LILY. "Where a rainbow toucheth, there breatheth forth a sweet smell." BACON: SYLVA SYLVARUM. I MARKED thy heart-throb daily fail, But when the rose was past, Six years our babe alone had lain: How wearily life lingers on, Since thou, its light, art fled; How agonizing memory tracks As beams the conscious eye with day, I knew I was not all of clay, Yet, fond as I believed my love, I loved thee not enough; Dear one, thou never wouldst reprove Ah! this is my reproof. Leaf, flower and fruit were mirrored on Our joy's unbroken flow; Spring freshness, summer gladness, shone With autumn's mellow glow. But when the thought that we must part Hope trembled like the leafless wood Like grave-stones in the snow. In meekness didst thou fade from earth; Soft was thy parting breath; O! better than the day of birth, To thee the day of death! Immortal calmness seemed thy sleep; Yet, all thy fetters riven, In beauty, free from beauty's pride, Light was thy step where sorrow bled, Thou wast my strength in every good, Bless thee! though thou hast passed the flood, Thy low, sweet words yet fill my ear, Thy hand yet rests in mine; And with my children, bowed in prayer, Mid tropic flowers, thy swimming eye The Southern Cross, that goes not down, Blazed trembling in the sea; But, O, the Cross that won thy Crown Was brighter far to thee. Yet to the Isles, with beauty thronged, In sky, on shore and wave, Thou spakest Peace; then breath prolonged The life it could not save. Vainly their constellations burned, Balmy their breezes sighed ; Thy prayer to Heaven for home was turned; Thy prayer was not denied. Yes, mid the scenes thou lovedst so well, A pallid brightness beamed on thee, Thy sufferings hallow many a spot, In anguish closed thy course, but not Saviour, be piteous and forgive, The joy of Heaven, for which I live, O, Grave! how sacred is thy power, 1853. · C. P. K. THE BURDEN OF OUR ANXIETIES. "THERE is less misery and less happiness in America than in any country that I know of." We reckon this epigram of Lord Morpeth's among the things so well worth quoting that they are worth requoting. A Pittsburgh artist of our acquaintance confirms the nobleman's remark by the result of his study of human faces in the two hemispheres. The faces of even the poorest and the busiest men in European cities indicate an enjoyment and satisfaction in life which is wanting in that of an average American. There is a look of care-worn anxiety about most of the frequenters of our cities' thoroughfares which is deeply melancholy. The present writer has stood for a good while in an open doorway, close to Chestnut street, without being able to see one exception to the general rule. Nor is it worst with us; we are about medium between the best and the worst. The Bostonians have such a look of preoccupation and concern stamped on their faces that their ladies have grown too keen in expression to be beautiful. In New York and its western suburb-Chicago-things are worse; in Baltimore and Cincinnati not so bad. An English traveller says that in Chicago every one looked to him as if they were going to some place; in Cincinnati, as if they had been there and were coming back. Were our great cities to become mere marts of commerce, according to the ideal of some of our social philosophers, New York would give tone to them all in this respect. The comparative quietness of our manufacturing cities is one of the subsidiary advantages of a financial system built up in conformity to the laws of social science. Very few people realize the importance of the true and wholesome enjoyment of life. Mrs. Jamieson notices that "Dante placed in his lowest hell those who in life were melancholy and repining without a cause, thus profaning and darkening God's blessed sunshine; and in some of the ancient systems of vices and virtues, melancholy is unholy and a vice; cheerfulness is holy and a virtue. Lord Bacon also makes one of the characteristics of moral health and goodness to consist in a constant quick sense of felicity and a noble satisfaction."" The old Hebrew prophet, describing a state of national desolation, says: The elders have ceased from the city gate, The young men from their music: The joy of our heart is ceased: Our dancing is turned into mourning. Life is not worth having on such gloomy terms as Americans have it. It is useless to heap up what we call the good things of this life if we fail to "get the good of them." To vex one's soul with cankering care and wearisome anxiety in the pursuit of "a living," is causá vivendi perdere causas. One great drawback to an American's enjoyment of life is his real indifference to his own work and its uses. It seems strange to say this of such a busy generation, but it is the truth. Very few Americans make much of their peculiar work. They do not call themselves successful in so far as they have done it well and usefully. They always estimate success by a standard outside of it. A merchant may have fed great cities, or adorned and beautified daily life by the elegance and taste of his wares, yet he will not be held successful unless he has made money also. Success in his business goes for nothing, even in his own thoughts, unless he has a good balance at the banker's. A lawyer may have hindered great injustices by wide learning and eloquent pleading; he may be able to boast, with the old Edomite sheik I delivered the poor that cried; And the fatherless, and him that had no helper ; And judgment as a turban. I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame; I was a father to the poor; The cause which I knew not I searched out, -but neither society nor even his professional brethren will reckon him a successful man, unless he has so done all these things as to earn and save money in the doing of them. It once was different in this profession; it is still different in others. A physician will hardly be respected who uses his own profession simply as a means to be rich-who reckons an operation brilliant or creditable in proportion to the fee that it brings him. The ministry of the gospel also owns another standard. Worldliness, then, which is but one form of selfishness-the living for gain, and not for use is a great drawback to the enjoyment of life. The remedy for it is not to make less of our daily work, but to make more of it,-to magnify our office by reckoning our daily work to be something in itself, and not merely a means to make money. In the simpler, more childlike, and therefore less worldlike, ages of the world, men honored and adorned their daily work after a different fashion from ours. They lived close to their shops and workshops, beautified them with ornament, and in various ways showed their attachment to them. They organized their crafts into guilds and brotherhoods, and boasted of the use and social service of even menial occupations "bestowing more abundant honour upon the uncomely parts." They loved their work, and were its masters, not its slaves; they enjoyed life in it. But nowadays, work is a curse, because men do not love it; a wearying care and anxiety, because they put their heart not into it, but into the money it brings them or fails to bring. And, by |