He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,
Alike they ’re needful for the flower;
And joys and tears alike are sent
To give the soul fit nourishment:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!
Can loving children e’er reprove
With murmurs whom they trust and love?
Creator, I would ever be
A trusting...
Methinks we do as fretful children do,
Leaning their faces on the window-pane
To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view;
And, thus, alas! since God the maker drew
A mystic separation ’twixt those twain,—
The life beyond us and our souls in pain,—
We miss the prospect which...
Not in the sky,
Where it was seen,
Nor on the white tops of the glistening wave,
Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep,—
Though green,
And beautiful, its caves of mystery;—
Shall the bright watcher have
A place, and as of old high station keep.
Gone, gone!
Oh, never more to cheer
The mariner who holds his course...
Was it the chime of a tiny bell
That came so sweet to my dreaming ear,
Like the silvery tones of a fairy’s shell
That he winds, on the beach, so mellow and clear,
When the winds and the waves lie together asleep,
And the Moon and the Fairy are watching the deep,
She dispensing her silvery light,
And he his notes as silvery quite,...
E’en such is time; that takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, our all we have,
And pays us but with earth and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days:
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
My God shall raise me up, I trust.
“But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly.”—HEBREWS xi. 16.
I ’M far frae my hame, an’ I ’m weary aftenwhiles,
For the langed-for hame-bringing, an’ my Father’s welcome smiles;
I ’ll never be fu’ content, until mine een do see
The shining gates o’ heaven an’ my ain countree.
The earth is flecked wi’ flowers, mony-tinted, fresh, an...
“At even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning.”—MARK xiii. 35.
“IT may be in the evening,
When the work of the day is done,
And you have time to sit in the twilight
And watch the sinking sun,
While the long bright day dies slowly
Over the sea,
And the hour grows quiet and holy
With thoughts...
Methinks, when on the languid eye
Life’s autumn scenes grow dim;
When evening’s shadows veil the sky;
And pleasure’s siren hymn
Grows fainter on the tuneless ear,
Like echoes from another sphere,
Or dreams of seraphim—
It were not sad to cast away
This dull and cumbrous load of clay.
It were not sad to feel the...
All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its immortality!
I saw a vision in my sleep,
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of time!
I saw the last of human mould
That shall creation’s death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!
The sun’s eye...
If I were told that I must die to-morrow,
That the next sun
Which sinks should bear me past all fear and sorrow
For any one,
All the fight fought, all the short journey through,
What should I do?
I do not think that I should shrink or falter,
But just go on,
Doing my work, nor...
