PRESENTIMENT is that long shadow on the lawn The notice to the startled grass I NEVER saw a moor, I never saw the sea; Yet know I how the heather looks, And what a wave must be. I never spake with God, Nor visited in heaven; Yet certain am I of the spot As if the chart were given. EMILY DICKINSON Or he deserts us at the hour The fight is all but lost; And seems to leave us to ourselves Just whan we need him most. Ill masters good, good seems to change To ill with greatest ease; And, worst of all, the good with good Is at cross-purposes. Ah! God is other than we think ; His ways are far above, Far beyond reason's height, and reached Only by childlike love. Workman of God! O, lose not heart, But learn what God is like; And in the darkest battle-field Thou shalt know where to strike. Thrice blest is he to whom is given Blest, too, is he who can divine Where real right doth lie, And dares to take the side that seems Wrong to man's blindfold eye. For right is right, since God is God; FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER. A DYING HYMN. EARTH, with its dark and dreadful ills, Recedes and fades away; Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills; Ye gates of death, give way! My soul is full of whispered song, The while my pulses fainter beat, My faith doth so abound; I feel grow firm beneath my feet The green, immortal ground. That faith to me a courage gives The palace walls I almost see ALICE CARY. HOPEFULLY WAITING. "Blessed are they who are homesick, for they shall come at last to their Father's house."- HEINRICH STILLING. NOT as you meant, O learnèd man, and good! I shall go to the Father's house, and see Approval of the work, which most was done, Our Father's house, I know, is broad and grand; Think you I love not, or that I forget These of my loins? Still this world is fair, And I am singing while my eyes are wet With weeping in this balmy summer air : Yet I'm not homesick, and the children here Have need of me, and so my way is clear. I would be joyful as my days go by, Counting God's mercies to me. Life's heaviest cross is mine forevermore, And I who wait his coming, shall not I On his sure word rely? And if sometimes the way be rough and steep, Be heavy for the grief he sends to me, Or at my waking I would only weep, He who bore Let me remember these are things to be, ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH. WHY THUS LONGING? WHY thus longing, thus forever sighing If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten, — Not by deeds that win the crowd's applauses, Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown. Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely, And truly loving, thou canst truly live. Dost thou revel in the rosy morning, When all nature hails the Lord of light, And his smile, the mountain-tops adorning, Robes yon fragrant fields in radiance bright? Other hands may grasp the field and forest, Proud proprietors in pomp may shine; But with fervent love if thou adorest, Thou art wealthier, all the world is thine. Yet if through earth's wide domains thou rovest, Nature wears the color of the spirit; Sweetly to her worshipper she sings; HARRIET WINSLOW SEWALL. That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not a worm is cloven in vain ; That not a moth with vain desire Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last far off- at last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light : And with no language but a cry. ALFRED TENNYSON. THE LOVE OF GOD. THOU Grace Divine, encircling all, A soundless, shoreless sea! Wherein at last our souls must fall, O Love of God most free! When over dizzy heights we go, One soft hand blinds our eyes, The other leads us, safe and slow, O Love of God most wise! And though we turn us from thy face, 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, To rise o'er sin and fear and death, ELIZA SCUDDER. O YET WE TRUST THAT SOMEHOW GOOD. FROM "IN MEMORIAM." O YET We trust that somehow good To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood ; LOVE DIVINE, ALL LOVE EXCELLING. LOVE divine, all love excelling, Joy of heaven to earth come down, All thy faithful mercies crown; |