the stubborn flint,
Not by force, but often falling;
Custome kills with feeble dint.
More by use than strength prevailing:
Single sands have little weight,
Many make a drowning freight.

Tender twigs are bent with ease,
Aged trees do breake with bending;
Young desires make little prease,
Growth doth make them past amending.
Happie man that soon doth knocke,
Babel's babes against the rocke.

ROBERT SOUTHWELL.

* * * * *

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

Dear, secret greenness! nurst below
Tempests and winds and winter nights!
Vex not, that but One sees thee grow;
That One made all these lesser lights.

What needs a conscience calm and bright
Within itself, an outward test?
Who breaks his glass, to take more light,
Makes way for storms into his rest.

Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-winged reapers come!

HENRY VAUGHAN.

* * * * *

PATIENCE.

She hath no beauty in her face
Unless the chastened sweetness there,
And meek long-suffering, yield a grace
To make her mournful features fair:--

Shunned by the gay, the proud, the young,
She roams through dim, unsheltered ways;
Nor lover's vow, nor flatterer's tongue
Brings music to her sombre days:--

At best her skies are clouded o'er,
And oft she fronts the stinging sleet,
Or feels on some tempestuous shore
The storm-waves lash her naked feet.

Where'er she strays, or musing stands
By lonesome beach, by turbulent mart,
We see her pale, half-tremulous hands
Crossed humbly o'er her aching heart!

Within, a secret pain she bears,--
pain too deep to feel the balm
An April spirit finds in tears;
Alas! all cureless griefs are calm!

Yet in her passionate strength supreme,
Despair beyond her pathway flies,
Awed by the softly steadfast beam
Of sad, but heaven-enamored eyes!

Who pause to greet her, vaguely seem
Touched by fine wafts of holier air;
As those who in some mystic dream
Talk with the angels unaware!

PAUL HAMILTON HAYNE.

* * * * *

SOMETIME.

Sometime, when all life's lessons have been learned,
And sun and stars forevermore have set,
The things o'er which our weak judgmen