If there be some weaker one,
Give me strength to help him on ;
If a blinder soul there be,

Let me guide him nearer Thee.
Make my mortal dreams come true
With the work I fain would do;
Clothe with life the weak intent,
Let me be the thing I meant ;
Let me find in Thy employ
Peace that dearer is than joy;
Out of self to love be led,
And to heaven acclimated,

Until all things sweet and good

Seem my natural habitude.

JOHN G. WHittier.

M

SONNET ON NIGHT AND DEATH.

YSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,

Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,

This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,

And lo! creation widened in man's view.

Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find,

While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou madest us blind! Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?

J. BLANCO WHITE, 1775-1841.

THE FUTURE.

WHAT may we take into the vast Forever?

That marble door

Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor,
No fame-wreathed crown we wore,

No garnered lore.

What can we bear beyond the unknown portal?
No gold, no gains

Of all our toiling in the life immortal
No hoarded wealth remains,

Nor gilds, nor stains.

Naked from out that far abyss behind us
We entered here:

No word came with our coming, to remind us
What wondrous world was near,

No hope, no fear.

Into the silent, starless Night before us,
Naked we glide :

No hand has mapped the constellations o'er us,
No comrade at our side,

No chart, no guide.

Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow,

Our footsteps fare:

The beckoning of a Father's hand we follow

His love alone is there,

No curse, no care.

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL.

ATHANASIA.

HE ship may sink,

THE

And I may drink

A hasty death in the bitter sea;

But all that I leave

In the ocean-grave

Can be slipped and spared, and no loss to me.

What care I,

Though falls the sky,

And the shrivelling earth to a cinder turn?

No fires of doom

Can ever consume

What never was made nor meant to burn.

Let go the breath!

There is no death

To the living soul, nor loss, nor harm.

Not of the clod

Is the life of God:

Let it mount, as it will, from form to form.

CHARLES G. AMES.

MISCELLANEOUS.

A THANKSGIVING.

"Thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me.'

LORD, in this dust Thy sovereign voice

First quickened love divine;

I am all Thine, — Thy care and choice,
My very praise is Thine.

I praise Thee, while Thy providence
In childhood frail I trace,

For blessings given, ere dawning sense
Could seek or scan Thy grace;

Blessings in boyhood's marvelling hour,
Bright dreams, and fancyings strange;
Blessings, when reason's awful power
Gave thought a bolder range;
Blessings of friends, which to my door
Unasked, unhoped, have come ;
And, choicer still, a countless store
Of eager smiles at home.

Yet, Lord, in memory's fondest place
I shrine those seasons sad,

When, looking up, I saw Thy face
In kind austereness clad.

I would not miss one sigh or tear,
Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;
Sweet was the chastisement severe,
And sweet its memory now.

And such Thy tender force be still,
When self would swerve or stray;
Shaping to truth the froward will
Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth; far, far remove

The lure of power or name;

Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,

And faith in this world's shame.

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN, 1829.

THE INWARD WITNESS OF GOD.

"WHERE is your God?" they say:

Answer them, Lord most Holy !

Reveal Thy secret way

Of visiting the lowly :

Not wrapped in moving cloud,

Or nightly-resting fire;

But veiled within the shroud

Of silent high desire.

Come not in flashing storm, Or bursting frown of thunder: Come in the viewless form Of wakening love and wonder;