They are idols of hearts and of households, They are angels of God in disguise; His sunlight still sleeps in their tres ses, His glory still gleams in their eyes; My heart is the dungeon of darkness, Where I shut them for breaking a rule: My frown is sufficient correction; Those truants from home and from I shall leave the old house in the au That meet me each morn at the door! I shall miss the "good-nights" and kisses, [glee, And the gush of their innocent The group on the green, and the flowers That are brought every morning for me. I shall miss them at morn and at even, Their song in the school and the street; I shall miss the low hum of their voices, And the tread of their delicate feet When the lessons of life are all ended, And death says "The school is dis missed!" May the little ones gather around me To bid me 66 good-night" and be kissed! MARY LOWE DICKINSON. IF WE HAD BUT A DAY. WE should fill the hours with the | We should guide our wayward o sweetest things, If we had but a day; wearied wills By the clearest light; We should drink alone at the purest We should keep our eyes on the springs In our upward way; heavenly hills, If they lay in sight; We should love with a lifetime's love We should trample the pride and the in an hour, If the hours were few; discontent Beneath our feet; We should rest, not for dreams, but We should take whatever a good for fresher power To be and to do. God sent, With a trust complete. We should waste no moments in We should be from our clamorous weak regret, If the day were but one; selves set free, To work or to pray, If what we remember and what we And to be what the Father would For God. O ye, who in eternal Speak with a living and creative flood Of the great mother-tongue, and ye shall be Wheel, wheel through the sunshine, Must I choose? Then anchor me Somewhere down in the meadow. there Beyond the beckoning poplars, where With wreaths of morning shadow. brake shake Perchance some nightingale doth Beside the nursery. Lords of an empire wide as Shakes-Along my life my length I lay, peare's soul, Sublime as Milton's theme, immemorial I fill to-morrow and yesterday, I am warm with the suns that have long since set, And rich as Chaucer's speech, and I am warm with the summers that are fair as Spenser's dream. HOME, WOunded. STAY wherever you will, By the mount or under the hill, not yet. And like one who dreams and dozes Two worlds are whispering over me, From the backward shore to the shore before, From the shore before to the back ward shore, And like two clouds that meet and pour The nevermore with the evermore Careless he greets her day by day, HEART-ORACLES. "Is this the cruel sea?" I thought, "The merciless, the awful sea ?". Now hear the answer soft and true, That rippled over the beach to me: "Shall not the sea, in the sun, be glad When a child doth come to play? By the motes do we know where the Had it been in the storm-time, what sunbeam is slanting; Through the hindering stones, speaks the soul of the brook; Past the rustle of leaves we press into the stillness; Through darkness and void to the One bird-note at dawn with the nightsilence o'er us, Begins all the morning's munificent chorus. Through sorrow come glimpses of infinite gladness; Through grand discontent mounts the spirit of youth; Loneliness foldeth a wonderful loving; The breakers of Doubt lead the great tide of Truth: And dread and grief-haunted the shadowy portal That shuts from our vision the splendor immortal. THE CHILD AND THE SEA. ONE summer day, when birds flew high, I saw a child step into the sea; It glowed and sparkled at her touch And softly plashed about her knee. It held her lightly with its strength, It kissed and kissed her silken hair; It swayed with tenderness to know A little child was in its care. She, gleeful, dipped her pretty arms, And caught the sparkles in her hands; I heard her laughter, as she soon Came skipping up the sunny sands. could I, The sea, but bear her away Bear her away on my foaming crest, Toss her and hurry her to her rest? "Be it life or death, God ruleth me; And he loveth every soul; I've an earthly shore and a heavenly shore, And toward them both I roll; Shining and beautiful, both are they, And a little child will go God's way." - THE STARS. THEY wait all day unseen by us, unfelt; Patient they bide behind the day's full glare; And we who watched the dawn when they were there, Thought we had seen them in the daylight melt, While the slow sun upon the earthline knelt. Because the teeming sky seemed void and bare, When we explored it through the dazzled air, We had no thought that there all day they dwelt. Yet were they over us, alive and true. In the vast shades far up above the blue, The brooding shades beyond our daylight ken Serene and patient in their conscious light Ready to sparkle for our joy again,— The eternal jewels of the shortlived night. |