Think, too, of souls on earth unknown to him,
Whom he will know as well as kin or neighbors — Laborious saints, that now with seraphim
Expect the blesséd fruit of all their labors.
Think that he is what oft he wished to be
While yet he was a mortal man on earth;
Then weep, but know that grief's extremity
Contains a hope which never was in mirth.
IN holy books we read how God hath spoken
To holy men in many different ways;
But hath the present worked no sign or token?
Is God quite silent in these latter days?
And hath our heavenly Sire departed quite,
And left His poor babes in this world alone,
And only left for blind belief— not sight
Some quaint old riddles in a tongue unknown?
Oh! think it not, sweet maid! God comes to us
With every day, with every star that rises;
In every moment dwells the Righteous,
And starts upon the soul in sweet surprises.
The Word were but a blank, a hollow sound,
If He that spake it were not speaking still,
If all the light and all the shade around
Were aught but issues of Almighty will.
Sweet girl, believe that every bird that sings,
And every flower that stars the elastic sod,
And every thought the happy summer brings
To thy pure spirit, is A WORD OF GOD.
LET me not deem that I was made in vain,
Or that my Being was an accident,
Which Fate, in working its sublime intent,
Not wished to be, to hinder would not deign.
Each drop uncounted in a storm of rain
Hath its own mission, and is duly sent
To its own leaf or blade, not idly spent
'Mid myriad dimples on the shipless main.
The very shadow of an insect's wing
For which the violet cared not while it stayed
Yet felt the lighter for its vanishing,
Proved that the sun was shining by its shade :
Then can a drop of the eternal spring,
Shadow of living lights, in vain be made?
THINK upon Death, 'tis good to think of Death,
But better far to think upon the Dead.
Death is a spectre with a bony head,
Or the mere mortal body without breath,
The state foredoomed of every son of Seth,
Decomposition - dust, or dreamless sleep.
But the dear Dead are those for whom we weep,
For whom I credit all the Bible saith.
Dead is my father, dead is my good mother,
And what on earth have I to do but die?
But if by grace I reach the blesséd sky,
I fain would see the same, and not another;
The very father that I used to see,
The mother that has nursed me on her knee.
LONE in the wilderness, her child and she,
Sits the dark beauty, and her fierce-eyed boy;
A heavy burden, and no winsome toy
To such as she, a hanging babe must be.
A slave without a master
With anger in her heart! and in her face
Shame for foul wrong and undeserved disgrace, Poor Hagar mourns her lost virginity!
Poor woman, fear not God is everywhere ;
Thy silent tears, thy thirsty infant's moan,
Are known to Him, whose never-absent care
Still wakes to make all hearts and souls his own;
He sends an angel from beneath his throne
To cheer the outcast in the desert bare.
WHEN I consider all the things that were,
And count them upwards from the general flood,-
The tricks of fraud, and violent deeds of blood,
Weigh down the heart with sullen, deep despair.
I well believe that Satan, Prince of Air,
Torments to ill the pleasurable feeling;
But ever and anon, a breeze of healing
Proclaims that God is always everywhere.
'Twas hard to see him in the days of old,
And harder still to see our God to-day;
For prayer is slack, and love, alas! is cold,
And Faith, a wanderer, weak and wide astray:
Who hath the faith, the courage, to behold
God in the judgments that have passed away?
ALL Nature ministers to Hope. The snow
Of sluggard Winter, bedded on the hill,
And the small tinkle of the frozen rill,
The swoln flood's sullen roar, the storms that go
With crash, and howl, and horrid voice of woe,
Making swift passage for their lawless will
All prophesy of good. The hungry trill
Of the lone birdie, cowering close below
The dripping eaves-it hath a kindly feeling,
And cheers the life that lives for milder hours.
Why, then, since Nature still is busy healing,
And Time, the master, his own work concealing,
Decks every grave with verdure and with flowers, —
Why should Despair oppress immortal powers?
How much thy Holy Name hath been misused,
Beginner of all good, all-mighty Faith!
Some men thy blesséd symbols have abused,
Making them badge or secret Shibboleth
For greed accepted, or for spite refused,
Or just endured for fear of pain or death.
To some, by fearful conscience self-accused,
Thou com'st a goblin self, a hideous wraith!
With such as these thou art an inward strife,
A shame, a misery, and a death in life,
A self-asserting, self-disputing lie;
A thing to unbelief so near allied,
That it would gladly be a suicide,
And only lives because it dare not die.
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