Free Men Freely Work: Whoever Fears God,

My Future Will Not Copy My Fair Past, I Wrote That Once. And, Thinking At My Side My Ministering Life-angel Justified The Word By His Appealing Look Upcast To The White Throne Of God.

The Holy Night We Sate Among The Stalls At Bethlehem; The Dumb Kine From Their Fodder Turning Them, Softened Their Horned Faces To Almost Human Gazes Toward The Newly Born: The Simple Shepherds From The Star-lit Brooks Brought Visionary Looks, As Yet In Their Astonied Hearing Rung The Strange Sweet Angel-tongue: The Magi Of The East, In Sandals Worn, Knelt Reverent, Sweeping Round, With Long Pale Beards, Their Gifts Upon The Ground, The Incense, Myrrh, And Gold These Baby Hands Were Impotent To Hold: So Let All Earthlies And Celestials Wait Upon Thy Royal State. Sleep, Sleep, My Kingly One!

And Friends, Dear Friends,--when It Shall Be That This Low Breath Is Gone From Me, And Gone My Bier Ye Come To Weep, Let One, Most Loving Of You All, Say, "not A Tear Must O'er Her Fall; He Giveth His Beloved Sleep.

I Have Done Most Of My Talking By Post Of Late Years--as People Shut Up In Dungeons Take Up With Scrawling Mottoes On The Walls.

I Wish I Were The Lily's Leaf To Fade Upon That Bosom Warm, Content To Wither, Pale And Brief, The Trophy Of Thy Paler Form.