How often things already won

It urges me to win,

How often makes me look outside
For that which is within.

Our souls go too much out of self
Into ways dark and dim:

'T is rather God who seeks for us.
Than we who seek for Him.

Yet surely through my tears I saw
God softly drawing near;

How came He without sight or sound

So soon to disappear?

God was not gone; but He so longed
His sweetness to impart,

He too was seeking for a home
And found it in my heart.

Twice had I erred: a distant God Was what I could not bear ; Sorrows and cares were at my side; I longed to have Him there.

But God is never so far off

As even to be near;

He is within our spirit is

The home He holds most dear.

To think of Him as by our side
Is almost as untrue,

As to remove His throne beyond
Those skies of starry blue.

So all the while I thought myself
Homeless, forlorn, and weary,
Missing my joy, I walked the earth
Myself God's sanctuary.

Arthur Hugh Clough.

1819-1861.

WHERE LIES THE LAND?

Where lies the land to which the ship would go?
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.

And where the land she travels from? Away,
Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

On sunny noons, upon the deck's smooth face,
Link'd arm in arm, how pleasant here to pace ;
Or, o'er the stern reclining, watch below
The foaming wake far widening as we go.

On stormy nights, when wild north-westers rave,
How proud a thing to fight with wind and wave!
The dripping sailor on the reeling mast
Exults to bear, and scorns to wish it past.

Where lies the land to which the ship would go? Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know.

And where the land she travels from? Away, Far, far behind, is all that they can say.

Charles kingsley.

1819-1875.

A FAREWELL.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you ;
No lark could pipe to skies so dull and gray;
Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you
For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever ; Do noble things, not dream them, all day long; And so make life, death, and that vast forever One grand sweet song.

G. Washington Moon.

WHO SHALL ROLL AWAY THE STONE?

That which weeping ones were saying
Eighteen hundred years ago,

We, the same weak faith betraying,
Say in our sad hours of woe ;

Looking at some trouble lying

In the dark and dread unknown, We, too, often ask with sighing,

Thus with care our spirits crushing,
When they might from care be free,
And, in joyous song out-gushing,
Rise in rapture, Lord, to Thee.

For, before the way was ended,
Oft we've had with joy to own,
Angels have from heaven descended,
And have rolled away the stone.

Many a storm-cloud sweeping o'er us
Never pours on us its rain;
Many a grief we see before us

Never comes to cause us pain.

Ofttimes in the feared " to-morrow

Sunshine comes, the cloud has flown.

Ask not, then, in foolish sorrow,

Anna L. Waring.

1820.

MY TIMES ARE IN THY HAND.

Father, I know that all my life
Is portioned out for me,

And the changes that will surely come,
I do not fear to see;

But I ask Thee for a present mind
Intent on pleasing Thee.

I ask Thee for a thoughtful love,

Through constant watching wise, To meet the glad with joyful smiles, And to wipe the weeping eyes; And a heart at leisure from itself, To soothe and sympathize.

I would not have the restless will
That hurries to and fro,

Seeking for some great thing to do,
Or secret thing to know;

I would be treated as a child,
And guided where I go.

Wherever in the world I am,
In whatsoe'er estate,

I have a fellowship with hearts
To keep and cultivate;