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Daughter of want, and wrong, and woe,
I saw thee with thy sister-band,
Snatched from the whirlpool's narrowing flow
By mercy's strong yet trembling hand.

"Avis!". With Saxon eye and cheek,
At once a woman and a child,
The saint uncrowned I came to seek

Drew near to greet us, - spoke, and smiled.

God gave that sweet sad smile she wore
All wrong to shame, all souls to win,
A heavenly sunbeam sent before

Her footsteps through a world of sin.

"And who is Avis?"-Hear the tale

The calm-voiced matrons gravely tell, The story known through all the vale Where Avis and her sisters dwell.

With the lost children running wild,

Strayed from the hand of human care,

They find one little refuse child

Left helpless in its poisoned lair.

The primal mark is on her face,

-

The chattel-stamp, the pariah-stain That follows still her hunted race,

The curse without the crime of Cain.

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How shall our smooth-turned phrase relate
The little suffering outcast's ail?
Not Lazarus at the rich man's gate

So turned the rose-wreathed revelers pale.

Ah, veil the living death from sight
That wounds our beauty-loving eye!
The children turn in selfish fright,

The white-lipped nurses hurry by.

Take her, dread angel! Break in love
This bruised reed and make it thine!
No voice descended from above,

But Avis answered, "She is mine."

The task that dainty menials spurn

The fair young girl has made her own; Her heart shall teach, her hand shall learn The toils, the duties yet unknown.

So Love and Death in lingering strife
Stand face to face from day to day,

Still battling for the spoil of Life

While the slow seasons creep away.

Love conquers Death; the prize is won;
See to her joyous bosom pressed

The dusky daughter of the sun,

The bronze against the marble breast!

Her task is done; no voice divine

Has crowned her deeds with saintly fame.

No eye can see the aureole shine

That rings her brow with heavenly flame.

Yet what has holy page more sweet,

Or what had woman's love more fair, When Mary clasped her Saviour's feet

With flowing eyes and streaming hair?

Meek child of sorrow, walk unknown,
The Angel of that earthly throng,
And let thine image live alone
To hallow this unstudied song!

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THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night

Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.

Every pine and fir and hemlock

Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree Was ridged inch deep with pearl.

From sheds new-roofed with Carrara

Came Chanticleer's muffled crow; The stiff rails were softened to swan's-down, And still fluttered down the snow.

I stood and watched by the window
The noiseless work of the sky,
And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,
Like brown leaves whirling by.

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I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn
Where a little headstone stood,
How the flakes were folding it gently,
As did robins the babes in the wood.

Up spoke our own little Mabel,

Saying, "Father, who makes it snow?" And I told of the good All-father

Who cares for us here below.

Again I looked at the snow-fall,

And thought of the leaden sky That arched o'er our first great sorrow, When that mound was heaped so high.

I remembered the gradual patience
That fell from that cloud like snow,
Flake by flake, healing and hiding
The scar of our deep-plunged woe.

And again to the child I whispered, "The snow that husheth all, Darling, the merciful Father

Alone can make it fall!"

Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her
And she, kissing back, could not know

That

my kiss was given to her sister, Folded close under deepening snow.

;

-James Russell Lowell.

CHILD AND MOTHER.

LOVE thy mother, little one!
Kiss and clasp her neck again!
Hereafter she may have a son
Will kiss and clasp her neck in vain,
Love thy mother, little one!

Gaze upon her living eyes,

And mirror back her love for thee!
Hereafter thou may 'st shudder sighs
To meet them when they cannot see.
Gaze upon her living eyes!

Press her lips, the while they glow,
With love that they have often told !
Hereafter thou may'st press in woe,
And kiss them till thine own are cold.
Press her lips, the while they glow !

Oh, revere her raven hair,
Although it be not silver gray!
Too early, Death, led on by care,
May snatch save one dear lock away.
Oh, revere her raven hair!

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