DEDICATION OF TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE

SPRING speaks again, and all our woods are stirred,
And all our wastes aflower around,
That twice have heard keen April’s clarion sound
Since here we first together saw and heard
Spring’s light reverberate and reiterate word
Shine forth and speak in season. Life stands crowned
Here with the best one thing it ever found,
As of my soul’s best birthdays dawns the third.

There is a friend that as the wise man saith
Cleaves closer than a brother: nor to me
Hath time not shown, through days like weaves at strife
This truth more sure than all things else but death,
This pearl most perfect found in all the sea
This washes toward your feet these waifs of life.


Algernon Charles Swinburne.

SOCIETY IN SOLITUDE

From “Retirement”


I PRAISE the Frenchman, his remark was shrewd,−−
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude!
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper, Solitude is sweet.

William Cowper.

WE LOVE BUT FEW

OH yes, we mean all kind words that we say
To old friends and to new;
Yet doth this truth grow clearer day by day:
We love but few.

We love! we love! What easy words to say,
And sweet to hear,
When sunrise splendor brightens all the way,
And, far and near,

Are breath of flowers and caroling of birds,
And bells that chime;
Our hearts are light: we do not weigh our words
At morning time!

But when the matin music all is hushed,
And life’s great load
Doth weigh us down, and thick with dust
Doth grow the road,

Then do we say less often that we love.
The words have grown!
With pleading eyes we look to Christ above,

Their lives are bound to ours by mighty bands
No moral strait,
Nor Death himself, with his prevailing hands,
Can separate.

The world is wide, and many friends are dear,
And friendships true;
Yet do these words read plainer, year by year:
We love but few.

The Humbler Poets.

EARLY FRIENDSHIP

THE half-seen memories of childish days,
When pains and pleasures lightly came and went;
The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent
In fearful wanderings trough forbidden ways;
The vague, but manly wish to tread the maze
Of life to noble ends,-whereon intent,
Asking to know for what man here is sent,
The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze;
The firm resolve to seek the chosen end
Of manhood’s judgement, cautious and mature,-
With strength no selfish purpose can secure:
My happy lot is this, that all attend
That friendship which first came, and which shall last endure.

Aubrey Thomas de Vere.

THE EVENING WALK

AT evening too, how pleasing was your walk,
Endeared by Friendship’s unrestrained talk,
When to the upland heights we bent our way,
To view the last beam of departing day;
How calm was all around! No playful breeze
Sighed’ mid the wavy foliage of the trees,
But all was still, save when, with drowsy song,
The gray-fly wound his sullen horn along;
And save when heard in soft, yet merry glee,
The distant church-bells’ mellow harmony;
The silver mirror of the lucid brook,
That ’mid the tufted broom its still course took;
The rugged arch, that clasped its silent tides,
With moss and rank weeds hanging down its sides:
The craggy rock, that jutted on the sight;
The shrieking bat, that took its heavy flight;
All, all was pregnant with divine delight.
We loved to watch the swallow swimming high,
In the bright azure of the vaulted sky;
Or gaze upon the clouds, whose colored pride
Was scattered thinly o’er the welkin wide,
And tinged with such variety of shade,
To the charmed soul sublimest thoughts conveyed.
In these what forms romantic did we trace,
While fancy led us o’er the realms of space!
Now we espied the thunderer in his car,
Leading the embattled seraphim to war,
Then stately towers descried, sublimely high,
In Gothic grandeur frowning on the sky —
Or saw, wide stretching o’er the azure height,
A ridge of glaciers in mural white,
Hugely terrific.— But those times are o’er,
And the fond scene can charm mine eyes no more;
For thou art gone, and I am left below,
Alone to struggle through this world of woe.

Henry Kirke White.

GLIMPSES OF THE PAST

THERE is such power even in smallest things
To bring the dear past back; a flower’s tint,
A snatch of some old song, the fleeting glint
Of sunbeams on the wave— each vivid brings

The lost days up, as from the idle strings
Of wind-harp sad a breeze evokes the hint
Of antique tunes. A glove which keeps imprint
Of a loved hand the heart with torture wrings

By memory of a clasp meant more than speech;
A face seen in the crowd with curve of cheek
Or sweep of eyelash our woe’s core can reach.

How strong is love to yearn, and yet how weak
To strive with fate: the lesson al things teach,
As of the past in myriad ways they speak.

Arlo Bates

THE DAYS THAT ARE NO MORE

O MEMORIES of green and pleasant places,
Where happy birds their wood-notes twittered low!
O love that lit the dear familiar faces
We buried long ago!

From barren heights their sweetness we remember,
And backward gaze with wistful, yearning eyes,
As hearts regret, mid snow-drifts of December,
The summer’s sunny skies.

Glad hours that seemed their rainbow tints to borrow
From some illumined page of fairy lore;
Bright days that never lacked a bright to-morrow,
Days that return no more.

Fair gardens, with their many-blossomed alleys,
And red, ripe roses breathing out perfume;
Deep violet nooks in green, sequestered valleys
Empurpled o’er with bloom.

Sunset that lighted up the brown-leaved beeches,
Turning their dusky glooms to glittering gold;
Moonlight that on the river’s fern-fringed beaches
Streamed white-rayed, silvery cold.

O’er moorlands bleak we wander weary-hearted,
Through many a tangled, wild, and thorny maze,
Remembering as in dreams the days departed,
The bygone, happy days.

The Humbler Poets.

A HEALTH

I FILL this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon;

To whom the better elements
And kindly stars have given
A form so fair, that, like the air,
’T is less of earth than heaven.

Her every tone is music’s own,
Like those of morning birds,
And something more than melody
Dwells ever in her words;
The coinage of her heart are they,
And from her lips each flows,
As one may see the burdened bee
Forth issue from the rose.

Affections are as thoughts to her,
The measures of her hours;
Her feelings have the fragrancy,
The freshness of young flowers;
And lovely passions, changing oft,
So fill her, she appears
The image of themselves by turns,—
The idol of past years!

Of her bright face one glance will trace
A picture on the brain,
And of her voice in echoing hearts
A sound must long remain;
But memory, such as mine of her,
So very much endears,
When death is nigh my latest sigh
Will not be life’s but hers.


I fill this cup to one made up
Of loveliness alone,
A woman, of her gentle sex
The seeming paragon.
Her health! And would on earth there stood
Some more of such a frame,
That life might be all poetry,
And weariness a name.

Edward Coate Pinkney.

SONG

THO’ lost to sight, to mem’ry dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope to meet again.

Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wand’ring down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild flowers.

Yes, life then seem’d one pure delight,
Tho’ now each spot looks drear;
Yet, tho’ thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem’ry thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly lov’d,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro’ the fields we rov’d.

Yes, life then seem’d one pure delight,
Tho’ now each spot looks drear;
Yet, tho’ thy smile be lost to sight,
To mem’ry thou art dear.

George Linley.

TWENTY YEARS AGO

I'VE wandered to the village, Tom, I've sat beneath the tree,
Upon the schoolhouse playground, that sheltered you and me;
But none were left to greet me, Tom; and few were left to know,
Who played with us upon the green some twenty years ago.

The grass is just as green, Tom; barefooted boys at play
Were sporting, just as we did then, with spirits just as gay.
But the “master” sleeps upon the hill, which, coated o’er with snow,
Afforded us a sliding-place some twenty tears ago.

The old schoolhouse is altered now; the benches are replaced
By new ones, very like the same our penknives once defaced;
But the same old bricks are in the wall, the bell swings to and fro;
Its music’s just the same, dear Tom, ’t was twenty years ago.

The boys were playing some old game, beneath that same old tree;
I have forgot the name just now-you’ve played the same with me
On that same spot; ’t was played with knives, by throwing so and so;
The loser had a task to do- there, twenty years ago.

The river’s running just as still; the willows on its side
Are larger than they were, Tom; the stream appears less wide;
But the grapevine swing is ruined now, where once we played the beau,
And swung our sweethearts-pretty girls- just twenty years ago.

The spring that bubbled ’neath the hill, close by the spreading beech,
Is very slow –’t was then so high that we could scarcely reach;
And kneeling down to get a drink, dear Tom, I started so,
To see how sadly I am changed since twenty years ago.

Near by the spring, upon an elm, you know I cut your name,
Your sweetheart’s just beneath it, Tom, and you did mine the same;
Some heartless wretch has peeled the bark, ’t was dying sure but slow,
just as she died, whose name you cut, some twenty years ago.

My lids have long been dry, Tom, but tears came to my eyes;
I thought of her I loved so well; those early broken ties;
I visited the old churchyard, and took some flowers to strew
Upon the graves of those we loved some twenty years ago.

Some are in the churchyard laid, some sleep beneath the sea;
But few are left of our old class, excepting you and me;
And when our time shall come, Tom, and we were called to go,
I hope they’ll lay us where we played just twenty years ago,

Francis Hueston.

LIKE TO A COIN

LIKE to a coin, passing from hand to hand,
Are common memories, and day by day
the sharpness of their impress wears away.
But love’s remembrances unspoiled withstand
The touch of time, as in an antique land
Where some proud town old centuries did slay,
Intaglios buried lie, still in decay
Perfect and precious spite of grinding sand.
What fame or joy or sorrow has been ours,
What we have hoped or feared, we may forget.
The clearness of all memory time deflours,
Save that of love alone, persistent yet
Though sure oblivious all things else devours,
Its tracing firm as when they first were set.

Arlo Bates

AND DOTH NOT A MEETING LIKE THIS MAKE AMENDS?

AND doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I’ve been wandr’ing away-
To see thus around me my youth’s early friends
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?

Though haply o’er some of your bows, as o’er mine,
the snow-fall of Time may be stealing-what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We’ll wear the gay tinge of Youth’s roses again.

What softened remembrances come o’er the heart,
In gazing on those we’ ve been lost to so long!
The sorrows, the joys, of which once they were part,
Still round them, like visions of yesterday, throng;

As letters some hand hath invisibly traced,
When held to the flame will steal out on the sight,
So many a feeling, that long seemed effaced,
The warmth of a moment like this brings to light.

And thus, as in memory’s bark we shall glide,
To visit the scenes of our boyhood anew,
Though oft we may see, looking down on the tide,
The wreck of full many a hope shining through;
Yet still, as in fancy we point to the flowers
That once made a garden of all the gay shore,
Deceived for a moment, we’ll think them still ours,
And breathe the fresh air of life’s morning once more.


So brief our existence, a glimpse, at the most,
Is all we can have of the few we hold dear;
And oft even joy is unheeded and lost
For want of some heart that could echo it, near.
Ah, well may we hope, when this short life is gone,
To meet in some world of more permanent bliss;
For a smile, or a grasp of the hand, hast’ning on,
Is all we enjoy of each other in this.

But, come, the more rare such delights to the heart,
The more we should welcome, and bless them the more;
They’re ours when we meet-they are lost when we part-
They’re ours, when we meet- they are lost when ’t is o’er.
Thus circling the cup, hand in hand, ere we drink,
Let Sympathy pledge us, through pleasure, through pain,
That, fast as a feeling but touches one link,
Her magic shall send it direct through the chain.

Thomas Moore.

BILL AND JOE

COME, dear old comrade, you and I
Will steal an hour from days gone by,-
The shining days when life was new,
And all was bright as morning dew,-
The lusty days of long ago,
When you were Bill and I was Joe.

Your name may flaunt a titled trail,
Proud as a cockerel’s rainbow tail;
And mine as brief appendix wear
As Tam O’Shanter’s luckless mare;
To-day, old friend, remember still
That I am Joe and you are Bill.

You’ve won the great world’s envied prize,
And grand you look in people’s eyes,
With H.O.N. an L.L.D.
In big brave letters, fair to see,-
Your firs, old fellow! off they go!
How are you, Bill? How are you, Joe?

You’ve worn the judge’s ermined robe
You’ve taught your name to half the globe;
You’ve sung mankind a deathless strain;
You’ve made the dead past live again:
The world may call you what it will,
But you and I are Joe and Bill.

The chaffing young folks stare and say,
“See those old buffers, bent and gray;
They talk like fellows in their teens!
Mad, poor old boys! That’s what it means,”-
And shake their heads; they little know
The throbbing hearts of Bill and Joe!

How Bill forgets his hour of pride,
While Joe sits smiling at his side;
How Joe, in spite of time’s disguise,
Finds the old schoolmate in his eyes,-
Those calm, stern eyes that melt and fill
As Joe looks fondly up at Bill.

Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame;
A giddy whirlwind’s fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust:
a few swift years, and who can show
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe!

The weary idol takes his stand,
Holds out his bruised and aching hand,
While gaping thousands come and go,-
How vain it seems, this empty show!
Till all at once his pulses thrill,
’T is poor old Joe’s “God bless you, Bill!”

And shall we breathe in happier spheres
the names that pleased our mortal ears,
In some sweet lull of harp and song,
For earth-born spirits none too long,-
Just whispering of the world below,
Where this was Bill, and that was Joe?

No matter; while our home is here
No sounding name is half so dear;
When fades at length our lingering day,
Who cares what pompous tombstones say?
Read on the hearts that love us still,
Hic jacet Joe. Hic jacet Bill.

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

THE DEAREST ARE THE AULDEST

IT'S an owercome sooth for age and youth
And it brooks wi' nae denial,
That the dearest friends are the auldest friends
And the young are just on trial.

There's a rival bauld wi' young an' auld
And it's him that hath bereft me;
For the surest friends are the auldest friends,
And the maist o' mine hae left me.

There are kind hearts still, for friends to fill
And fools to take and break them;
But the nearest friends are the auldest friends
And the grave's the place to seek them.

Robert Louis Stevenson.

WIFE, CHILDREN AND FRIENDS

WHEN the black-lettered list to the gods was presented
(The list of what Fate for each mortal intends),
At the long string of ills a kind goddess relented,
And slipped in three blessings,-wife, children and friends.

In vain surly Pluto maintained he was cheated,
For justice divine could not compass its ends;
The scheme of man's penance he swore was defeated,
For earth becomes heaven with-wife, children and friends.

If the stock of our bliss is in stranger hands vested,
The fund, ill secured, oft in banckruptcy ends;
But the heart issues bills which are never protested,
When drawn on the firm of-wife, children, and friends.

Though valor still glows in his life's dying embers,
The death-wounded tar, who his colors defends,
Drops a tear of regret as he dying remembers
How blessed was his home with-wife, children and friends.

The soldier, whose deeds live immortal in story,
Whom duty to far distant latitudes sends,
With transport would barter whole ages of glory
For one happy day with-wife, children and friends.

Though spice-breathing gales on his caravan hover,
Though for him all Arabia's fragrance ascends,
The merchant still thinks of the woodbines that cover
The bower where he sat with -wife, children and friends.

The dayspring of youth, still unclouded by sorrow,
Alone on itself for enjoyment depends;
But dear is the twilight of age, if it borrow
No warmth from the smile of- wife, children, and friends.

Let the breath of renown ever freshmen and nourish
The laurel which o'er the dead favorite bends;
O'er me wave the willow, and long may it flourish,
Bedewed with the tears of-wife, children, and friends.

Let us drink, for my song, growing graver and graver,
To subjects too solemn insensibly tends;
Let us drink, pledge me high, love and virtue shall flavor
The glass which I fill to-wife, children and friends.

William Robert Spencer.

THE GRACIOUS PAST

IN June 't is good to lie beneath a tree
While the blithe season comforts every sense,
Steeps all the brain in rest, and heals the heart,
Brimming it o'er with sweetness unawares,
Fragrant asilent as that rosy snow
Wherewith the pitying apple-tree fills up
And tenderly lines some last-year robin's nest.
There muse I of old time, old hopes, old friends,-
Old friends! The writing of those words has borne
My fancy backward to the gracious past,
The generous past, when all was possible,
For all was untried; the years between
Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none
Wiser than this, -to spend in all things else,
But of old friends to be most miserly.
Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring,
As to an oak, and precious more and more,
Without deservingness or help of ours,
They grow, and, silent, wider spread, each year,
Their unbought rings of shelter or of shade.
Sacred to me the lichens on the bark,
Which Nature's milliners would scrape away;
Most dear and sacred every withered limb!
'T is good to set them early, for our faith
Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come,
Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears.

James Rusell Lowell

OLD FRIENDS

WE just shake hands at meeting,
With many that come nigh,
We nod the head in greeting
To many that go by.
But we welcome through the gateway
Our few old friends and true;
The hearts leap up and straightway
There's open house for you,
Old friends,
Wide-open house for you.

The surface will be sparkling,
Let but a sunbeam shine,
But in the deep lies darkling
The true life of the wine.
The forth is for the many,
The wine is for the few;
Unseen, untouched of any,
We keep the best for you,
Old friends,
The very best for you.

"The many" cannot know us ,
The only pace the strand
Where at our wors we show us,
The waters thick with sand;
But out beyond the leaping
Dim surge "'t is clear and blue,"
And there, old friends, we're keeping
A waiting calm for you,
Old friends,
A sacred calm for you

The Humbler Poets.

THE CANE-BOTTOM’D CHAIR

IN tattered old slippers that toast at the bars,
And a ragged old jacket perfumed with cigars,
Away from the world an its toils and its cares,
I’ve a sung little kingdom up four pair of stairs.

To mount to this realm is a toil, to be sure,
But the fire there is bright and the air rather pure;
And the view I behold on a sunshiny day
Is grand, through the chimney-pots over the way.

This snug little chamber is cramm’d in all nooks
With worthless old knickknacks and silly old books,
And foolish old odds and foolish old ends,
Crack’d bargains from brothers, cheap keepsakes from friends.

Old armour, prints, pictures, pipes, china (all crack’d),
Old rickety tables, and chairs broken-backed;
A twopenny treasury, wondrous to see;
What matter? ‘t is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

No better divan need the Sultan require,
Than the creaking old sofa that basks by the fire;
An ‘t is wonderful, surely, what music you get
From the rickety, ramshackle, wheezy spinet.

That praying-rug came from a Turcoman’s camp;
By Tiber once twinkled that brazen old lamp;
A Mameluke fierce yonder dagger has drawn:
’T is a murderous knife to toast muffins upon.

Long, long through the hours, and the night, and the chimes,
Here we talk of old books, and old friends, and old times;
As we sit in a fog mad of rich Latakie,
This chamber is pleasant to you, friend, and me.

But of all the cheap treasures that garnish my nest,
There’s one that I love and I cherish the best;
For the finest of couches that’s padded with hair
I never would change thee, my cane-bottom’d chair.


’T is a bandy-legg’d, high-shoulder’d, worm-eaten seat,
With a cracking old back, and twisted old feet;
But since the fair morning when Fanny sat there,
I bless thee and love thee, old cane-bottom’d chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,
A thrill must have pass’d through your wither’d old arms!
I look’d, and I long’d , and I wish’d in despair;
I wish’d myself turn’d to a cane-bottom’d chair.

If chairs have but feeling, in holding such charms,
A thrill must have pass’d through you wither’d old arms!
I look’d, and I long’d, and I wish’d in despair;
I wish’d myself turn’d to a cane bottom’d chair.

It was but a moment she sat in this place,
She’d a scarf on her neck, and a smile on her face!
A smile on her face, and a rose in her hair,
And she sat there, and bloom’d in my cane-bottom’d chair.

And so I have valued my chair ever since,
Like the shrine of a saint, or the throne of a prince;
Saint Fanny, my patroness, sweet I declare,
The queen of my heart and my cane-bottom’d chair.

When the candles burn low, and the company’s gone,
In silence of night as I sit here alone-
I sit here alone, but we yet are a pair-
My Fanny I see in my cane-bottom’d chair.

She comes from the past, and revisits my room;
She looks as she then did, all beauty and bloom;
So smiling and tender, so fresh and so fair,
And yonder she sits in my cane-bottom’d chair.

William Makepeace Thackeray.

THE HEART’S SUMMER

THE cold blast at the casement beats;
The window-panes are white;
The snow whirls through the empty streets;
It’s a dreary night!

Sit down, old friend, the wine-cups wait;
Fill to o’erflowing, fill!
Through winter howleth at the gate,
In our hearts ‘’t is summer still!

For we full many summer joys
And greenwood sports have shared,
When free and ever-roving boys,
The rocks, the streams, we dared;
And, as I looked upon thy face,
Back, back o’er the years of ill,
My heart flies to that happy place,
Where it is summer still.

Yes, though like sere leaves on the ground,
Our early hopes are strown,
And cherished flowers lie dead around,
And singing birds are flown,
The verdure is not faded quite,
Not mute all tones that thrill;
And seeing, hearing thee to-night,
In my heart ’t is summer still.

Fill up! The olden times come back
With light and life once more;
We scan the Future’s sunny track
From Youth’s enchanted shore;


The lost return: through fields of bloom
We wander at our will;
Gone is the winter’s angry gloom,-
In our heart ’t is summer still.

Epes Sargent

THE OTHER WORLD

IT lies around us like a cloud.―
A world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.

Its gentle breezes fan our cheek;
Amid our worldly cares
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
With breathings almost heard.

The silence, —awful, sweet, and calm,
They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweetly glide,
So near to press they seem,—
They seem to lull us to our rest,
And melt into our dream.

And in the hush of rest they bring,
’T is easy now to see
How lovely and how sweet a pass
The hour of death may be.

To close the eye, and close the ear,
Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
And gently dream in loving arms,
To swoon to that, — from this.

Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
to feel all evil sink away,
All sorrow and all care.

Sweet souls around us! watch us still,
Press nearer to our side,
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.

Let death between us be as naught,
A dried and vanished stream;
Your joy be the reality,
Our suffering life, the dream.

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

THE DEAD FRIEND

NOT to the grave, not to the grave, my soul,
Descend to contemplate
The form that once was dear!
The spirit is not there
Which kindled that dead eye,
Which throbbed in that cold heart,
Which in that motionless hand
Hath met thy friendly grasp.
The spirit is not there!

It is but lifeless, perishable flesh
That moulders in the grave,
Earth, air, and water’s ministering particles
Now to the elements
Resolved, their uses done.
Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul,
Follow thy friend beloved,
The spirit is not there!

Often together have we talked of death:
How sweet it were to see
All doubtful things made clear;
How sweet it were, with powers
Such as the Cherubim,
To view the depth of Heaven!
O Edmundf! thou hast first
Begun the travel of Eternity!
I look upon the stars,
And think that thou art there,
Unfettered as the thought that follows thee.

And we have often said how sweet it were
With unseen ministry of angel power
To watch the friends we lov’d.
Edmund, we did not err!
Sure I have felt thy presence! Thou hast given
A birth to holy thought,
Hast kept me from the world unstained and pure.
Edmund, we did not err!
Our best affections here,
They are not like the toys of infancy;
The soul outgrows them not;
We do not cast them off;
Oh, if it could be so,
It were indeed a dreadful thing to die!

Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul,
Follow thy friend beloved!
But in the lonely hour,
But in the evening walk,
Think that he companies thy solitude;
Think that he holds with thee
Mysterious intercourse:
And though remembrance wake a tear,
There will be joy in grief.

Robert Southey.

FROM THE STILL SPHERE

FROM the still sphere where dwells my highest hope,
Stand off, I pray you, nor disturb in the air!
Lest while you boast it living, it should die,
And I lose all, whose all is centered there.

Bring me no arguments, no reasoned proof;
How it their weakness cloud that sacred trust?
Leave it to God alone to mark its growth
And keep it deathless― till I turn to dust.

Nor is this all,—though more I dare not say,—
Words would but marshal thoughts to endless strife;
Enough, if, cherished in my being’s core,
The silent hope may mould the lowly life.

Lucy Smith.

THEY ARE ALL GONE

THEY are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my said thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove, —
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun’s remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days, —
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy hope! and high humility,—
High as the heavens above!
these are your walks, and you have showed them me
To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death,— the jewel of the just,—
Shining nowhere but in the dark!
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!

He that hath found some fledged bird’s nest may know,
At first sight, if the bird be flown;
But what fair dell or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.

And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.

If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there,
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She’ll shine through all the sphere.

O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under thee!
Resume thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty.

Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still ass they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass.

Henry Vaughan.