The past rolls forward on the sun
And makes all night. O dreams begun,
Not to be ended! Ended bliss!
And life, that will not end in this!
My days go on, my days go on.

Breath freezes on my lips to moan:
As one alone, once not alone,
I sit and knock at Nature's door,
Heart-bare, heart-hungry, very poor,
Whose desolated days go on.

I knock and cry, Undone, undone !
Is there no help, no comfort - none?
No gleaning in the wide wheat-plains
Where others drive their loaded wains?
My vacant days go on, go on.

This nature, though the snows be down,
Thinks kindly of the bird of June.
The little red hip on the tree
Is ripe for such. What is for me,
Whose days so winterly go on?

No bird am I to sing in June,
And dare not ask an equal boon.

I ask less kindness to be done -
Only to loose these pilgrim-shoon
(Too early worn and grimed) with sweet
Cool deathly touch to these tired feet,
Till days go out which now go on.

Only to lift the turf unmown
From off the earth where it has grown,
Some cubic space, and say, “Behold,
Creep in, poor Heart, beneath that fold,
Forgetting how the days go on,"

What harm would that do? Green anon
The sward would quicken, overshone
By skies as blue; and crickets might
Have leave to chirp there day and night
While my new rest went on, went on.

From gracious nature have I won
Such liberal bounty? May I run
So, lizard-like, within her side,
And there be safe who now am tried
By days that painfully go on?

A voice reproves me thereupon,
More sweet than Nature's when the drone
Of bees is sweetest, and more deep,
Than when the rivers overleap
The shuddering pines, and thunder on.

823

God sends us bitter, lest we fail
That bitterest grief aright to prize,
Which did for all the world avail
In his own eyes.

God sends us bitter, all our sins
Embittering; yet so kindly sends,
The path that bitterness begins
In sweetness ends.

He sends us bitter, that heaven's sweet,
Earth's bitter o'er, may sweeter taste, -
As Canaan's ground to Israel's feet,
For that great waste.

Our passions murmur and rebel,
But faith cries out unto the Lord,
And prayer by patience worketh well
Its own reward :

For if our heart the lesson draws
Aright, by bitter chastening taught,
And keep his statutes and his laws,
Even as we ought,

He openeth our eyes to see

(Eyes that our pride of heart had sealed) The sweetness of life's heavenly tree, And grief is healed;

And lo, before us in the way

We view the fountains and the palms, And drink, and pitch our tents, and stay Singing sweet psalms.

1865.

CHARLES LAWRENCE FORD.

IN TRIAL.

A spurious stanza is sometimes added to this hymn, beginning, Then come, Lord Jesus, come with speed."

WHEN gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,
On Him I lean, who not in vain
Experienced every human pain;
He sees my wants, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures up my tears.

If aught should tempt my soul to stray
From heavenly wisdom's narrow way,
To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the sin I would not do,
Still he who felt temptation's power
Shall guard me in that dangerous hour.

If wounded love my bosom swell,
Deceived by those I prized too well,
He shall his pitying aid bestow
Who felt on earth severer woe;
At once betrayed, denied, or fled,
By those who shared his daily bread.

If vexing thoughts within me rise,
And sore dismayed my spirit dies,
Still he who once vouchsafed to bear
The sickening anguish of despair
Shall sweetly soothe, shall gently dry,
The throbbing heart, the streaming eye.

When sorrowing o'er some stone I bend,
Which covers what was once a friend,
And from his voice, his hand, his smile,
Divides me for a little while,

Thou, Saviour, mark'st the tears I shed,
For thou didst weep o'er Lazarus dead!

And O when I have safely past
Through every conflict but the last,
Still, still unchanging, watch beside
My painful bed, for thou hast died;
Then point to realms of cloudless day,
And wipe the latest tear away!

1812.

SIR ROBERT GRANT.

UNDER THE CROSS.

"Thy will be done."

The following favorite poem has been often included by collectors, but generally with the second and third stanzas omitted It was first used in this way by Professor Child, of Harvard College, in his "Poems of Religious Sorrow. Comfort, Counsel, and Aspiration" (Boston, 1863) The author, born in London in 1818, is a clergyman of the Baptist communion, now residing in Chicago, Ill., where he is connected with the religious press. Mr Richards is a graduate of Madison University, from which he received his degree of Ph D The verses were written in view of a sudden bereavement that occurred in the author's parish.

And that it would be sweet to say,

Whatever ill

My happy state should smite upon "Thy will, my God, be done."

825

THE SOWER.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER was born at Bordentown, N. J., Feb. 8, 1844, and has been associate editor of Scribner's Monthly, since its foundation. He published a volume of poems in 1875, entitled "The New Day," and another in 1878, entitled "The Poet and his Master."

I.

A SOWER went forth to sow,
His eyes were dark with woe;

He crushed the flowers beneath his feet,
Nor smelt the perfume, warm and sweet,
That prayed for pity everywhere.
He came to a field that was harried
By iron, and to heaven laid bare:
He shook the seed that he carried
O'er that brown and bladeless place.
He shook it, as God shakes the hail
Over a doomed land,

When lightnings interlace

The sky and the earth, and his wand
Of love is a thunder-fiail.

Thus did that Sower sow:
His seed was human blood,
And tears of women and men.
And I, who near him stood,
Said: 66
When the crop comes, then
There will be sobbing and sighing,
Weeping and wailing and crying,
And a woe that is worse than woe."

And yet anon and he must start
At the light toys in which his heart
Can now already claim its part.

O hearts of ours! so weak and poor,
That nothing there can long endure;
And so their hurts find shameful cure,

While every sadder, wiser thought,
Each holier aim which sorrow brought,
Fades quite away, and comes to naught.

O Thou who dost our weakness know,
Watch for us, that the strong hours so
Not wean us from our wholesome woe.
Grant Thou that we may long retain
The wholesome memories of pain,
Nor wish to lose them soon again.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, D. D.

IN SICKNESS.

WHEN languor and disease invade
This trembling house of clay,
'Tis sweet to look beyond the cage,
And long to fly away.

Sweet to look inward and attend

The whispers of his love; Sweet to look upward to the place Where Jesus pleads above.

Sweet to look back, and see my name
In life's fair book set down;
Sweet to look forward, and behold
Eternal joys my own.

Sweet to reflect how grace divine

My sins on Jesus laid; Sweet to remember that his blood My debt of sufferings paid.

Sweet on his righteousness to stand,
Which saves from second death;
Sweet to experience, day by day,
His Spirit's quickening breath.

Sweet on his faithfulness to rest,
Whose love can never end;
Sweet on his covenant of grace
For all things to depend.

Sweet in the confidence of faith
To trust his firm decrees;
Sweet to lie passive in his hands,
And know no will but his.

Sweet to rejoice in lively hope,
That when my change shall come,
Angels will hover round my bed,
And waft my spirit home.

Then shall my dis-imprisoned soul
Behold him and adore;
Be with his likeness satisfied,
And grieve and sin no more.

Shall see him wear that very flesh
On which my guilt was lain;
His love intense, his merit fresh,
As though but newly slain.

Soon, too, my slumbering dust shall hear
The trumpet's quickening sound;
And by my Saviour's power rebuilt,
At his right hand be found.

These eyes shall see him in that day,
The God that died for me;
And all my rising bones shall say,
"Lord, who is like to thee?"

If such the views which grace unfolds,
Weak as it is below,

What raptures must the Church above
In Jesus' presence know!

If such the sweetness of the stream,
What must the fountain be,

Where saints and angels draw their bliss
Immediately from thee?

Oh, may the unction of these truths

Forever with me stay;

Till, from her sinful cage dismissed,
My spirit flies away!

1777.

AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY.

HYMN FOR A SICK GIRL.

FATHER, in the dark I lay,

Thirsting for the light; Helpless, but for hope alway

In thy Father-might.

Out of darkness came the morn,
Out of death came life;
Ay, and faith and hope, new-born,
Out of moaning, strife.

So, one morning yet more fair,
I, alive and brave,
Sudden breathing loftier air,
Triumph o'er the grave.
Though this feeble body lie
Underneath the ground,

Wide awake, not sleeping, I

Shall in him be found.

But a morn yet fairer must
Quell this inner gloom;
Resurrection from the dust
Of a deeper tomb.
Father, wake thy little child;
Give me bread and wine,

Till my spirit undefiled
Rise and live in thine!

827

GEORGE MACDONALD.

IN THE TIME OF DEARTH.

JOHN SKEFFINGTON, Lord Viscount Massereene and Ferrard; an Irish nobleman, was born Nov. 30, 1812, and died April 28, 1868. This piece is based upon the following words: "There was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year, and David enquired of the Lord."2 SAM. xxi. 1.

PART FIRST.

PRAISE the Lord, for he is gracious; praise the Lord, for he is just.

Prostrate at his feet, confessing we are weak and worthless dust.

But the tender love of Jesus, oh the wondrous ways of God!

Oh the joy that faith discloses when we kiss the chastening rod!

We have sinned against a Saviour; we have sinnéd e'en to death.

God is pleading, gently pleading with the creatures of his breath.

Lord, to thee be all the glory! Lord, to thee be all the praise!

When thy tender hand doth chasten, it to us thy love displays.

And the field around is wasted, and the land around us mourns;

Man alone the judgment slighteth, man alone the warning scorns.

Who hath done it? Are ye standing in the ways, the paths of yore? Seek ye there to walk, and humbly for divine support implore.

Who hath done it, are ye asking? Turn unto your Maker's laws,

With the word of God before you, seek not for some hidden cause.

Who hath done it? Look around you; "Meat cut off before your eyes: 'Neath their clods the seed is rotten; desolate each garner lies."