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RIPE WHEAT.

RIPE WHEAT.

WE bent to-day o'er a coffined form,

And our tears fell softly down;

We looked our last on the aged face,
With its look of peace, its patient grace,
And hair like a silver crown.

We touched our own to the clay-cold hands,
From Life's long labour at rest ;

And among the blossoms, white and sweet,
We noted a bunch of golden wheat,
Clasped close to the silent breast.

The blossoms whispered of fadeless bloom,
Of a land where fall no tears.
The ripe wheat told of toil and care,
The patient waiting, the trusting prayer,
The garnered good of the years.

We knew not what work her hands had found, What rugged places her feet:

SATISFIED.

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What cross was hers, what blackness of night:
We saw but the peace, the blossoms white,
And the bunch of ripened wheat.

As each goes up from the fields of earth,
Bearing the treasures of life,

God looks for some gathered grain of good
From the ripe harvest that shining stood,
But waiting the reaper's knife.

Then labour well, that in death you go
Not only with blossoms sweet,—

Not bent with doubt, and burdened with fears,
And dead, dry husks of the wasted years,—
But laden with golden wheat.

ANONYMOUS.

SATISFIED.

SHALL be satisfied, O God!

No more vain longings after this world's good,

Which is not good when found,

But e'en as apples from the Dead Sea land,

Proving dull ashes in the grasper's hand.

I shall be satisfied; and love-

That love which reigneth in the courts above,

Shall hold my heart at rest;

At rest, at peace, for aye, O God! with thee
To spend the glad hours of eternity.

I shall be satisfied; no more

O'er earth's fast-fleeting joys to pour

Wild, unavailing tears.

From Death's chill breath, from sorrow and decay,

Holding my treasures there secure for aye.

I shall be satisfied, dear Lord :

No more dark doubting of thy glorious Word,
No more vain searchings made

For clearer light, by eyes too dim to see
The radiance down-reaching unto us from thee.

I shall be satisfied at last,

The long, dark night of doubt and danger past, When on my waiting soul

The light of heaven's eternal morn shall break,

And I, dear Christ, in thy blest likeness wake!

ANONYMOUS.

CONSOLATION.

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CONSOLATION.

ARE they not near us, though afar they

seem,

Whom we call dead, and mourn and miss so

much?

And though we cannot catch their white robes gleam,

Nor feel the hallowed rapture of their touch, Are they not with us, mourning when we weep, Glad with our gladness, guarding when we sleep?

Oh! what were life without such fond belief, Since from our side the trusted and the good Fall as a blasted flower, a withered leaf,

And leave our hearts and homes in solitude, And the strong staff is broken, and the night Has fallen on eyes that made our earthly light?

If they still live, they fold us round about With unseen arms; and theirs the strength, not ours,

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CHILDHOOD LAND.

That buoys us o'er the waves of dread and

doubt,

Into the calmer realm of sunlit hours. Thus are they messengers of God, to ope The golden gate to the broad fields of hope.

ANONYMOUS.

THER

CHILDHOOD LAND.

HERE is a beautiful, far-off land,
Lying in sunlit seas;

But never a ship to that magic strand
Was wafted by fitful breeze;

For where her radiant shores unfold,
Night stretches her purple bars,
And fastens it in with her gates of gold,
And guards it with sentry stars.

Over the fathomless summer skies
Snowy clouds come and go;

Through every valley that dreaming lies
Musical rivers flow.