MY PSALM. Much have we seen since then, and much outgrown ; But while the world's great possible grows more, And suns set earlier now, and twilights have And we, apostles of the new time's youth, EVANGELINE M. JOHNSON. My Psalm. I MOURN no more my vanished years; Beneath a tender rain, An April rain of smiles and tears, My heart is young again, The west winds blow, and singing low, The windows of my soul I throw Wide open to the sun. No longer forward nor behind The best of now and here. 315 I plow no more a desert land, To harvest weed and tare; The manna dropping from God's hand I break my pilgrim-staff, I lay The angel sought so far away The airs of spring may never play Yet shall the blue-eyed gentian look The woods shall wear their robes of praise, The south-wind softly sigh, And sweet calm days in golden haze Melt down the amber sky. Not less shall manly deed and word The graven flowers that wreathe the sword But smiting hands shall learn to heal, To build as to destroy; Nor less my heart for others feel, That I the more enjoy. All as God wills, who wisely heeds And knoweth more of all my needs Than all my prayers have told ! THE THREE VOICES. Enough that blessings undeserved That more and more a Providence Making the springs of time and sense, That death seems but a covered way That care and trial seem at last, That all the jarring notes of life And so the shadows fall apart, And all the windows of my heart JOHN G. WHITTIER. WHA The Three Voices. HAT saith the Past to thee? Weep! Beauty hath died like the dream of a sleep, Love is faint-hearted: 317 Trifles of sense, the profoundly unreal, So, as a funeral-bell, slowly and deep, How speaks the Present hour? Act! So shall thy footsteps in glory be tracked, Scorn not the smallness of daily endeavor, Droop not o'er efforts expended in vain; What doth the Future say? Hope! Look where light fringes the far-rising slope- Watch! Though so long be the twilight delaying- Fear not, for greater is God by thy side ANONYMOUS. SEE, The Cloud on the Way. EE, before us in our journey broods a mist upon the ground; Thither leads the path we walk in, blending with that gloomy bound. Never eye hath pierced its shadows to the mystery they screen, Those who once have passed within it nevermore on earth are seen. THE CLOUD ON THE WAY. 319 Now it seems to stop beside us, now at seeming distance lowers, Leaving banks that tempt us onward bright with summer green and flowers. Yet it blots the way forever; there our journey ends at last; With that dark cloud we enter and are gathered to the past. Thou who in this flinty pathway, leading through a stranger land, Passest down the rocky valley, walking with me hand in hand, Which of us shall be the soonest folded to that dim Unknown, Which shall leave the other walking in this flinty path alone? Even now I see thee shudder, and thy cheek is white with fear, And thou clingest to my side as that dark mist comes sweeping near. "Here," thou say'st, "the path is rugged, sown with thorns that wound the feet; But the sheltered glens are lovely, and the rivulet's song is sweet: Roses breathe from tangled thickets; lilies bend from ledges brown ; Pleasantly between the pelting showers the sunshine gushes down. Far be yet the hour that takes me where that chilly shadow lies, From the things I know and love, and from the sight of lov ing eyes." So thou murmurest, fearful one, but see, we tread a rougher way; Fainter grow the gleams of sunshine that upon the dark rocks play; Rude winds strew the faded flowers upon the crags o'er which we pass; Banks of verdure, when we reach them, hiss with tufts of withered grass. Yet upon the mist before us fix thine eyes with closer view, See, beneath its sullen skirts the rosy morning glimmers through. |