What if some rainbow glory spans the gloom?

Some strong, sweet utterance the wayside cheers?
Or gladness opens like a rose in bloom?

Step after step the fatal moment nears;
Earth for new graves is ever making room.

SUNDAY.

(Day of the Sun.)

Thou glorious Sun, illumining the blue
Highway of heaven! to thy triumphing rays
The earth her shadow yields, the hill-tops blaze;
Up lifts the mist, up floats the midnight dew.
Old things are passed away; the world is new;
Labor is changed to rest and rest to praise ;
Past are the toilsome heights, the stormy days.
The eternal Future breaks upon our view!
Last eve we lingered uttering our farewells,
But lo! One met us in the early light
Of this divinest morn. The tale He tells
Transfigures life, and opens heaven to sight.
Bring altar flowers! Lilies and asphodels!
Sing Jubilates! There is no more night!

NOTE. In numbering the days of the week we call Sunday the first. This custom dates only from the earliest Christian times. As our Saviour rose from the dead on Sunday, the Christians wishing to keep the Resurrection always in mind, began to reckon the days from that event; and, in fact, our entire method of computing time is based upon the Birth of Christ.

Balder, or Baldur, is the name given to the Sun-god in Norse mythology. The name also means lord or king. The myth of Balder has furnished a congenial subject for many modern poets, Matthew Arnold, Wil

liam Morris (" Earthly Paradise"), Robert Buchanan, W. M. W. Call, and Longfellow ("Tegnér's Drapa "). The author of the poem selected should not be nameless, for it has unquestionable merit.

BALDER.

ANONYMOUS.

Balder, the white sun-god, has departed!
Beautiful as summer dawn was he;
Loved of gods and men - the royal-hearted
Balder, the white sun-god, has departed -
Has gone home where all the brave ones be.

For the tears of the imperial mother,

For a universe that weeps and prays,

Rides Hermoder forth to seek his brother

Rides for love of that distressful mother

Through lead-colored glens and 'cross blue ways.

With the howling wind and raving torrent,

Nine days rode he, deep and deeper down,
Reached the vast death-kingdom, rough and 'horrent,
Reached the lonely bridge that spans the torrent

Of the moaning river by Hell-town.

There he found the ancient portress standing-
Vexer of the mind and of the heart:

"Balder came this way," to his demanding
Cried aloud that ancient portress standing —
"Balder came, but Balder did depart;

"Here he could not dwell. He is down yonder
Northward, further, in the death-realm he."

Rode Hermoder on in silent wonder —

Mane of Gold fled fast and rushed down yonder!
Brave and good must young Hermoder be.

For he leaps sheer over Hela's portal,
Drops into the huge abyss below.
There he saw the beautiful immortal-
Saw him, Balder, under Hela's portal -
Saw him, and forgot his pain and woe.

"O, my Balder! have I, have I found thee?
Balder, beautiful as summer morn?

O, my sun-god! hearts of heroes crowned thee
For their king; they lost, but now have found thee,
Gods and men shall not be left forlorn.

Balder brother! the Divine has vanished;
The eternal splendors all have fled;
Truth and love and nobleness are banished,
The heroic and divine have vanished;
Nature has no god, and earth lies dead.

"Come thou back

Balder my

king and brother! Teach the hearts of men to love the gods! Come thou back and comfort our great motherCome with truth and bravery, Balder, brotherBring the godlike back to men's abodes !"

But the Nornas let him pray unheeded —
Balder never was to come again.
Vainly, vainly young Hermoder pleaded-
Balder never was to come. Unheeded,

Young Hermoder wept and prayed in vain.

Oh, the trueness of this ancient story!
Even now it is, as it was then.
Earth has lost a portion of her glory;
And like Balder, in the ancient story,
Never comes the beautiful again.

Still the young Hermoder journeys bravely,
Through lead-colored glens and 'cross blue ways;
Still he calls his brother, pleading gravely-
Still to the death-kingdom ventures bravely-
Calmly to the eternal terror prays.

But the fates relent not; strong endeavor,
Courage, noble feeling, are in vain ;
For the beautiful has gone forever.
Vain are courage, genius, strong endeavor
Never comes the beautiful again.

Do you think I counsel weak despairing?
No! like young Hermoder I would ride;
With an humble, yet a gallant daring,
I would leap unquailing, undespairing,
Over the huge precipice's side.

Dead and gone is the old world's ideal,
The old arts and old religion fled;
But I gladly live among the real

And I seek a worthier ideal.

Courage, brothers, God is overhead.

NOTES. Compare the story of Balder with the story of Apollo. What resemblances do you discover? What differences are most marked?

Do you think it probable or improbable that these stories had a common origin? Give the reason for your answer.

The following dispatch to the London Times inspired Edmund C. Stedman to write his poem "News from Olympia," which was published in the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1877.

"One after the other the figures described by Pausanias are dragged from the earth. Niké (Victory)

This is

has been found; the head of Kladeos is there; Myrtilos is announced, and Zeus will soon emerge. earnest of what may follow."

NEWS FROM OLYMPIA.

Olympia? Yes, strange tidings from the city
Which pious mortals builded, stone by stone,
For those old gods of Hellas, half in pity

Of their storm-mantled height and dwelling lone, —
Their seat upon the mountain overhanging

Where Zeus withdrew behind the rolling cloud,
Where crowned Apollo sang, the phorminx twanging,
And at Poseidon's word the forests bowed.

Ay, but that fated day

When from the plain Olympia passed away;
When ceased the oracles, and long unwept
Amid their fanes the gods deserted fell,
While sacerdotal ages, as they slept,
The ruin covered well!

The pale Jew flung his cross, thus one has written,
Among them as they sat at the high feast,
And saw the gods, before that token smitten,
Fade slowly, while His presence still increased,
Until the seas Ionian and Ægæan

Gave out a cry that Pan himself was dead,

And all was still; thenceforth no more the pæan,
No more by men the prayer to Zeus was said.

Sank, like a falling star,

Hephaistos in the Lemnian waters far;
The silvery Huntress fled the darkened sky;
Dim grew Athene's helm, Apollo's crown;