Signing The Pledge.

"Say not the age is hard and cold -          I think it brave and grand;      When men of diverse sects and creeds          Are clasping hand i"

"My mother's kiss, my mother's kiss,          I feel its impress now;      As in the bright and happy days          She pressed it on my brow."

"The prison-house in which I live          Is falling to decay,      But God renews my spirit's strength,          Within these walls of clay."

"Go work in my vineyard, said the Lord,          And gather the bruised grain;      But the reapers had left the stubble bare,          And I t"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"