Then, weary, go thou back with failing breath, Thou shalt lie still, embraced in holy death. III. And weep not, though the Beautiful decay IV. And should the twilight darken into night, There lie no cause for beauty's slow decay; And not for very love, thou seek'st the truth; For love's own self, not for thyself, I say: V. And do not fear to hope. Can poet's brain Is confidence unto the Father lent: Thy need is sown and rooted for his rain. His thoughts are as thine own; nor are his ways Other than thine, but by their loftier sense Of beauty infinite and love intense. Work on. One day, beyond all thoughts of praise, GEORGE MACDONALD. A DAY'S RELEASE. DAY after day, until to-day, Imaged its fellows gone before, The same dull task, the weary way, The weakness pardoned o'er and o'er; The thwarted thirst, too faintly felt, For joy's well-nigh forgotten life, Ah, whence to-day's so sweet release ; This calm and more than conquering love, For faith too sure, too sweet for hope? O, happy time, too happy change, It will not live, though fondly nursed! Full soon this day will seem as strange As now the Dark which seems dispersed. COVENTRY PATMORE. AGAINST TEARS. HIS world is all too sad for tears, THIS I would not weep, not I, But smile along my life's short road, The little flowers breathe sweetness out Not so, not so, no load of woe SARAH WILLIAMS. WEARINESS. ART thou already weary of the way? Thou who hast yet but half the way gone o'er: Get up, and lift thy burden; lo! before Thy feet the road goes stretching far away. If thou already faint who hast but come Through half thy pilgrimage, with fellows gay, Love, youth, and hope, under the rosy bloom And temperate airs of early breaking day; Look yonder, how the heavens stoop and gloom. There cease the trees to shade, the flowers to spring, And the angels leave thee. What wilt thou become Through yon drear stretch of dismal wandering, Lonely and dark ?—I shall take courage, friend, For comes not every step more near the end? FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE. SONNET. OURNER, that dost deserve thy mournfulness, Say 'God is angry, and I earned it well; I would not have Him smile and not redress.' And proves it in this prison.' Straight thy cell -'A prison-and yet, from door and window-bar, He does not kill the hope that reaches there.' ANONYMOUS. WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED. A VOICE upon the midnight air, Where Kedron's moonlit waters stray, Weeps forth, in agony of prayer, 'O Father! take this cup away!' Ah! Thou who sorrowest unto death, 'O God! take not this cup away!' H |