OUR SAINTS.

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Our Saints.

FROM the eternal shadow rounding

All unsure and starlight here,

Voices of our lost ones sounding,

Bid us be of heart and cheer,

Through the silence, down the spaces, falling on the inward

ear.

Know we not our dead are looking
Downward, as in sad surprise,

All our strife of words rebuking

With their mild and earnest eyes?

Shall we grieve the holy angels, shall we cloud their blessed skies?

Let us draw their mantles o'er us,

Which have fallen in our way:

Let us do the work before us

Calmly, bravely, while we may,

Ere the long night-silence cometh, and with us it is not day!

JOHN G. WHITTIER.

"Dum vivimus, vivamus."

"LIVE while you live!" the epicure would say,

"And seize the pleasures of the present day!" "Live while you live!" the sacred Preacher cries, "And give to God each moment as it flies !" Lord, in my view let both united be,

I live in pleasure while I live to thee.

PHILIP DODdridge.

Sonnet.

MARTHA, THY MAIDEN FOOT.

MARTHA, thy maiden foot is still so light

It leaves no legible trace on virgin snows:
And yet I ween that busily it goes
In duty's path, from happy morn to night,
Thy dimpled cheek is gay and softly bright
As the fixed beauty of the mossy rose;
Yet will it change its hue for others' woes,
And native red exchange for virgin white.
Thou bear'st a name by Jesus known and loved,
And Jesus gently did the maid reprove
For too much haste to show her eager love:
But blessed is she that may be so reproved :
Be Martha still in deed, and good endeavor,
In faith like Mary-at his feet forever.

HARTLEY COLERIDGE.

The Chambered Nautilus.

THIS is the ship of pearl which, poets feign,

Sails the unshadowed main

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purple wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the syren sings,
And coral reefs 'ie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl:
Wrecked is the ship of pearl !

And every chambered cell

Where its dim-dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed.

Year after year beheld the silent toil
That spread his lustrous coil:

Still as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,

Stole with soft step its shining archway through,

Built up its idle door,

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Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more.

Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee,

Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born

Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul,

As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,

Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

OLIVER W. HOLMES.

Haste Not! Rest Not.

WITHOUT haste! without rest!

Bind the motto to thy breast;

Bear it with thee as a spell;

Storm or sunshine, guard it well!

Heed not flowers that round thee bloom,

Bear it onward to the tomb!

Haste not! Let no thoughtless deed

Mar for aye the spirit's speed!

Ponder well, and know the right,
Onward then, with all thy might!
Haste not! years can ne'er atone
For one reckless action done.

Rest not! Life is sweeping by,
Go and dare, before you die;
Something mighty and sublime
Leave behind to conquer time!
Glorious 'tis to live for aye,

When these forms have passed away.

Haste not! rest not! calmly wait;

Meekly bear the storms of fate!
Duty be thy polar guide ;-

Do the right, whate'er betide!

Haste not! rest not! conflicts past,
God shall crown thy work at last.

Anonymous Translation.

JOHANN W. VON GOETHE

BRINGING OUR SHEAVES WITH US.

407

Bringing our Sheaves with us.

THE

HE time for toil has passed, and night has come,-
The last and saddest of the harvest eves;
Worn out with labor long and wearisome,
Drooping and faint, the reapers hasten home,
Each laden with his sheaves.

Last of the laborers, thy feet I gain,

Lord of the harvest! and my spirit grieves
That I am burdened, not so much with grain,
As with a heaviness of heart and brain ;—
Master, behold my sheaves!

Few, light, and worthless,-yet their trifling weight
Through all my frame a weary aching leaves;

For long I struggled with my hopeless fate,
And stayed and toiled till it was dark and late—
Yet these are all my sheaves.

Full well I know I have more tares than wheat

Brambles and flowers, dry stalks and withered leaves: Wherefore I blush and weep, as at thy feet

I kneel down reverently and repeat,
"Master, behold my sheaves !"

I know these blossoms, clustering heavily,
With evening dew upon their folded leaves,
Can claim no value or utility,-
Therefore shall fragrancy and beauty be
The glory of my sheaves.

So do I gather strength and hope anew;
For well I know thy patient love perceives
Not what I did, but what I strove to do,-
And though the full ripe ears be sadly few,
Thou wilt accept my sheaves.

ELIZABETH AKERS.