VESPERS.

WHEN I have said my quiet say,
When I have sung my little song,
How sweetly, sweetly dies the day
The valley and the hill along;
How sweet the summons, "Come away,"
That calls me from the busy throng!

I thought beside the water's flow
Awhile to lie beneath the leaves,
I thought in Autumn's harvest glow
To rest my head upon the sheaves;
But, lo! methinks the day was brief
And cloudy; flower, nor fruit, nor leaf
I bring, and yet accepted, free,
And blest, my Lord, I come to thee.

What matter now for promise lost,
Through blast of spring or summer rains!
What matter now for purpose crost,
For broken hopes and wasted pains;
What if the olive little yields,
What if the grape be blighted? Thine
The corn upon a thousand fields,
Upon a thousand hills the vine.

Thou lovest still the poor; O, blest
In poverty beloved to be!
Less lowly is my choice confessed,
I love the rich in loving Thee!
My spirit bare before thee stands,
I bring no gift, I ask no sign,

I come to thee with empty hands,
The surer to be filled from thine!

273

ELIZABETH H. WHITTIER.

[U. s. A., 1816-1848.]

CHARITY.

You will find in blade and blossom, Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders of my cause, That shall speak me as I was, When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved in my sorrow, Very patient can I wait; Knowing that or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan, "Alas, Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was,' When the grass grows over me.

UNKNOWN.

AGAIN.

O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago.

The autumn sunshine everywhere,

The heather all aglow,

The ferns were clad in cloth of gold,

The waves sang on the shore.

Such suns will shine, such waves will sing
Forever evermore.

O, fit and few! O, tried and true!
The friends who met that day.
Each one the other's spirit knew,

And so in earnest play

The hours flew past, until at last

The twilight kissed the shore.

We said, "Such days shall come again Forever evermore.

One day again, no cloud of pain

A shadow o'er us cast;

And yet we strove in vain, in vain,
To conjure up the past;

Like, but unlike, -the sun that shone,
The waves that beat the shore,
The words we said, the songs we sung,
Like, unlike, -evermore.

For ghosts unseen crept in between,

And, when our songs flowed free, Sang discords in an undertone,

And marred our harmony. "The past is ours, not yours," they said: "The waves that beat the shore, Though like the same, are not the same, O, never, never more!"

NANCY A. W. PRIEST. 277

"I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE."
AMONG SO many, can He care?
Can special love be everywhere?
A myriad homes, a myriad ways, -
And God's eye over every place.

Over; but in? The world is full;
A grand omnipotence must rule;
But is there life that doth abide
With mine own living, side by side?

So many, and so wide abroad:
Can any heart have all of God?
From the great spaces, vague and dim,
May one small household gather Him?

I asked: my soul bethought of this:-
In just that very place of his
Where He hath put and keepeth you,
God hath no other thing to do!