And though we turn us from Thy face, The saddened heart, the restless soul, But not alone Thy care we claim And filled and quickened by Thy breath, Unknown. BETWEEN THE LIGHTS. A little pause in life—while daylight lingers Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover, Draw near as if they lived among us yet. Old voices call me-through the dusk returning I hear the echo of departed feet; And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning: What is the charm which makes old things so sweet?" Must the old joys be evermore withholden? Even their memory keeps me pure and true; And yet from our Jerusalem the golden God speaketh, saying: "I make all things new." 'Father," I cry, "the old must still be nearer ; Stifle my love or give me back the past; Give me the fair old fields, whose paths are dearer Than all Thy shining streets and mansions vast." Peace! peace! the Lord of earth and heaven knoweth The human soul in all its heat and strife; Out of His throne no stream of Lethe floweth, But the pure river of eternal life. He giveth life, ay, life in all its sweetness; Old loves, old sunny scenes will He restore ; Only the curse of sin and incompleteness Shall vex thy soul and taint thine earth no more. Serve Him in daily toil and holy living, And Faith shall lift thee to His sunlit heights; Then shall a psalm of gladness and thanksgiving Fill the calm hour that comes between the lights. Maria White Lowell. 1821-1853. THE ALPINE SHEEP. When on my ear your loss was knelled, And I was fain to bear to you A portion of its mild relief, That it might be as healing dew, To steal some fever from your grief. After our child's untroubled breath Like a long twilight haunting lay, And friends came round, with us to weep The story of the Alpine sheep Was told to us by one we love. They, in the valley's sheltering care, To airy shelves of pasture green, That hang along the mountain's side, Where grass and flowers together lean, And down through mist the sunbeams slide. But naught can tempt the timid things Till in his arms their lambs he takes, Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks, And in those pastures, lifted fair, More dewy-soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender care, And sheep and lambs together feed. This parable, by Nature breathed, A blissful vision, through the night, Holding our little lamb asleep,— While, like the murmur of the sea, Sounded that voice along the deep, Saying: Arise and follow me!" Alice Cary. FROM "GOD IS LOVE." Ah, there are mighty things under the sun, Great deeds have been acted, great words have been said, Not just uplifting some fortunate one, But lifting up all men the more by a head. Aye, the more by the head, and the shoulders too! Ten thousand may sin, and a thousand may fall, And it may have been me, and it yet may be you, But the angel in one proves the angel in all. And whatever is mighty, whatever is high, Lifting men, lifting women their natures above, And close to the kinship they hold to the sky, Why, this I affirm, that its essence is love. NOBILITY. True worth is in being, not seeming,- |