While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind! Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

J. BLANCO WHITE, 1775-1841

THE FUTURE.

WHAT

AT may we take into the vast Forever?
That marble door

Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,
No fame-wreathed crown we wore,
No garnered lore.

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal ?
No gold, no gains

Of all our toiling in the life immortal
No hoarded wealth remains,
Nor gilds, nor stains.

Naked from out that far abyss behind us
We entered here:

No word came with our coming, to remind us
What wondrous world was near,
No hope, no fear.

Into the silent, starless Night before us,

Naked we glide:

No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,

No comrade at our side,

No chart, no guide.

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow,
Our footsteps fare:

The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow-
His love alone is there,
No curse, no care.

THE

ATHANASIA.

HE ship may sink,
And I may drink

A hasty death in the bitter sea;

But all that I leave

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL

In the ocean-grave

Can be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.

What care I,

Though falls the sky,

And the shrivelling earth to a cinder turn?

No fires of doom

Let go the breath!

There is no death

Can ever consume

What never was made nor meant to burn.

To the living soul, nor loss, nor harm.

Not of the clod

Is the life of God:

Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.

CHARLES G. AMES

MISCELLANEOUS.

A THANKSGIVING.

"Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me."

LORD, in this dust Thy sovereign voice

First quickened love divine;

I am all Thine, - Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.

I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace,

For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;

Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour,

Bright dreams, and fancyings strange; Blessings, when reason's awful power Gave thought a bolder range;

a

Blessings of friends, which to my door
Unasked, unhoped, have come;
And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.

Yet, Lord, in memory's fondest place
I shrine those seasons sad,
When, looking up, saw Thy face

In kind austereness clad.

I would not miss one sigh or tear,
Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;
Sweet was the chastisement severe,
And sweet its memory now.

And such Thy tender force be still,

When self would swerve or stray;
Shaping to truth the froward will

Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth; far, far remove
The lure of power or name;
Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,
And faith in this world's shame.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 1829

THE INWARD WITNESS OF GOD.

"WHERE is your God?" they say:

Answer them, Lord most Holy!

Reveal Thy secret way

Of visiting the lowly :

Not wrapped in moving cloud,

Or nightly-resting fire;
But veiled within the shroud
Of silent high desire.

Come not in flashing storm, Or bursting frown of thunder: Come in the viewless form Of wakening love and wonder;

Of duty grown divine,
The restless spirit, still;
Of sorrows taught to shine,
As shadows of Thy will.

O God! the pure alone,
E'en in their deep confessing, -
Can see Thee as their own,
And find the perfect blessing:

Yet to each waiting soul
Speak in Thy still small voice,
Till broken love's made whole,
And saddened hearts rejoice.

IDEALS.

ANONYMOUS, 1873. Hymns of Praise and Praves.

ANGELS of Growth, of old in that surprise

Of your first vision, wild and sweet,
I poured in passionate sighs
My wish unwise

―――――――――――

That ye descend my heart to meet, -
My heart so slow to rise!

Now thus I pray: Angelic be to hold
In heaven your shining poise afar,
And to my wishes bold
Reply with cold,

Sweet invitation, like a star

Fixed in the heavens old.