LOVE AND DEATH

ALAS! that men must see
Love, before Death!
Else they content might be
With their short breath;
Aye, glad, when the pale sun
Showed restless day was done,
And endless Rest begun.

Glad, when with strong, cool hand
Death clasped their own,
And with a strange command
Hushed every moan;

Glad to have finished pain,

And labor wrought in vain,
Blurred by Sin's deepening stain.

But Love's insistent voice

Bids self to flee

"Live that I may rejoice,

Live on, for me!"

So, for Love's cruel mind,

Men fear this Rest to find,

Nor know great Death is kind!

Margaret Deland [1857

VAN ELSEN

GOD spake three times and saved Van Elsen's soul; He spake by sickness first and made him whole; Van Elsen heard him not,

Or soon forgot.

God spake to him by wealth, the world outpoured
Its treasures at his feet, and called him Lord;

Van Elsen's heart grew fat

And proud thereat.

God spake the third time when the great World smiled,

And in the sunshine slew his little child;

Van Elsen like a tree

Fell hopelessly.

long the stars we stood:

his hand, and looked, and said,
f all yon starry myriad
ing to?" The still solitude

hereon his voice and mood

Isic round his haloed head.
1 I had not long been dead-
ind upon the vasts, and brood
ese orbs ere I decide. . . .
er star that beauteous shines
lendor now incarnadines

re would I go and there abide."
who some child's thought divines:
ld where yesternight you died."
Lloyd Mifflin [1846-

IPE GRAIN

face of perfect peace,

›y passion, freed from pain,

ed that work should cease

self the ripened grain.

your beauty bears

at is wrung from pain,—

stial beauty wears vork, of ripened grain.

Of human care you left no trace,
No lightest trace of grief or pain,-
On earth an empty form and face-
In Heaven stands the ripened grain.
Dora Reed Goodale [1866-

"THE LAND WHICH NO ONE KNOWS"

DARK, deep, and cold the current flows
Unto the sea where no wind blows,
Seeking the land which no one knows.

O'er its sad gloom still comes and goes
The mingled wail of friends and foes,
Borne to the land which no one knows.

Why shrieks for help yon wretch, who goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Unto the land which no one knows?

Though myriads go with him who goes,
Alone he goes where no wind blows,
Unto the land which no one knows.

For all must go where no wind blows,
And none can go for him who goes;
None, none return whence no one knows.

Yet why should he who shrieking goes
With millions, from a world of woes,
Reunion seek with it or those?

Alone with God, where no wind blows,
And Death, his shadow-doomed, he goes:
That God is there the shadow shows.

O shoreless Deep, where no wind blows!
And thou, O Land, which no one knows!
That God is all, His shadow shows.

Ebenezer Elliott [1781-1849]

Amid long, sunlit fields; around them sprang
A tender breeze, and birds and rivers sang.

"My Lord," she said, "the land is very fair!" Smiling, he answered: "Was it not so there?"

"There?" In her voice a wondering question lay: "Was I not always here, then, as to-day?"

He turned to her with strange, deep eyes aflame: "Knowest thou not this kingdom, nor my name?"

"Nay," she replied: "but this I understandThat thou art Lord of Life in this dear land!"

"Yea, child," he murmured, scarce above his breath: "Lord of the Land! but men have named me Death." Charles Buxton Going [1863

SHEMUEL

SHEMUEL, the Bethlehemite,
Watched a fevered guest at night;
All his fellows fared afield
Saw the angel host revealed;

He nor caught the mystic story,
Heard the song, nor saw the glory.

Through the night they gazing stood,
Heard the holy multitude;

Back they came in wonder home,
Knew the Christmas kingdom come,

Eyes aflame and hearts elated;
Shemuel sat alone, and waited.

Works of mercy now, as then,
Hide the angel host from men;
Hearts attuned to earthly love
Miss the angel notes above;
Deeds at which the world rejoices,
Quench the sound of angel voices.