BETA

Truisms.

The meanest face you look upon, the clay of coarsest
mould,1
Through which no ray of spirit-day, close-watching you
behold ;2
Where petty cares have dimmad the glance, and furrowed
in the brow,3
And evil thought a sign has wrought beyond erasing
now—4
This form so mean, so cold, so low, this seeming soul-
less clay5
Were once the grace of a baby-face, and the beauty of
childhood’s day ;6
Those eyes once gazed with eager trust above, around,
below,7
And a mother with pride that was hard to hide pushed
the hair from the open brow.8
The proudest heart that wakes your pride by the evil
spell of sin,9
The harshest, tone that makes, harsh, your, own, if there
be no watch within ;10
The most unloving unloved soul, that can slight your
hope or fear,11
And careless look down on your smile or frown, as if
from a separate sphere—12
That nature cold and proud, must yet mysterious terror
know,13
Must wrestle With Death for each gasping breath, must
be laid in the dust below ;14
That voice must sink into whispers faint, and meanest
service crave,15
And that hand must cling to some humble thing in a
shrinking from the grave.16
Familiar thought, I own, to all, this truth of our
common lot,17
Yet midst jar and strife of the daily life, its lesson is
forgot ;18
We pity withhold from the haughty dust that must
shroud and pall endure,19
And with loathing shun some world-stained, one that
was once a baby pure.20
Not wholly in vain were the fancy tasked from the
actual oft to turn21
To the rosy sleep only cradles keep, to the shade of the
funeral urn ;22
The present may all loveless seem ; be o’er it a memory
cast23
Of the first low cry and the last sad sigh—of the Future
and the Past.24
S. C. C.