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And is it so with them? After long years,
Do they remember me in the same way,
And is the memory pleasant as to me?

I fear to ask; yet wherefore are my fears?
Pleasures, like flowers, may wither and decay,
And yet the root perennial may be.

FROM "THE NEW ENGLAND TRAGEDIES."

And as the flowing of the ocean fills

Each creek and branch thereof, and then retires,
Leaving behind a sweet and wholesome savor;
So doth the virtue and the life of God
Flow evermore into the hearts of those
Whom He hath made partakers of His nature;
And, when it but withdraws itself a little,
Leaves a sweet savor after it, that many
Can say they are made clean by every word
That He hath spoken to them in their silence.

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Let us, then, labor for an inward stillness,
An inward stillness and an inward healing;
That perfect silence where the lips and heart
Are still, and we no longer entertain
Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions,
But God alone speaks in us, and we wait
In singleness of heart, that we may know
His will, and in the silence of our spirits,
That we may do His will, and do that only!

66

FROM THE GOLDEN LEGEND."

Slowly, slowly up the wall

Steals the sunshine, steals the shade; Evening damps begin to fall,

Evening shadows are displayed. Round me, o'er me, everywhere, All the sky is grand with clouds, And athwart the evening air

Wheel the swallows home in crowds. Shafts of sunshine from the west

Paint the dusky windows red;
Darker shadows, deeper rest,
Underneath and overhead.
Darker, darker, and more wan,
In my breast the shadows fall;
Upward steals the life of man,
As the sunshine from the wall.
From the wall into the sky,

From the roof along the spire;
Ah, the souls of those that die
Are but sunbeams lifted higher.

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Time has laid his hand

Upon my heart, gently, not smiting it, But as a harper lays his open palm

Upon his harp, to deaden its vibrations.

John Greenleaf Whittier.

1807.

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS.

O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,

Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.

I trace your lines of argument;
Your logic linked and strong
I weigh as one who dreads dissent,
And fears a doubt as wrong.

But still my human hands are weak
To hold your iron creeds:
Against the words ye bid me speak
My heart within me pleads.

Who fathoms the Eternal Thought?
Who talks of scheme and plan?
The Lord is God! He needeth not
poor device of man.

The

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground Ye tread with boldness shod;

I dare not fix with mete and bound

The love and power of God.

Ye praise His justice; even such
His pitying love I deem :

Ye seek a king; I fain would touch
The robe that hath no seam.

Ye see the curse which overbroods
A world of pain and loss;
I hear our Lord's beatitudes
And prayer upon the cross.

More than your schoolmen teach, within
Myself, alas! I know;

Too dark ye cannot paint the sin,
Too small the merit show.

I bow my forehead to the dust,
I veil mine eyes for shame,
And urge, in trembling self-distrust,
A prayer without a claim.

I see the wrong that round me lies,
I feel the guilt within ;

I hear, with groan and travail-cries,
The world confess its sin.

Yet, in the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,

To one fixed stake my spirit clings;
I know that God is good!

Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see,
But nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me.

The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above:

I know not of His hate,-I know
His goodness and His love.

I dimly guess from blessings known
Of greater out of sight,

And, with the chastened Psalmist, own
His judgments too are right.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long,
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death
His mercy underlies.

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,
The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

No offering of my own I have,

Nor works my faith to prove ;

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