lieve in Thee!

THE NEW DISPENSATION.

OUT in the sun the buttercups are gold,
The daisies silver all the grassy lane,
And spring has given love a flower to hold,
And love lays blindness on the eyes of pain.

Within are still, chill aisles and blazoned panes
And carven tombs where memory weeps no more.
And from the lost and holy days remains
One saint beside the long-closed western door.

Outside the world goes laughing lest it weep,
With here and there some happy child at play;
A mother worshipping the babe asleep,
Or two young lovers dreaming 'neath the May.

Within, the soul of love broods o'er the place;
The carven saint forgotten many a year
Still lifts to heaven his rapt adoring face
To pray, for those who leave him lonely here,

That once again the silent church may ring
With songs of joy triumphant over pain--
Ah! God, who makest the miracle of spring
Make Thou dead faith and love to rise again.

THE THREE KINGS.

WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine
The three kings journeyed to Palestine;

They came from the uttermost parts of earth
With long trains laden with gifts of worth.

The first king rode on a camel's back,
He came from the land where the kings are black,

Bringing treasures desired of kings,
Rubies and ivory and precious things.

An elephant carried the second king,
He came from the land of the sun-rising,

And gems and gold and spices he bare
With broidered raiment for kings to wear.

The third king came without steed or train
From the misty land where the white kings reign.

He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,
For he came on foot from a far-off land.

Now when they had travelled a-many days
Through tangled forests and desert ways,

By angry seas and by paths thorn-set
On Christmas Vigil the three kings met.

And over their meeting a shrouded sky
Made dark the star they had travelled by.

Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:
"By some ill spell have our feet been led,

"Now I see in the darkness the fools we are
To follow the light of a lying star.

"Let us fool no more, but like kings and men
Each get him home to his land again!"

Then the second king with the weary face,
Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,

Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said,
"It was but a dream and the dream is sped.

"We dreamed of a sta