And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.

Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,

how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?

And how, in their tiny darkness,

To the music of Beethoven's ninth symphony

Joyful, joyful, we adore Thee,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before Thee,
Praising Thee their sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!

All Thy works with joy surround Thee,
Earth and heaven reflect Thy rays,
Stars and angels sing around Thee,
Centre of unbroken praise:
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Blooming meadow, flashing sea,

The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

With cheerful voice I sing
The titles of my Lord,
And borrow all the names
Of honor from his word:
Nature and art can ne'er supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

In Jesus we behold
His Father's glorious face,
Shining for ever bright,
With mild and lovely rays
Th' eternal God's eternal Son
Inherits and partakes the throne.]

The sovereign King of kings,
The Lord of lords most high,
Writes his own name upon
His garment and his thigh:

The names and titles of Christ. From several scriptures.

['Tis from the treasures of his word
I borrow titles for my Lord;
Nor art nor nature can supply
Sufficient forms of majesty.

Bright image of the Father's face,
Shining with undiminished rays;
Th' eternal God's eternal Son,
The heir and partner of his throne.]

The King of kings, the Lord most high,
Writes his own name upon his thigh
He wears a garment dipped in blood,
And breaks the nations with his rod.

Where grace can neither melt nor move,

As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled
Once, twice, and again!
And a doe leaped up -- and a doe leaped up
From the pond in the wood where the wild deer sup.
This I, scouting alone, beheld,
Once, twice, and again!

As the dawn was breaking the Sambhur belled
Once, twice, and again!
And a wolf stole back -- and a wolf stole back
To carry the word to the waiting Pack;
And we sought and we found and we bayed on his track
Once, twice, and again!

As the dawn was breaking the Wolf-pack yelled
Once, twice, and again!

Name, my Laura, name the whirl-compelling
Bodies to unite in one blest whole--
Name, my Laura, name the wondrous magic
By which soul rejoins its kindred soul!

See! it teaches yonder roving planets
Round the sun to fly in endless race;
And as children play around their mother,
Checkered circles round the orb to trace.

Every rolling star, by thirst tormented,
Drinks with joy its bright and golden rain--
Drinks refreshment from its fiery chalice,
As the limbs are nourished by the brain.

Whither, whither, reckless Romans,
Are you rushing, sword in hand?
Has not yet the blood of brothers,
Fully stained the sea and land?

Not that raging conflagration
Should o’er fallen Carthage play;
Not that the unconquered Briton
Should descend the sacred way.

"Rome," exclaims the joyful Parthian,
"Ruin for herself prepares;
Wolves with wolves are never savage,
Lion lion never tears."

Is this fury? is it madness?
Speedy answer I demand;
Foolish, blinded, guilty Romans,
Silent, stupefied you stand. [590]

Sharers of a common country,
They had met in deadly strife;
Men who should have been as brothers
Madly sought each other's life.

In the silence of the even,
When the cannon's lips were dumb,
Thoughts of home and all its loved ones
To the soldier's heart would come.

On the margin of a river,
'Mid the evening's dews and damps,
Could be heard the sounds of music
Rising from two hostile camps.

One was singing of its section
Down in Dixie, Dixie's land,
And the other of the banner

A woman with no face walked into the light;
A boy, in a brown-tree norfolk suit,
Holding on
Without hands
To her seeming skirt.

She stopped,
And he stopped,
And I, in terror, stopped, staring.

Then I saw a group of shadowy figures behind her.

It was a wild wet morning
But the little world was spinning on.

Liplessly, somehow, she addressed it:
The book must be opened
And the park too.

I might have tittered
But my teeth chattered
And I saw that the words, as they fell,

Strange that the city thoroughfare,
Noisy and bustling all the day,
Should with the night renounce its care,
And lend itself to children's play!

Oh, girls are girls, and boys are boys,
And have been so since Abel's birth,
And shall be so till dolls and toys
Are with the children swept from earth.

The self-same sport that crowns the day
Of many a Syrian shepherd's son,
Beguiles the little lads at play
By night in stately Babylon.

I hear their voices in the street,
Yet 't is so different now from then!