I CAME upon a drawer to-day,

Half-filled with closely written scraps;

A motley crew, and all, perhaps,

But worthy to be cast away

In other eyes, but to my heart

Dear indexes of pleasures, pains,

Life-revelations, losses, gains,

That in my life have borne their part.

Small profit were it to detail!

Each fragment paints its little hour,

And each and all are fraught with power

To tell the same unflattering tale:

Of love, and faithlessness in love;

Of pain, and balm in pleasure found;

Such things in every life abound,

Nor total worthlessness need prove.

The suns that gild my path to-day

May pale to stars within the year,

What now I lightly hold grow dear,

Yet both a natural law obey.

For joys and sorrows rise and set

With never-failing eve and morn;

Night yields unto another dawn

And then we say that we "forget."

O Thou whose passions are divine,

Contemn not that Thou didst create!

In soul or body, love or hate,

We are but what Thou didst design.

Thou mad'st us mortal, and we hate

And love as mortals. Grace divine!

The earthen vessel and the wine

In strength are made proportionate.

Ah, lay them by where they have lain!

The years to come shall swell their list,

The sun shall rise through sorrow's mist

And set in whelming clouds again.

Poor worthless scraps! they have outworn

The fickle moods that gave them birth,

Yet neither I nor they are worth

The critic's undivided scorn.

For as in water, face to face,

So is the heart of man to man;

By others each himself may scan,

Nor dare to claim a higher place.