O Lord of sorrow! meekly die: Thou'lt heal or hallow all our woe; Thy name refresh the mourner's sigh ; Thy peace revive the faint and low. Great Chief of faithful souls! arise: None else can lead the martyr-band, Who teach the brave how peril flies, When faith, unarmed, uplifts the hand. O King of earth! the cross ascend: O'er climes and ages 'tis thy throne: Where'er thy fading eye may bend, The desert blooms, and is thine own. Thy parting blessing, Lord, we pray ; ANONYMOUS. A DREAM OF THE CROSS. DREAMING I slept. Three crosses stood High in the gloomy air; One bore a thief, and one the Good: The third cross waited bare. A soldier coming to the place, Mine eyes they sought the master's face, My will the master's word. He bent his head; I took the sign And gave the error way; Gesture nor look nor word of mine A moment from the cross's foot Up rose the steaming mists of doubt, 'Ah me, my hands! the hammer's blow! The nails that rend and pierce! The shock may stun, but slow and slow The torture will grow fierce. 'Alas, the awful fight with death! My soul returned, 'A faintness soon The hours will bring the fearful noon; "Twill pass--and thou art cold. "Tis his to care that thou endure, With bleeding hands hang on thy cure- But ah! the will, which thus could quail, I stood, nor moved. But inward strife GEORGE MACDONALD. ISOLATION. MAN dwells apart, though not alone, He walks among his peers unread; The best of thoughts which he hath known, Yet dreaming on earth's clustered isles, He saith, 'They dwell not lone like men,' Forgetful that their sun-flecked smiles Flash far beyond each other's ken. He looks on God's eternal suns That sprinkle the celestial blue, And saith, Ah! happy shining ones, I would that men were grouped like you!' Yet this is sure, the loveliest star That clustered with its peers we see, Only because from us so far Doth near its fellows seem to be. JEAN INGELOW. EXAGGERATION. ́E overstate the ills of life, and take WE Imagination (given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels overshone By God's clear glory) down our earth to rake The shadow of hills across a level thrown, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. FINITE AND INFINITE. HE wind sounds only in opposing straits, TH The sea, beside the shore; man's spirit rends Its quiet only up against the ends Of wants and oppositions, loves and hates, The flesh rocks round and every breath it sends ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING A THE MESSENGER. MESSENGER that stood beside my bed, 'Each gift of each must pay a toll to me; |