Serene will be our days and bright,
And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold,
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,

Live in the spirit of this creed ;

Yet seek thy firm support, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried;

No sport of every random gust, Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust; And oft, when in my heart was heard Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,

Or strong compunction in me wrought, I supplicate for thy control;

But in the quietness of thought: Me this unchartered freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance-desires :

My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace ;

Nor know we any thing so fair

As is the smile upon thy face :

Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give ;

And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!

WORDSWORTH.

THE RIGHT MUST WIN.

OH it is hard to work for God,

To rise and take his part

Upon this battle-field of earth,
And not sometimes lose heart!

He hides himself so wondrously,
As though there were no God;
He is least seen when all the powers
Of ill are most abroad.

Or He deserts us at the hour

The fight is all but lost;

And seems to leave us to ourselves
Just when we need Him most.

It is not so, but so it looks;

And we lose courage then ;

And doubts will come if God hath kept
His promises to men.

Ah! God is other than we think ;
His ways are far above,

Far beyond reason's height, and reached
Only by child-like love.

The look, the fashion of God's ways,
Love's lifelong study are ;

She can be bold, and guess, and act,
When reason would not dare.

Thrice blest is he to whom is given
The instinct that can tell

That God is on the field when He
Is most invisible.

Blest, too, is he who can divine

Where real right doth lie,

And dares to take the side that seems
Wrong to man's blindfold eye.

Then learn to scorn the praise of men,
And learn to lose with God;

For Jesus won the world through shame,
And beckons thee his road.

For right is right, since God is God;
And right the day must win;
To doubt would be disloyalty,

To falter would be sin.

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER.

THE MANLY LIFE.

THRICE happy he whose name is writ above, And doeth good though gaining infamy;

Requiteth evil turns with hearty love,

And recks not what befalls him outwardly :
Whose worth is in himself, and only bliss
In his pure conscience that doth nought amiss.

Who placeth pleasure in his purged soul,

And virtuous life his treasure doth esteem; Who can his passions master and control,

And that true lordly manliness doth deem; Who from this world himself hath clearly quit, Counts nought his own but what lives in his sprite.

So, when his sprite from this vain world shall flit, It bears all with it whatsoe'er was dear

Unto itself, passing in easy fit,

As kindly ripened corn comes out of th' ear.
Thus, mindless of what idle men will say,
He takes his own and stilly goes his way.

HENRY MORE.

ON HIS BEING ARRIVED TO THE AGE OF

How

TWENTY-THREE.

OW soon hath Time, the subtle thief of youth, Stol'n on his wing my three-and-twentieth year! My hasting days fly on with full career, But my late spring no bud or blossom show'th. Perhaps my semblance might deceive the truth That I to manhood am arrived so near, And inward ripeness doth much less appear, That some more timely-happy spirits indu'th. Yet, be it less or more, or soon or slow, It shall be still in strictest measure even To that same lot, however mean or high,

Toward which Time leads me, and the will of Heaven;

All is, if I have grace to use it so,

As ever in my great task-master's eye.

MILTON.

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent

WE

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest He returning chide;