FASHIONABLE.
A fashionable woman
In a fashionable pew;
A fashionable bonnet
Of a fashionable hue;
A fashionable mantle
And a fashionable gown;
A fashionable Christian
In a fashionable town;
A fashionable prayer-book.
And a fashionable choir;
A fashionable chapel
With a fashionable spire;
A fashionable preacher
With a fashionable speech;
A fashionable sermon
With a fashionable reach;
A fashionable welcome
At the fashionable door;
A fashionable penny
For the fashionable poor;
A fashionable heaven
And a fashionable hell;
A fashionable Bible
For this fashionable belle;
A fashionable kneeling
And a fashionable nod;
A fashionable everything,
But no fashionable God.
RESURGAM.
BY EBEN E. REXFORD.
"There is no God," he said, and turned away
From those who sought to lead him to the light;
"Here is a violet, growing for a day,
When winter comes, and all the world is white,
It will be dead. And I am like the flower,
To-day, here am I, and to-morrow, dust.
Is life worth living for its little hour
Of empty pleasure, if decay we must?"
The autumn came, and under fallen leaves
The little violet was hid away.
"Dead! dead!" cried he. "Alas, all nature grieves
For what she loves is destined to decay.
Soon like the violet, in soft, damp earth
I shall be hidden, and above my head
A stone will tell the record of my birth
And of my nothingness when I am dead."
Spring came, and from the mold the little flower
He had thought dead, sprung up to sweetest bloom.
He saw it, and his heart was touched that hour,
And grasped the earth-old mystery of the tomb.
"God of the flower," he said, with reverent voice,
"The violet lives again, and why not I?
At last my blind eyes see, and I rejoice.
The soul within me was not born to die!"