Whose twilights were more clear than our mid-day;
Who dreamed devoutlier than most use to pray:
Who, being here filled with grace, yet strove to be
Both where more grace and more capacity
At once is given. She to Heaven is gone,
Who made this world in some proportion
A Heaven, and here became unto us all
Joy (as our joys admit) essential.

JOHN DONNE.

THE

'HE good, — they drop around us, one by one,
Like stars, when morning breaks; though lost to
sight,

Around us are they still in Heaven's own light,
Building their mansions in the purer zone
Of the invisible; when round are thrown
Shadows of sorrow, still serenely bright

To faith they gleam; and blest be sorrow's night
That brings the o'erarching heavens in silence down,
A mantle set with orbs unearthly fair!

Alas! to us they are not, though they dwell,
Divinely dwell in memory; while life's sun
Declining, bids us for the night prepare ;
That we, with urns of light, and our task done,
May stand with them in lot unchangeable.

ISAAC WILLIAMS.

LIGHT IN DARKNESS.

'HE hand of Death lay heavy on her eyes,

TH

For weeks and weeks her vision had not borne

To meet the tenderest light of eve or morn,

To see the crescent moonbeam set or rise,
Or palest twilight creep across the skies:

She lay in darkness, seemingly forlorn,

With sharp and ceaseless anguish racked and torn,
Yet calm with that one peace which never dies.
Closed was for her the gate of visual sense,
This world and all its beauty lost in night;

But the pure soul was all ablaze with light,

And through that gloom she saw, with gaze intense, Celestial glories, hid from fleshly sight,

And heard angelic voices call her hence.

JOHN MOULTRIE.

FROM "WALLENSTEIN."

HE is gone - is dust.

He, the more fortunate! yea, he hath finished! For him there is no longer any future,

His life is bright, - bright without spot it was
And cannot cease to be. No ominous hour
Knocks at his door with tidings of mishap.

Far off is he, above desire and fear;
No more submitted to the change and chance
Of the unsteady planets. O 't is well

With him! but who knows what the coming hour

Veiled in thick darkness brings for us!

That anguish will be wearied down, I know;
What pang is permanent with man? from the highest
As from the vilest thing of every day

He learns to wean himself; for the strong hours
Conquer him. Yet I feel what I have lost
In him. The bloom is vanished from my life.
For O! he stood beside me, like my youth,
Transformed for me the real to a dream,
Clothing the palpable and the familiar
With golden exhalations of the dawn.
Whatever fortunes wait my future toils,

The beautiful is vanished — and returns not.
FRIEDRICH VON SCHILLer.

Translated by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

FROM "LACRYMÆ PATERNÆ”

WHY,

7HY, day by day, this painful questioning? I know that it is well. I know that there (O where?) thou hast protectors, guardians, friends, If such be needed: angel companies

Move round thee: mighty spirits lead thy thoughts To founts of knowledge which we never saw. I know that thou art happy - fresh desire Springing each day, and each day satisfied: God's glorious works all open to thy view, His blessed creatures thine

Disturbs not, nor divides.

where pain nor death All this I know –

But O for one short sight of what I know!

HENRY ALFORD.

FROM "LAODAMIA."

HE spake of love, such love as spirits feel

In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away, no strife to heal,

The past unsighed for, and the future sure;
Spake of heroic arts in graver mood
Revived, with finer harmony pursued ;

Of all that is most beauteous - imaged there
In happier beauty: more pellucid streams,
An ampler ether, a diviner air,

And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.

PEACE.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

MY

Y soul, there is a country
Afar beyond the stars,
Where stands a winged sentry

All skilful in the wars.

There, above noise and danger,

Sweet Peace sits crowned with smiles,

And One born in a manger

Commands the beauteous files.

He is thy gracious Friend

And (O my soul! awake)
Did in pure love descend,
To die here for thy sake.

If thou canst but get thither,
There grows the flower of peace,
The rose that cannot wither,

Thy fortress, and thy ease.
Leave, then, thy foolish ranges;
For none can thee secure

But One, who never changes,
Thy God, thy Life, thy Cure.

HENRY VAUGHAN.

How

THE FUTURE LIFE.

OW shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps

And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again

In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given !
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
And wilt thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?