The Land beyond the Sea!

How dark our present home!

By the dull beach and sullen foam

How wearily, how drearily we roam, With arms outstretched to thee,

Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!

When will our toil be done?
Slow-footed years! more swiftly run

Into the gold of that unsetting sun!
Homesick we are for thee,

Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!

Why fadest thou in light?

Why art thou better seen toward night?

Dear Land, look always plain, look always bright,

That we may gaze on thee,

Calm Land beyond the Sea!

The Land beyond the Sea!

Sweet is thine endless rest,

But sweeter far that Father's breast

Upon thy shores eternally possest;

For Jesus reigns o'er thee,

Calm Land beyond the Sea!

FREDERICK WILLIAM FABER.

IF

A Rhyme of Life.

F life be as a flame that death doth kill,
Burn, little candle lit for me,

With a pure flame, that I may rightly see
To word my song, and utterly

God's plan fulfill.

ENDURANCE.

If life be as a flower that blooms and dies,
Forbid the cunning frost that slays

With Judas kiss, and trusting love betrays;
Forever may my song of praise
Untainted rise.

If life be as a voyage, foul or fair,
Oh, bid me not my banners furl

For adverse gale, or wave in angry whirl,
Till I have found the gates of pearl,

And anchored there.

383

CHARLES WARREN STODDARD.

Endurance.

OW much the heart may bear, and yet not break!

How much the flesh may suffer, and not die!

I question much if any pain or ache

Of soul or body brings our end more nigh:

Death chooses his own time; till that is sworn,
All evils may be borne.

We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knife,
Each nerve recoiling from the cruel steel
Whose edge seems searching for the quivering life;
Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal,
That still, although the trembling flesh be torn,
This also can be borne.

We see a sorrow rising in our way,

And try to flee from the approaching ill;

We seek some small escape; we weep and pray;
But when the blow falls, then our hearts are still;
Not that the pain is of its sharpness shorn,

But that it can be borne.

We wind our life about another life;

We hold it closer, dearer than our own:
Anon it faints and fails in deathly strife,

Leaving us stunned and stricken and alone;
But ah! we do not die with those we mourn, -
This also can be borne.

Behold, we live through all things, — famine, thirst,

Bereavement, pain; all grief and misery,

All woe and sorrow; life inflicts its worst
On soul and body, — but we cannot die.

Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and worn, -
Lo, all things can be borne!

ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.

D

The Soul's Measure.

OST thou of all attainments value those

Most that enlarge thy soul? and wouldst be shown

A sign, whereby it clearly may be known

How much, from year to year, thy spirit grows?
By as much more as others' joys and woes,

Through wider sympathy, are made thine own,
By so much in soul-stature hast thou grown.
The bounds of personality that close
Around uncultured spirits narrowly

Have been so far extended, and contain
So much the more of conscious life's domain;
And so much has thy knowledge grown to be
Like that of clearest souls, whose bounding walls
Will cast no shadow where the soul-light falls.

GEORGE MCKNIGHT.

SQUANDERED LIVES.

385

ΤΗ

Those Evening Bells.

HOSE evening bells! those evening bells!
How many a tale their music tells,

Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!

Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay,
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.

And so 't will be when I am gone
That tuneful peal will still ring on;

While other bards shall walk these dells,

And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.

THOMAS MOORE.

TH

Squandered Lives.

HE fisherman wades in the surges,
The sailor sails over the sea,

The soldier steps bravely to battle;
The woodman lays axe to the tree.

They are each of the breed of the heroes,
The manhood attempered in strife,
Strong hands that go lightly to labor,
True hearts that take comfort in life.

In each is the seed to replenish

The world with the vigor it needs, —
The centre of honest affections,
The impulse to generous deeds.

But the shark drinks the blood of the fisher,
The sailor is dropped in the sea;
The soldier lies cold by his cannon,
The woodman is crushed by his tree,

But lengthens the day of the coward,
And strengthens the crafty and mean.

The blood of the noblest is lavished
That the selfish a profit may find;
But God sees the lives that are squandered,
And we to his wisdom are blind.

BAYARD TAYLOR.

I

The Oubit.

T was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang;
A feckless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang,

"My Minnie bade me bide at hame until I won my wings, I'll shew her soon my soul's aboon the warks o' creeping things."

This feckless hairy oubit cam' hirpling by the linn,

A swirl o' wind cam' down the glen, and blew that oubit in.
Oh, when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose,
And tigg'd him a' to pieces sma', by head and tail and toes.

Tak' warning then, young poets a', by this poor oubit's shame ;
Though Pegasus may nicker loud, keep Pegasus at hame.
Oh, haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a' the Muses woo ;
For critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak' their meals o' you.
CHARLES KINGSLEY.