Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

THE BIRTH OF MORNING.

PURE, calm, diffused, the twilight of the morn
Is in the glen, among the dewy leaves:
Its gentle radiance, more heavenly born
Than the half-loving surbeam, never leaves
A nook, unvisited. This earth receives
The light which makes no shade, as the caress
Of God on his creation, and upheaves
Her soft face, innocent with peace, to bless,
Babe-like, his watchful eye with waking tenderness.

A gate admits us to the hill we seek ;

Through woods a track upon the turf we find ;
The trees are dripping dew, their tall stems creak
And rub together when the morning wind
Lightly caresses them. We pause, to mind
The note of one awakened bird, whose cry,
Quaint and repeated, is not like its kind.
Our ears are ignorant. Now up the high
And mossy slope we climb, beneath an open sky.
We reach the summit. Earth is in a dream
Of misty seas, and islands strangely born-
The unreal, from reality. The stream

Of wraith-like sights, which, ere he can be torn
From peaceful sleep, delights the travel-worn

At slumber's painted gate, is not more wild
Than the imagining of earth when morn
Bids her awaken. So a dreaming child

Looks through white angel wings, and sees all undefiled.

The blessed dream-land fancy of the young,
More truthful than the reasoning of age,
Is like this vision of the morning, sprung
Of earth and air. These lines upon the page
Of nature have life in them. They assuage
The fevers of the world-they are the dew

Of calm, and God is calm. How mortals wage
Their wars of weakness light reveals to view;

Reason fights through the false, but fancy feels the true.

Household Words.

FELLOW WORKERS.

FROM the crevice of a cloudlet,

In the eastern grey,

Came a beauteous beam of lightness,
Leading in the day.
Flow'rets woke up as she softly

Stole upon the lands;

Joyfully the leaves and grasses
Clapp'd their dew-wet hands!

I

Over field and over forest,
Silently she went,

Like a messenger in earnest,
On some mercy bent.

By a quiet shady hedge-row,
In a shelter'd nook,

Where we love to linger, reading
In God's leafy book:

There a tender shoot of greenness
Claim'd earth's needful care,
And the beam, so soft and gentle,
Was beside it there;

And, with streaming hands of silver,
Bent she down in prayer,

While a murmur, indistinctly,

Rose upon the air.

Oh, behold this gem of beauty

Passing into life?

Come, thou golden god of noontide,

Help it in this strife!

I will tint its slender leaflet

And its fragile flower;

Ray of sunshine-fellow worker-
Help me with thy power!

Light and heat were fellow workers,
And God bless'd the deed;

For the flower was passing lovely,
Though a simple weed.

There are many germs of goodness

Dormant in each breast,

Lying there in sad half-slumber

And unquiet rest.

Fain they would both bud and blossom,
But, within the soul,
Prison'd are they-nothing nearer

To the distant goal.

Come, oh, silvery beam of knowledge!
Turn the dumb intent

To a speaking, healthy action

For this thou wert sent.

Be thou too a fellow-worker,

Glowing ray of love!

Pierce within the shelter'd hedge-row,

Draw the germ above:

Souls that else were poor and lifeless
Shall evolve new powers-
Weeds upon the wayside worthless
Shall be God's blessed flowers!

ANON.

COWARDICE.

THE veriest coward upon earth
Is he who fears the world's opinion,
Who acts with reference to its will,

His conscience swayed by its dominion.

Mind is not worth a feather's weight,

That must with other minds be measured.

Self must direct, and self control,

And the account in heaven be treasured.

Fear never sways a manly soul,

For honest hearts 'twas ne'er intended; They, only they, have cause to fear,

Whose motives have their God offended.

What will my neighbour say, if I

Should this attempt, or that, or t'other? A neighbour is most sure a foe,

If he prove not a helping brother.

That man is brave who braves the world,
When o'er life's sea his bark he steereth,

Who keeps the guiding star in view,

A conscience clear, which never veereth.

E. C. HARLEY.

« AnteriorContinuar »