des the helm,
As we approach the palm-extending shore.
The hungry arms that reach out after God,
Are as the infants for the parent's breast;
The soul is weary of its fruitless plod,
And Nature beckons it to perfect rest.
What though the stream be poisoned, if its flow
Seeks only the great ocean to be lost;
Not long upon its bosom is it tossed,
Ere it recovers its old healthful glow.
The old-time sparkle of the mountain spring,
Gleams in the dew-drop that returns to earth.
No poison lurks within the second birth,
It ever carries healing on its wing.
Thus, howsoe'er the soul may find its way,
Over the wilderness to Jordan's plain,
It shall not fail of its eternal gain,
The night so trackless shall break into day.
The saint, whom angels ushered through the gate,
With paeans of rejoicing, once did grope
And lose his way, and loose his hold on hope--
No soul that reaches it is told to wait.
God waits upon the effort to reply,
And seeing human hands stretch out for aid,
His stronger palm is soon upon them laid--
Our weakness is the signet he cannot deny.

THE TOLTECS JOURNEY SOUTH.

The Toltecs were the first to break the way
Toward the vertex of the Summer sun;
To catch the fervor of his ripest ray,
And talismise the pilgrimage begun.
And after many days their fasting eyes
Are feasted with Mexitli's[A] lovely plain--
So like a newly-fashioned paradise,
An almost Eden, sprung to life again.
Her placid lakes gave back her deep blue sky
In rivalry of Nature--Nature's charms
Do cast reflected multiples, and try
To fold us in with her unnumbered arms.
Not all we see, but all we feel, invites,
Together with our seeing, to secure
An unrestricted homage; all unite
In this uncovered world, so rich and pure
And lade with sunshine, ripened into form,
Concentered rays to leaves and blossoms grown,
The larch impendent with its verdant cone,
The oak's historic battlement of storm,
The cypress mourning and exultant palms,