Rise, said the Master, come unto the feast:-
She heard the call and rose with willing feet:
But, thinking it not otherwise than meet

For such a bidding to put on her best,

She is gone from us for a few short hours
Into her bridal closet, there to wait

For the unfolding of the palace gate

That gives her entrance to the blissful bowers.

We have not seen her yet; though we have been

Full often to her chamber door, and oft

Have listened underneath the postern green,

And laid fresh flowers, and whispered short and soft: But she hath made no answer, and the day

From the clear west is fading fast away.

ALFORD.

HYMN FOR ALL SAINTS' DAY.

STAND up before your God,

You army bold and bright,

Saints, martyrs, and confessors,

In your robes of white;

The church below doth challenge you

To an act of praise,

Ready with mirth in all the earth
A joyful song to raise.

Stand up before your God,

In beautiful array,

Make ready all your instruments

The while we mourn and pray,

For we must stay to mourn and pray;

Some prelude to our song,

For the fear of death has clogged our breath, And our foes are swift and strong.

But ye before your God

Are hushed from all alarm,

Out through the grave and gate of death
Ye have passed into the calm;
Your fight is done, your victory won,
With peril, and toil, and blood,
Among the slain, on the battle-plain
We buried ye where ye stood.

Stand up before your God,

Although we cannot hear

The new song he hath taught you

With our fleshly ear;

Yet still we burn that hymn to learn,

And from the church below.

Even while we sing, on heavenward wing,

Some happy souls shall go.

Ye are before your God,

But we press onward still,

The soldiers of his army,

The servants of his will;
A captive band in foreign land

For ages long we've been,

But our dearest theme, and our fondest dream,

Is the home we have never seen

We soon shall see our God,

The hour is waxing on,

The dayspring from on high has risen,
And the night is past and gone;
The light of earth has had its birth,

And it shall have its doom;

The church on earth are few in birth,
But many in the tomb.

ALFORD.

BEAUTY IN DEATH.

STILL as a moonlight ruin is thy form,

Or meekness of carved marble, that hath prayed
For ages on a tomb; serenely laid

As some fair vessel that hath braved the storm
And passed into her haven, when the noise
That cheered her home hath all to silence died,
Her crew have shoreward parted, and no voice
Troubles her sleeping image in the tide.
Sister and saint, thou art a closed book,
Whose holy printing none may yet reveal;
A few days thou art granted us to look
On thy clasped binding; till that One unseal,
The Lamb, alone found worthy, and above
Thou teach sweet lessons to the King of Love.

MEETING AGAIN.

YES, we shall meet again, my cherished friend;

Not in the beautiful autumnal bowers,

ALFORD.

Where we have seen the waving corn-fields bend,
And twined bright garlands of the harvest flowers,
And watched the gleaners with their golden store-
There we shall meet no more.

Not in the well-remembered hall of mirth,
Where at the evening hour each heart rejoices,
And friends and kindred crowd the social hearth,
And the glad breathings of young happy voices,
Strains of sweet melody in concert pour-

There we shall meet no more.

Not in the haunts of busy strife, which bind
Thy soaring spirit to base mammon's toil;
Where the revealings of thy gifted mind

Exhaust their glories on a barren soil,
With few to praise, to wonder, or deplore-
There we shall meet no more.

Yet mourn not thus: in realms of changeless gladness,
Where friendship's ties are never crushed and broken,
We still may meet: Heaven, who beholds our sadness,
Hath to the trusting heart assurance spoken
Of that blest land, where, free from care and pain,
Fond friends unite again.

STANLEY.

INVOCATION TO NIGHT.

COME, solemn Night, and spread thy pall

Wide o'er the slumbering shore and sea,

And hang along thy vaulted hall

The star-lights of eternity;

Thy beacons, beautiful and bright—

Isles in the ocean of the blest

That guide the parted spirit's flight
Unto the land of rest.

Come for the evening glories fade,

Quenched in the ocean's depths profound; Come with thy solitude and shade,

Thy silence and thy sound;

Awake the deep and lonely lay

From wood and stream, of saddening tone; The harmonies unheard by day,

The music all thine own!

And with thy starry eyes that weep
Their silent dews on flower and tree,
My heart shall solemn vigils keep—
My thoughts converse with thee;
Upon whose glowing page expand
The revelations of the sky;
Which knowledge teach to every land,
Of man's high destiny.

For while the mighty orbs of fire

(So wildly bright they seem to live)

Feel not the beauty they inspire,
Nor see the light they give;

Even I, an atom of the earth,
Itself an atom 'midst the frame
Of nature-can inquire their birth,
And ask them whence they came.

MALCOLM.