and gases in the rock 
 
 Like dynamite explosion, 
 Oft breaking np the solid crust. 
 
 While forces of attrition 
 Conjoined to mingle other earth 
 
 For final deposition. 
 
 In brief, within the humble soil. 
 
 In all its former ranges. 
 And all the forces that react. 
 
 Producing many changes; 
 From primal times to latest date. 
 
 Through varied combination. 
 The philoso})hic mind can trace 
 
 The record of creation. 
 
 And of climatic changes known 
 
 In geologic ages, 
 It teaches some to find a cause 
 
 From astronomic sages. 
 Who thus will trace the changing course 
 
 To winter in aphelion; 
 The earth pursues, until we lose 
 
 The warmer perihelion. 
 
 It thus recalls the greater length 
 
 To earth's eccentric orbit. 
 Extending farther from the sun, 
 
 So winter may absorb it; 
 And also shows the plane of earth 
 
 By gravitation's praxis, 
 Responsive to that subtile force 
 
 Deflected from her axis. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 15^ 
 
 Instructed by the lieavens above. 
 
 And by the things thereunder, 
 One finds relationsliips between 
 
 Tliat fill his soul with wonder; 
 For in such astronomic laws, 
 
 And in the sun-spot ranges, 
 Upon the earth is found the power 
 
 To bring climatic changes. 
 
 But while our heat may be reduced 
 
 By heaven-born deterrents, 
 Yet on the earth are causes seen 
 
 In oceanic currents; 
 With otliers still in lesser heat 
 
 Diffused by radiation, 
 And in the shape of continents 
 
 And change of elevation. 
 
 Each farm suggests still other farms 
 
 And types of vegetation, 
 Adapted on each one to thrive 
 
 With proper cultivation; 
 And speaks of winds that bear aloft 
 
 The soil again to scatter,' 
 Its fragments most diversely blent 
 
 With other kinds of matter. 
 
 It tells of overflowing Nile, 
 
 Whose surging waters hurtle. 
 And teem with microscopic dead. 
 
 The land to render fertile; 
 And of the dread volcanic force. 
 
 With currents, dykes, and ditches, 
 Which, though destructive in its course, 
 
 'J'he country round enriches. 
 
158 THE FRA ILTIE8 OF HUMANITY 
 
 For thus, witli power to make all lands 
 
 As fertile as the Rhenish, 
 Bright Ceres waves her fljiming torch 
 
 To human w^nts replenish; 
 While, like Proserpina, allowed 
 
 To -leave the lower regions, 
 Her seeds entombed will reappear 
 
 Increased to growing legions. 
 
 It tells US that the breathing earth. 
 
 Though seeming calm and placid. 
 Through cracks and fissures in its crust 
 
 Exhales carbonic acid; 
 And stranger still within the earth. 
 
 Commingled with bitumen. 
 Finds gas and oils confined in rock. 
 
 Our dwellings to illumine. 
 
 It speaks of heaven-soaring clouds, 
 
 And vapor condensation. 
 Begetting in the thirsty earth 
 
 The growth of vegetation; 
 Which shows the want of light and heat 
 
 Within the polar I'egions, 
 And in the tropics strongest life 
 
 In multiplying legions. 
 
 It will suggest how modern earth. 
 
 By methods of rock-breaking. 
 In richness borji of their decay. 
 
 Still other lands is making; 
 For seeds of plants on crumbled rocks 
 
 Take root in gerinination. 
 On which the animals that feed 
 
 Through death add new formation. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 159 
 
 It tells about tlie hnnian race. 
 
 In intellect ascendant, 
 As on the plants the soil be,£:ets 
 
 Man^s future is despondent; 
 And shows ns how jtrinieval men. 
 
 Devoid of homes and taverns. 
 Like tiny emmets dwelt within 
 
 Tiie sunless depths of caverns. 
 
 The same is true of low^er life. 
 
 It thus must find existence. 
 Relying for its sustenance 
 
 Upon the soil's consistence; 
 Hence from the richness of the earth 
 
 The plant in living plunders, 
 Transforming it in vai-ied ways 
 
 To make a world of wonders. 
 
 The lower and the higher life 
 
 Depend upon each other. 
 For were the plants from earth removed 
 
 The animals would smother; 
 Since everywhere the atmosphere 
 
 Befouled by respiration. 
 For us is quickly purified 
 
 By breathing vegetation. 
 
 And everywhere in living light 
 
 There comes before the farmer 
 Some types of life divinely clad. 
 
 Like feudal knights in armor. 
 Eclipsing in its handiwork, 
 
 For lightness and protection. 
 The highest mortals can conceive 
 
 Of beauty and perfection. 
 
160 THE FRAILTIES OF IIUMAJSITY 
 
 The scales upon the reptile tribe. 
 
 The carapace of turtles, 
 Th.e shells enclosing tender snails, 
 
 Like well-adjusted kirtles; 
 And all of nature's armored plate. 
 
 Exhibits iu production 
 The greatest strength and smallest weight 
 
 Conjoined in its construction. 
 
 The test of tiny rhizopods, 
 
 Oft with connecting stolons. 
 And chitine wings the beetles bear. 
 
 May show the modern solons, 
 The highest type of armor known 
 
 For warfare predatory, 
 Upon the backs of lowly forms 
 
 Equipped in nature's glory. 
 
 The lobster in his brigandine. 
 
 And humble armadillo. 
 Or porcupine full armed with quills;, 
 
 Like s])ikes within the willow. 
 And e'en tlie creature thinly clad. 
 
 As emmet, mole, or gopher. 
 Have wisdom for the farmer Jobs 
 
 Like that once taught by Zopliar. 
 
 Thus nature weaves her chains of truth 
 
 For one beside the furrow. 
 From mining architecture taught 
 
 Where armless creatures burrow. 
 To dwellings set in rugged cliffs 
 
 By rock-devoted eiders, 
 And houses made by toiling ants. 
 
 And homes of handless spiders. 
 
AND OTIIEIl POEMS. 161 
 
 There's music round the farmer's path 
 
 Of song-birds sweetly si noting, 
 Their notes melodious with love, 
 
 In heaven-born anthems I'inging; 
 While humming of the insect host. 
 
 From stinging wasp to hornet. 
 As nature's overtures transcend 
 
 The bagpipe or the cornet. 
 
 Concordant in her living lays. 
 
 In all her parts canorous, 
 Terpsichore in joy presides 
 
 O'er tuneful nature's chorus; 
 While through her sweet harmonic notes. 
 
 From monoc3'sts to plovers, 
 God writes his music in the soul 
 
 For all of nature's lovers. 
 
 Hence one who humbly tills the soil 
 
 May see the bird-tribes flutter. 
 And listen with enraptured heart 
 
 To all the songs they utter; 
 Or he may catch with ravished ear 
 
 From nature's modulation. 
 Through all her works in dulcet notes, 
 
 The rhythm of creation. 
 
 Beside the plow the insect host 
 
 In death ful love rejoices. 
 And relics of the primal man 
 
 Still speak with silent voices; 
 While round about the roving moth 
 
 The lamp or candle scorches, 
 And there to call her novel mate 
 
 The glow-worm lights her torches. 
 
 A/ 
 
162 Till!] FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Ami like tlie life which must depart 
 
 Kesponsive to Abaddon, 
 While other living forms appear. 
 
 One's anxious heart to gladden; 
 Transmuted on the farmer's trees. 
 
 The humble grubs and maggots 
 Outrival in their after life 
 
 The colors of the agates. 
 
 For all around are seeming worms. 
 
 In deepest degradation. 
 Which breaking chrysales become 
 
 The flowers of creation; 
 Thus every brilliant butterfly. 
 
 Or Luna moth, or miller, 
 Which fairy-like appears divine. 
 
 Was once a caterpillar. 
 
 There's beauty round the farmer's path 
 
 In all its glowing features, 
 Where God hath painted grandly bright 
 
 The glory of his creatures; 
 And set his signet on his own 
 
 In knightly decoration 
 Of living types which reattain 
 
 That matchless exaltation. 
 
 The ruddy farm-boy in himself. 
 
 So full of youthful blunders. 
 Is yet in all his parts a book 
 
 Of wisdom and of wonders. 
 In which whoever will may read, 
 
 With more than word attraction. 
 Of mechanism well designed. 
 
 And perfect in its action. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 103 
 
 lly:1raulic in its mode and plan, 
 
 IMie heart in constant tliinnpinor 
 To outward parts for their supply 
 
 The blood is ever pun)})ing; 
 While lungs within will change the man 
 
 By unobserved combustion. 
 Exhaling as a poison gas 
 
 The products of inustiou. 
 
 In mechanism thus prepared 
 
 By wonderful contriving. 
 Are organs generating heat 
 
 To do the body-driving, 
 All set within the si^eleton. 
 
 Well clad witii fat and muscle. 
 And skin designed to guard the parts 
 
 Where coursing globules justle. 
 
 With eyes and ears discretely formed 
 
 For pleasure and sensation, 
 With nerves divine controlling all. 
 
 The noblest in creation. 
 Are other parts that make the whole. 
 
 In every look and feature, 
 A grand machine of perfect type. 
 
 The highest living creature. 
 
 Endowed with reproductive power, 
 
 So in the consecution 
 The child may grow and form the man 
 
 By simple evolution; 
 And yet within electric force. 
 
 From vernal youth to doter, 
 But proves the man a dynamo. 
 
 An animated motor. 
 
164 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Subversive to the wants of man 
 
 Are other forms converted, 
 By farmers who as thouglit machines 
 
 Their powers have exerted; 
 Whose toil, all redolent of health. 
 
 In life so full of bustle. 
 Brings every organ into play. 
 
 Producing brain and muscle. 
 
 But yet this wonderful machine. 
 
 The highest of creation. 
 When life departs will form the soil 
 
 To nourish vegetation; 
 As in the Nicaraguan states. 
 
 Beneath the bishop's miter. 
 The burial grounds are often sold 
 
 To manufacture niter. 
 
 Thus many great imperial dead 
 
 Are measured by the liter. 
 And have their soon-forgotten forms. 
 
 Converted to saltpeter; 
 Transmuted dust, that from men's bones 
 
 And muscles by necrosis, 
 Exhibits in its cycling course 
 
 The real metempsychosis. 
 
 For matter ever circulates. 
 
 And in decomposition 
 It only changes its estate 
 
 To take a new condition; 
 Since all the matter and the force 
 
 In varied forms we cherish, 
 Transmuted often, still remains. 
 
 As naught on earth can perish. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 165 
 
 The fiirm may be an Etlen bower. 
 
 And in its products finer 
 Than any which the ancients grew 
 
 Upon the plains of Shinar; 
 For nature's gems of laurel wreaths 
 
 The price of sturdy hibor 
 Transfigure all the farmers' fields 
 
 Like that upon Mount Tabor. 
 
 His grain transcends in yellow gold 
 
 That from the land of Ophir, 
 Wiiile, round about, the forest woods 
 
 Excel the ancient gopher; 
 And as the Jews returned from strife 
 
 Appeared when met by Oded, 
 So with the product of his toil 
 
 In fall his barns are loaded. 
 
 Upon the soil of varied kinds, 
 
 From sandy dunes to rapils. 
 Grow fruits in rich luxuriance. 
 
 Like peaches, pears and apples; 
 The sunshine drops it rays of gold. 
 
 The bees produce their honey, 
 And in the glebe his plow upturns, 
 
 Stands wisdom joined with money. 
 
 Upon the farm the nettles grown, 
 
 Which, through appearing placid, 
 To pressure always causing pain, 
 
 Injecting formic acid; 
 Through spines resembling rattlesnakes. 
 
 And hurtful to the farmer, 
 Show God's provision for the plants. 
 
 In this defensive armor. 
 
166 TUE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 Beside liis plow and in bis woods. 
 
 As features of creation, 
 Designed to give to nature's forms 
 
 Unending variation, 
 He sees a host of parasites. 
 
 Whose roots and stems have taken 
 Their nutriment from other plants. 
 
 Like some benighted Achan. 
 
 Within his woods in roots and plants. 
 
 And in the blooming flower, 
 Are buried many alkaloids 
 
 Kenowned for healing power — 
 Suggesting to the thinking mind 
 
 That with exact precision 
 For all the morbid states of life 
 
 Creation made provision. 
 
 Beside the plov/share and the sod. 
 
 And bulbous roots and tangles, 
 Within the stones in crystal forms 
 
 Are geometric angles; 
 While in the roots by exosmose; 
 
 And endosmose the power 
 That lifts the sap upon the tree. 
 
 And makes the charming flower. 
 
 With dew-gems oversliining art, 
 
 And all the forests painted 
 On trees and windows by the frost. 
 
 The farmer is acquainted; 
 And on his lands the floral world 
 
 Produces golden pistils, 
 While round his home the falling snow 
 
 Leaves mathematic crystals. 
 
AND OTHER P0KM8. 167 
 
 In beauty's gorgeous evergreen, 
 
 Transcending ancient Gedor, 
 His home may teem with pinnacles 
 
 Of graceful pine and cedar; 
 While myriad plants, on every hand 
 
 Along his round of duty. 
 Show nature's paint-pots emptied out 
 
 In tints of matchless beauty. 
 
 Yet nature versed in human taste, 
 
 The bright, which art abhorrest, 
 Hath left, and set in restful green 
 
 The background of the forest; 
 And on this field of pleasing green. 
 
 The blight upon the duller. 
 She dyes her flowei's in piebald hues 
 
 Of complimentary color. 
 
 In bright mosaics autumn frosts, 
 
 Like dewdrops from Aurora, 
 Paint evei-ywhere in r.-iinbow tints 
 
 The sadly blushing flora; 
 Although upon the largest tree, 
 
 With all its leafy flounces, 
 The color matter is so slight 
 
 It may be weighed by ounces. 
 
 The landscape nature paints for man, 
 
 In finished touch and splendor. 
 Exceeds in polished elegance 
 
 The highest art can render. 
 In short, creation spreads her charms 
 
 To his enraptured vision, 
 And daily brings before his eyes 
 
 Her Eden fields elysian. 
 
168 THE FRAILTIES OF HUMANITY 
 
 The weather weaves her wreaths of gold 
 
 For every toiling peasant, 
 Whei'e nature sliows in glory bright 
 
 The grandeur of the present^ 
 Conjoining it with all the past. 
 
 As God in love is strewing 
 Eich beauty all around the path 
 
 The farmer is pursuing. 
 
 Above his fields in golden light. 
 
 The earth again to dower, 
 Bright Phoebus drives his flaming steeds, 
 
 Charged with transmuting power; 
 And there within the somber night. 
 
 The heavens in grandeur strewing. 
 Comes Phoebe with her train of nymphs. 
 
 The flying stars reviewing. 
 
 Above his head the sapphire skies. 
 
 Beyond all art engenders, 
 Are crimsoned witli a thousand dyes. 
 
 Set in prismatic splendors; 
 While gold-fleeced clouds that deck the blue 
 
 Of ether's over-story. 
 His sunsets paint in brilliant hues 
 
 Of iridescent glory. 
 
 Emblazoned on these heavens above. 
 
 Where countless stars are shining; 
 And in the deepest caves of earth. 
 
 Where peerless gems are mining; 
 And on the sui-face of our globe. 
 
 Within the crystal rory, 
 God sets his signet round our paths 
 
 In royal gems of glory. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS. 169 
 
 noble farm I Exalted life! 
 
 Lo! with tiiy many burdens 
 Kind nature weaves her charms of truth 
 
 To be thy suitor's guerdons; . 
 And wisdom opens wide her hand 
 
 So that the surface-breaker. 
 In all the grandeur of the earth 
 
 And welkin is partaker. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE, 
 
 Action Everywhere 133 
 
 Affectation Ridiculous 83 
 
 Aim, The Noble 77 
 
 Animals, The Blind, in the Mammoth Cave 74 
 
 Armor, Animal 159 
 
 Best of Some Things 103 
 
 Blue and Gray, Reunion of . 110 
 
 Bluster, Significance of 92 
 
 Books V 
 
 Bore, A 55 
 
 Bouquet, Choosing a Love 129 
 
 Brain, A Measure of 79 
 
 Brotherhood of Man 64 
 
 Cat and the Mouse 93 
 
 Civilized Man a Barbarian Still 76 
 
 Climatic Changes 156 
 
 Coquette, The. 78 
 
 Courage, True 20 
 
 Creation, 'i'he Crowning Work of 22 
 
 Deeds Better than Creeds 152 
 
 Doctors' Pay 141 
 
 Earth, The Transformed 127 
 
 Egotism 22 
 
 Envy or Jealousy 140 
 
 Evil Speaking 116 
 
 Farm. The 153 
 
 Flounder, The 147 
 
 Friends, Choice of 143 
 
 Gentleman, The 20 
 
 Getting Insured 106 
 
 God. The Marvelous Works of 23 
 
 God's Way The Best 62 
 
 Going Home 126 
 
 Haunted House, The 95 
 
 Herods of To-day, The 94 
 
172 INDEX. 
 
 Honesty, A Test of 55 
 
 Humanity, The Frailties of ^ 9 
 
 Humanity, The Present, Better than the Pa'st 19 
 
 Humilitas Elata Erit 129 
 
 Ideal. The, Makes the Man 89 
 
 Insults Unworthy of Notice 89 
 
 Judge Not 113 
 
 Jus Vincet 63 
 
 Lesson, An Object , 53 
 
 Let the Daylight In 125 
 
 Life's J ourney 51 
 
 Lithophylls 25 
 
 Love 148 
 
 Love is Blind 98 
 
 Mamma's Cross To-day 139 
 
 Mars '77 
 
 Master's Rule, The 82 
 
 Mechanism, Animal 162 
 
 Metempsychosis 164 
 
 Money Without Brains an Inj ury 100 
 
 Mother, Dear Mother 144 
 
 Nature's Music 161 
 
 Nature Subdues Man. . , 24 
 
 Noble, The 99 
 
 One's Self, To See 97 
 
 Optima 81 
 
 Ornithoidichnites 70 
 
 Praver, Effectual 140 
 
 Pride, Ancestral 140 
 
 Politeness, True 138 
 
 Proem v 
 
 Rationis Expers 79 
 
 Right, Be Sure You Are, then Go Ahead 53 
 
 Sabbath School Superintendent, To a ... . 109 
 
 Safety, A Source of 76 
 
 School Teachers, The 68 
 
 Selling the Soul 63 
 
 Sentinel of the Soul, The 136 
 
 Shams of the Age, The 47 
 
 Spirit, In What 79 
 
 Success, The Way to 137 
 
 Thanksgiving 123 
 
 Time, Waste of 63 
 
 Tomb, The Lesson of the 90 
 
 Tongue, The Long 81 
 
 Trangression Brings Punishment 80 
 
 Truth Alone Hurts 86 
 
INDEX. 1>V3 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Truth and Falseliood Mingle 56 
 
 Universe, Tbe Celestial 53 
 
 Unnecessary 20 
 
 Vice, The Protectorate from 131 
 
 War's Double Purport 150 
 
 Wealth _ ' , 145 
 
 Wealth, The Impotency of 62 
 
 World, The, Would be a Paradise 87 
 
 Words , . iig 
 
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