The jester doffed his cap and bells,
    And stood the mocking court before;
  They could not see the bitter smile
    Behind the painted grin he wore.

  He bowed his head, and bent his knee
    Upon the monarch’s silken stool;
  His pleading voice arose:  “O Lord,
    Be merciful to me, a fool!

  “No pity, Lord, could change the heart
    From red with wrong to white as wool;
  The rod must heal the sin:  but, Lord,
    Be merciful to me, a fool!

  “’Tis not by guilt the onward sweep
    Of truth and right, O Lord, we stay;
  ’Tis by our follies that so long
    We hold the earth from heaven away.

  “These clumsy feet, still in the mire,
    Go crushing blossoms without end;
  These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust
    Among the heart-strings of a friend.

  “The ill-timed truth we might have kept—­
    Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung? 
  The word we had not sense to say—­
    Who knows how grandly it had rung?

  “Our faults no tenderness should ask,
    The chastening stripes must cleanse them all;
  But for our blunders—­oh, in shame
    Before the eyes of heaven we fall.

  “Earth bears no balsam for mistakes;
    Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool
  That did his will; but Thou, O Lord,
    Be merciful to me, a fool!”

  The room was hushed; in silence rose
    The King, and sought his gardens cool,
  And walked apart, and murmured low,
    “Be merciful to me, a fool!”

E.R.  SILL.

On The Life-mask Of Abraham Lincoln.

  This bronze doth keep the very form and mold
    Of our great martyr’s face.  Yes, this is he: 
    That brow all wisdom, all benignity;
  That human, humorous mouth; those cheeks that hold
  Like some harsh landscape all the summer’s gold;
    That spirit fit for sorrow, as the sea
    For storms to beat on; the lone agony
  Those silent, patient lips too well foretold. 
  Yes, this is he who ruled a world of men
    As might some prophet of the elder day,—­
    Brooding above the tempest and the fray
  With deep-eyed thought and more than mortal ken. 
    A power was his beyond the touch of art
    Or armed strength:  his pure and mighty heart.

R.W.  GILDER.

Song.

  Years have flown since I knew thee first,
  And I know thee as water is known of thirst: 
  Yet I knew thee of old at the first sweet sight,
  And thou art strange to me, Love, to-night.

R.W.  GILDER.

To A Dead Woman.[7]

  Not a kiss in life; but one kiss, at life’s end,
     I have set on the face of Death in trust for thee. 
  Through long years keep it fresh on thy lips, O friend! 
    At the gate of Silence give it back to me.

H.C.  BUNNER.