Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
As if, like God, it all things saw,

It calmly repeats those words of awe :

Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,

That warning time-piece never ceased:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

There groups of merry children played;
There youths and maidens, dreaming, strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime
And affluence of love and time!

Even as a miser counts his gold

Those hours the ancient time-piece told :

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,

The bride came forth on her wedding-night!
There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow!
And in the hush that followed the prayer,

Was heard the old clock on the stair:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
Ah! when shall they all meet again
As in the days long since gone by?
The ancient time-piece makes reply:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

Never here, forever there,

Where all parting, pain and care,
And death and time shall disappear!
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly:

"Forever-never!

Never-forever!"

TWILIGHT.

The twilight is sad and cloudy,
The wind blows wild and free,
And, like the wings of sea-birds,
Flash the wild caps of the sea.

But in the fisherman's cottage
There shines a ruddier light,
And a little face at the window
Peers out into the night.

Close, close it is pressed to the window, As if those childish eyes

Were looking into the darkness,

To see some form arise.

And a woman's waving shadow
Is passing to and fro,
Now rising to the ceiling,

Now bowing and bending low.

What tale do the roaring ocean,
And the night-wind bleak and wild,
As they beat at the crazy casement,
Tell to that little child?

And why do the roaring ocean

And the night-wind wild and bleak,
As they beat at the heart of the mother,
Drive the colour from her cheek?

RESIGNATION.

There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying

And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,

Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapours

Amid these earthly damps,

What seem to us but sad funereal tapers,

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life Elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead, the child of our affection,

But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day, we think what she is doing

In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken

The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,

May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her,

For when, with raptures wild,

In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden in her Father's mansion
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion

And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,-

We will be patient and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

simile from the "Address to a Child:"

By what astrology of fear or hope
Dare I to cast thy horoscope!
Like the new moon thy life appears
A little strip of silver-light,
And, widening outward into night,
The shadowy disk of future years!
And yet, upon its outer rim,
A luminous circle faint and dim,

And scarcely visible to us here,

Rounds and completes the perfect sphere
A prophecy and intimation,

A pale and feeble adumbration,

Of the great world of light that lies

Beyond all human destinies!

The concluding extract has a stronger recommen