The angel sought so far away
I welcome at my door.

The airs of spring may never play
Among the ripening corn,
Nor freshness of the flowers of May
Blow through the autumn morn;

Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look Through fringèd lids to heaven, And the pale aster in the brook Shall see its image given ;—

That all the jarring notes of life

Seem blending in a psalm,
And all the angles of its strife
Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,
And so the west winds play;
And all the windows of my heart
I open to the day.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

SONNET.

The south wind softly sigh, And sweet, calm days, in golden haze Melt down the amber sky.

Not less shall manly deed and word
Rebuke an age of wrong;

The graven flowers that wreathe the sword

Make not the blade less strong.

But smiting hands shall learn to heal,-
To build as to destroy;

Nor less my heart for others feel
That I the more enjoy.

All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told!

Enough that blessings undeserved
Have mark'd my erring track;-
That wheresoe'er my feet have swerved,
His chastening turn'd me back ;—

That more and more a Providence
Of love is understood,
Making the springs of time and sense

Sweet with eternal good;

That death seems but a cover'd way

Which opens into light, Wherein no blinded child can stray Beyond the Father's sight;

That care and trial seem at last, Through Memory's sunset air, Like mountain-ranges overpast, In purple distance fair;

Crumbling away beneath our very feet; Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing

In current unperceived, because so fleet; Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing

But tares, self-sown, have overtopp'd the wheat;

Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing

And still, oh still, their dying breath is

sweet;

And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us

Of that which made our childhood

sweeter still;

And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A nearer good to cure an older ill;
And sweet are all things, when we learn to
prize them

Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them!

AUBREY DE VERE.

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

O STREAM descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flow'rets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden-plots the children play,
The fields the laborers till,
And houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death,
Our waking eyes behold
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.

THE MEANS TO ATTAIN HAPPY LIFE MARTIAL, the things that do attain

The happy life be these, I find— The riches left, not got with pain;

The fruitful ground, the quiet mind;

The equal friend; no grudge, no strife;
No charge of rule, nor governance;

flee so fast.

The household of continuance;

The mean diet, no delicate fare;

True wisdom joined with simpleness; The night discharged of all care,

Where wine the wit may not oppress; The faithful wife, without debate;

Such sleeps as may beguile the night. Contented with thine own estate, Ne wish for Death, ne fear his might. HENRY HOWARD, Earl of Surrey,

THE WEB OF LIFE.

My life, which was so straight and plain, Has now become a tangled skein,

Yet God still holds the thread; Weave as I may, His hand doth guide The shuttle's course, however wide

The chain in woof be wed.

One weary night, when months went by, I plied my loom with tear and sigh,

In grief unnamed, untold;

But when at last the morning's light
Broke on my vision, fair and bright
There gleamed a cloth of gold.
And now I never lose my trust,
Weave as I may-and weave I must-
That God doth hold the thread;
He guides my shuttle on its way,
He makes complete my task each day;
What more, then, can be said?

CLARA J. MOORE.

THERE BE THOSE.

THERE be those who sow beside
The waters that in silence glide,
Trusting no echo will declare
Whose footsteps ever wandered there.

The noiseless footsteps pass away,
The stream flows on as yesterday;
Nor can it for a time be seen
A benefactor there had been.

Yet think not that the seed is dead
Which in the lonely place is spread;
It lives, it lives-the spring is nigh,
And soon its life shall testify.

That silent stream, that desert ground,
No more unlovely shall be found;
But scattered flowers of simplest grace
Shall spread their beauty round the place.

And soon or late a time will come
When witnesses, that now are dumb,
With grateful eloquence shall tell
From whom the seed, there scattered, fell.

BERNARD BARTON.

ENDURANCE.

How much the heart may bear, and yet not break!

How much the flesh may suffer, and not die!

I question much if any pain or ache

Of soul or body brings our end more nigh: Death chooses his own time: till that is sworn,

All evils may be borne.

We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knife,

Each nerve recoiling from the cruel steel Whose edge seems searching for the quivering life,

Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal, That still, although the trembling flesh be torn,

This also can be borne.

We see a sorrow rising in our way,

And try to flee from the approaching ill; We seek some small escape; we weep and pray;

But when the blow falls, then our hearts are still;

Not that the pain is of its sharpness shorn, But that it can be borne.

We wind our life about another life;

We hold it closer, dearer than our own: Anon it faints and fails in deathly strife, Leaving us stunned, and stricken, and

alone;

But ah! we do not die with those we

mourn,

This also can be borne.

Behold, we live through all things-famine, thirst,

Bereavement, pain; all grief and misery, All woe and sorrow; life inflicts its worst On soul and body-but we cannot die. Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and worn,

Lo, all things can be borne.

ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.