and town;
Watching the double Castor grow
Out of the east as the sun rolled down.
'Yonder, how star drinks star!' said he;
'Yield thou so; live thou in me.'

Nay, we are close--we are not one,
More than those stars that seem to shine
In the self-same place, yet each a sun,
Each distinct in its sphere divine.
Like to Himself art thou, we know;
Like to Himself am I also.

What did He mean, when He sent us forth,
Soul and soul, to this lower life?
Each with a purpose, each a worth,
Each an arm for the human strife.
Armor of thine is not for me;
Neither is mine adjudged by thee.

Now in the lower life we stand,
Weapons donned, and the strife begun;
Higher nor lower; hand to hand;
Each helps each with the glad 'Well done!'
Each girds each to nobler ends;
None less lovers because such friends.

So in the peace of the closing day,
Resting, as striving side by side,
What does He mean? again we say;
For what new lot are our souls allied?
Comes to my ken, in Death's advance,
Life in its next significance.

See yon tortoise; he crossed the path
At noon, to hide where the grass is tall;
In a slow half sense of the sun-king's wrath,
Burrowing close to the garden wall.
--Think, could we pour into that dull brain
A man's whole life, joy, thought, and pain!

So, methinks, is the life we lead,
To the larger life that next shall be:
Narrow in thought, uncouth in deed;
Crawling, who yet shall walk so free;
Walking, who yet on wings shall soar;
Flying, who shall need wings no more.

Lo, in the larger life we stand;
We drop the weapons, we take the tools:
We serve with mind who served with hand:
We live by laws who lived by rules.
And our old earth-love, with its mortal bliss,
Was the fancy of babe for babe, to this.

... Visions begone! Above us rise
The worlds, on His work majestic sent.
Floating below, the small fireflies
Make up a tremulous firmament.
Stars in the grass, and roses dear,
Earth is full sweet, though heaven is near.

WHIFFS FROM MY MEERSCHAUM.

I have that same old meerschaum yet--the same that I clasped to my lips
in the days that are gone, and through whose fragrant, wavy clouds, as
they floated round my head, I saw--sometimes clear and bright, sometimes
dimmed by a mist of rising tears--visions of childhood's joyous hours,
of schoolboy's days, o