Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

And though we turn us from Thy face,
And wander wide and long,
Thou hold'st us still in thine embrace,
O Love of God most strong!

The saddened heart, the restless soul,
The toil-worn frame and mind,
Alike confess Thy sweet control,
O Love of God most kind!

But not alone Thy care we claim
Our wayward steps to win;
We know Thee by a dearer name,
O Love of God within!

And filled and quickened by Thy breath,
Our souls are strong and free
To rise o'er sin and fear and death,
O Love of God, to Thee!

Unknown.

BETWEEN THE LIGHTS.

A little pause in life—while daylight lingers
Between the sunset and the pale moonrise,
When daily labor slips from weary fingers,
And calm, gray shadows veil the aching eyes.

Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover,
Seen in the light of stars that long have set;
Beloved ones, whose earthly trial is over,

Draw near as if they lived among us yet.

Old voices call me-through the dusk returning I hear the echo of departed feet;

And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning: What is the charm which makes old things

so sweet?"

Must the old joys be evermore withholden? Even their memory keeps me pure and true; And yet from our Jerusalem the golden

God speaketh, saying: "I make all things new."

'Father," I cry, "the old must still be nearer ;

Stifle my love or give me back the past;

Give me the fair old fields, whose paths are dearer Than all Thy shining streets and mansions

vast."

Peace! peace! the Lord of earth and heaven knoweth

The human soul in all its heat and strife; Out of His throne no stream of Lethe floweth, But the pure river of eternal life.

He giveth life, ay, life in all its sweetness;

Old loves, old sunny scenes will He restore ; Only the curse of sin and incompleteness

Shall vex thy soul and taint thine earth no more.

Serve Him in daily toil and holy living,

And Faith shall lift thee to His sunlit heights; Then shall a psalm of gladness and thanksgiving Fill the calm hour that comes between the lights.

Maria White Lowell.

1821-1853.

THE ALPINE SHEEP.

When on my ear your loss was knelled,
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little spring from memory welled,
Which once had quenched my bitter thirst.

And I was fain to bear to you

A portion of its mild relief,

That it might be as healing dew,

To steal some fever from your grief.

After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of Death

Like a long twilight haunting lay,

And friends came round, with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,

The story of the Alpine sheep

Was told to us by one we love.

They, in the valley's sheltering care,
Soon crop the meadow's tender prime,
And when the sod grows brown and bare,
The shepherd strives to make them climb

To airy shelves of pasture green,

That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean,

And down through mist the sunbeams slide.

But naught can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged paths to try,
Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie,

Till in his arms their lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go;

Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on, o'er rock and snow.

And in those pastures, lifted fair,

More dewy-soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender care, And sheep and lambs together feed.

This parable, by Nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south-wind free
O'er frozen brooks, that flow unsheathed
From icy thraldom to the sea.

A blissful vision, through the night,
Would all my happy senses sway,
Of the good Shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the starry way,

Holding our little lamb asleep,—

While, like the murmur of the sea, Sounded that voice along the deep,

Saying: Arise and follow me!"

Alice Cary.
1820-1871.

FROM "GOD IS LOVE."

Ah, there are mighty things under the sun, Great deeds have been acted, great words have been said,

Not just uplifting some fortunate one,

But lifting up all men the more by a head.

Aye, the more by the head, and the shoulders too!

Ten thousand may sin, and a thousand may

fall,

And it may have been me, and it yet may be you, But the angel in one proves the angel in all.

And whatever is mighty, whatever is high,

Lifting men, lifting women their natures above, And close to the kinship they hold to the sky, Why, this I affirm, that its essence is love.

NOBILITY.

True worth is in being, not seeming,-
In doing each day that goes by
Some little good-not in the dreaming
Of great things to do by and by.
For whatever men say in blindness,
And spite of the fancies of youth,
There's nothing so kingly as kindness,
And nothing so royal as truth.

« ПредишнаНапред »