BEYOND THE SMILING AND THE WEEPING BEYOND the smiling and the weeping Beyond the waking and the sleeping, Love, rest, and home! Lord, tarry not, but come. Beyond the blooming and the fading Beyond the shining and the shading, Love, rest, and home! Beyond the rising and the setting Beyond the calming and the fretting, Beyond the gathering and the strowing Beyond the ebbing and the flowing, Love, rest, and home! Beyond the parting and the meeting Beyond the farewell and the greeting, Love, rest, and home! Beyond the frost chain and the fever Beyond the rock waste and the river, Beyond the ever and the never, I shall be soon. Love, rest, and home! Sweet hope! Lord, tarry not, but come. HORATIUS BONAR. THE SILENT LAND CLOUDY argosies are drifting down into the purple dark And the long low amber reaches lying on the horizon's mark Pale sea-buds that weep forever, water-lilies damp and cool And the mystic lotus shining thro' the white waves beautiful, Far a peace-emitting fragrance shed through all that tranquil bourne ; Light the valleys undisquieted with step of mortal tread Bind the white brows of the Living whom all comfortless we mourn, Whom we blindly call the Dead. O ye lost ones! ye departed! do ye heed the tears we shed? O beloved! O Immortals! O ye dead who are not dead! Speak to us across the darkness KATE SEYMOUR MCLEAN. HEAVEN BEYOND these chilling winds and gloomy skies, Beyond death's cloudy portal, There is a land where beauty never dies Where love becomes immortal. A land whose life is never dimmed by shade, Where nothing beautiful can ever fade, We may not know how sweet its balmy air, We may not hear the songs that echo there The city's shining towers we may not see For Death, the silent warder, keeps the key But sometimes, when adown the western sky Its golden gates swing inward noiselessly, And while they stand a moment half ajar, Stream brightly through the azure vault afar, O land unknown! O land of love divine ! Oh, guide these wandering, wayworn feet of mine NANCY PRIEST WAKEFIELD. THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL VITAL spark of heavenly flame, Hark! they whisper; angels say, The world recedes; it disappears; Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly! Ŏ death! where is thy sting? ALEXANDER POPE. DYING HYMN EARTH, with its dark and dreadful ills, Lift up your heads, ye heavenly hills; My soul is full of whispered song, The shadows that I feared so long The while my pulses fainter beat, That faith to me a courage gives The palace walls I almost see ALICE CARY HEREAFTER LOVE, when all the years are silent, vanished quite and laid to rest, When you and I are sleeping, folded breathless breast to breast, When no morrow is before us, and the long grass tosses o'er us, And our grave remains forgotten, or by alien footsteps pressed Still that love of ours will linger, that great love enrich the earth, Sunshine in the heavenly azure, breezes blowing joyous mirth; Fragrance fanning off from flowers, melody of summer showers, Sparkle of the spicy wood-fires round the happy autumn hearth. That's our love. But you and I, dear—shall we linger with it yet, Mingled in one dew-drop, tangled in one sunbeam's golden net On the violet's purple bosom, I the sheen, but you the blossom, Stream on sunset winds, and be the haze with which some hill is wet? Or, beloved if ascending when we have endowed the world With the best bloom of our being, whither will our way be whirled, Through what vast and starry spaces, toward what awful, holy places, With a white light on our faces, spirit over spirit furled ? Only this our yearning answers: wheresoe'er that way defile, Not a film shall part us through the æons of that mighty while, In the fair eternal weather, even as phantoms still together, Floating, floating, one forever, in the light of God's great smile. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD. AT FIRST IF I should fall asleep one day, And should my spirit from the clay I pray you, angels, do not first Assail mine ear With that blest anthem oft rehearsed, But let some happy bird at hand So shall I dimly understand That dawn has touched a blossoming land, From that deep rest emerging so And see the bath-flower's bell of snow, Spring-beauty streaked with red, Impelled to roam, Till some blithe wanderer, passing fair, And murmur, Welcome home!" So, sweetly greeted, I shall rise Then lightly soar in lovely guise, AMANDA T. JONES. IMMORTALITY OH! listen, man! A voice within us speaks that startling word: Thick clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, |