OUNT each affliction, whether light or grave, Permission first his heavenly feet to lave; No cloud of passion to usurp thy brow, Of mortal tumult to obliterate The soul's marmoreal calmness: Grief should be Like joy, majestic, equable, sedate; Confirming, cleansing, raising, making free; Strong to consume small troubles; to commend end. AUBREY DE VERE. B LESSED is he who hath not trod the ways Of secular delights, nor learned the lore Which loftier minds are studious to abhor : Blessed is he who hath not sought the praise That perishes, the rapture that betrays; Who hath not spent in Time's vainglorious war Their iron trophies to a temple's height On trampled Justice; who desires not bliss, But peace; and yet when summoned to the fight, Of God and of His Angels, seeking this AUBREY DE VERE. NOW OR WHEN. N the tall buttress of a Minster gray, The glorious work of long-forgotten men, I read this Dial-legend,-"Now or When." Well had these builders used their little day Of service-witness this sublime display Of blossom'd stone, dazzling the gazer's ken. These towers attest they knew 'twas there and then, Not some vague morrow, they must work and pray. Oh! let us seize this transitory Now From which to build a life-work that shall last : In humble prayer and worship let us bow Ere fleeting opportunity is past. When once Life's sun forsakes the Dial-plate, RICHARD WILTON. THE HAWTHORN AND THE WILD ROSE. LEARNT a lesson from the flowers to-day :As o'er the fading hawthorn-blooms I sighed, Whose petals fair lay scattered far and wide, Lo, suddenly upon a dancing spray saw the first wild roses clustered gay. What though the smile I loved, so soon had died From one sweet flower-there, shining at its side, The blushing Rose surpassed the snowy May. So, if as Life glides on, we miss some flowers Which once shed light and fragrance on our way, Yet still the kindly-compensating hours Weave us fresh wreaths in beautiful array; And long as in the paths of peace we stay, Successive benedictions shall be ours! RICHARD WILTON. THE SOUND OF THE SEA. HE sea awoke at midnight from its sleep, A voice out of the silence of the deep, As of a cataract from the mountain's side, The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul; Are one divine foreshadowing and foreseeing HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. |