I may be laid amid the dead As low as thou art now: TRUST AND LOVE. Yet wilt thou rise in rugged strength, Each had a hope: the childish heart The manly thought — strong and mature Each trusts to nature's genial power, 53 In beauty and in mystery ever new; small. E'en our plain neighbor, as he sips his tea, So through the symbol alphabet that glows Through all creation, higher still and higher The spirit builds its faith, and ever grows Beyond the rude forms of its first desire. O boundless Beauty and Beneficence! O deathless Soul that breathest in the weeds, And in a starlit sky! E'en through the rents Of accident thou serv'st all human needs, Nor stoopest idly to our petty cares; Nor knowest great or small, since, folded in By Universal Love, all being shares The life that ever shall be or hath been. CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH. SONG OF FAITH. WILLIAM CROSWELL was born at Hudson, N. Y., Nov. 7, 1804, and died in Boston, where he had been the founder, and for seven years the rector, of the Church of the Advent. THE lilied fields behold; Is brief, alas! as bright; If God so clothe the soil, Will be, whose love has nursed The sparrow's brood, do less The birds fly forth at will; They neither plough nor sow: Yet theirs the sheaves that crown the hill, Or glad the vale below. While through the realms of air He guides their trackless way, Will man, in faithlessness, despair? Is he worth less than they? WILLIAM CROSWELL BIRD-LIFE AND TRUST. ON WATCHING THE FLight of A SKYLARK. UPWARD and upward still! — in pearly light Hath meaning for all bosoms; most of all fill Your hearts, no gift of holy strength be won To bless your songs, ye children of the sun, Save by the unswerving flight, - upward and upward still! FELICIA HEMANS. Gathered its kindly crumbs; And with a chirp of thanks ye take What Heaven has sent. But ye are safe! 55 My little doves have left a nest Upon an Indian tree, Whose leaves fantastic take their rest The tropic flowers looked up to it, And God them taught at every close And lifted leaf, to interpose Their chanting voices kind; My little doves were borne away And tempest-clouded airs. NATURE PRAISING GOD. ROBIN REDBREAST. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, for twenty-seven years Bishop of New Jersey, was born at Trenton, May 27, 1799, and was educated at Union College He published a volume of poems and several works on theology. He died April 27, 1859 SWEET Robin, I have heard them say Sweet Robin, would that I might be 57 When wearied, on the meadow-grass I sank; So narrow was the rill from which I drank, An infant might have stepped from bank to bank; And the tall rushes near, Yet to the ocean joyously it went, The stately maize, a fair and goodly sight, With serried spear-points bristling sharp and bright, Shook out his yellow tresses, for delight, Like Samson, glorying in his lusty strength. And every little bird upon the tree, And seemed, in the same lays, The golden grasshopper did chirp and sing; Life's countless blessings was to live at all ! So with a book of sermons, plain and true, Hid in my heart, where I might turn them through, I went home softly, through the falling dew, Still listening, rapt and calm, To Nature giving out her evening psalm. |