Farewell Life, Welcome Life. AREWELL Life! My senses swim, FA And the world is growing dim; Welcome Life! the spirit strives! THOMAS HOOD. L' Life's "Good-Morning." IFE! we've been long together, Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear; Then steal away, give little warning, Choose thine own time; Say not Good-Night, but in some brighter clime Bid me Good-Morning. ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD. PALMS OF GLORY. 421 Palms of Glory. PALMS of glory, raiment bright, Crowns that never fade away, Gird and deck the saints in light, And proclaim in joyful psalms, Kings their crowns for harps resign, If their robes are white as snow, Who were these ?—On earth they dwelt, They were mortal too, like us; Ah! when we like them shall die, May our souls, translated thus, Triumph, reign, and shine on high! JAMES MONTGOMERY. Heaven. BEYOND these chilling winds and gloomy skies,— Beyond death's cloudy portal There is a land where beauty never dies, And love becomes immortal. A land whose light is never dimmed by shade, Where nothing beautiful can ever fade, We may not know how sweet its balmy air, We may not hear the songs that echo there, The city's shining towers we may not see, For Death, the silent warder, keeps the key But sometimes, where adown the western sky Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly, And while they stand a moment half ajar, Stream lightly through the azure vault afar, O land unknown! O land of love divine! Father all-wise, eternal, Guide, guide these wandering, way-worn feet of mine Unto those pastures vernal. NANCY A. W. PRIEST. I KNOW THOU HAST GONE. 423 THOU Thou art gone to the Grave. HOU art gone to the grave-but we will not deplore thee; Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb, The Saviour has passed through its portals before thee, And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom. Thou art gone to the grave-we no longer behold thee, Thou art gone to the grave-and its mansion forsaking, Thou art gone to the grave-but 't were wrong to deplore thee, When God was thy ransom, thy guardian, thy guide; He gave thee, and took thee, and soon will restore thee, Where death hath no sting, since the Saviour hath died. BISHOP HEBER, I I know Thou hast Gone. KNOW thou hast gone to the house of thy rest, I know thou hast gone where the weary are blest, Where Love has put off, in the land of its birth, And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth, I know thou hast gone where thy forehead is starred With the beauty that dwelt in thy soul, Where the light of thy loveliness cannot be marred, Nor thy heart be flung back from its goal; I know thou hast drunk of the Lethe that flows Through a land where they do not forget, In thy far-away dwelling, wherever it be, And the love that made all things a music to me In the hush of the night, on the waste of the sea I have ever a presence that whispers of thee, Mine eye must be dark, that so long has been dim, Ere again it may gaze upon thine: But my heart has revealings of thee and thy home, In many a token and sign; I never look up with a vow to the sky, But a light like thy beauty is there— And though, like a mourner that sits by a tomb, I am wrapped in a mantle of care Yet the grief of my bosom—oh, call it not gloom,— By sorrow revealed, as the stars are by night, And Hope, like the rainbow, a creature of light, THOMAS K. HERVEY. |