MAY RILEY SMITH.

* * * * *

FATHER, THY WILL BE DONE!

  He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower,
  Alike they’re needful for the flower;
  And joys and tears alike are sent
  To give the soul fit nourishment: 
    As comes to me or cloud or sun,
    Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

  Can loving children e’er reprove
  With murmurs whom they trust and love? 
  Creator, I would ever be
  A trusting, loving child to thee: 
    As comes to me or cloud or sun,
    Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

  Oh, ne’er will I at life repine;
  Enough that thou hast made it mine;
  When falls the shadow cold of death,
  I yet will sing with parting breath: 
    As comes to me or shade or sun,
    Father, thy will, not mine, be done!

SARAH FLOWER ADAMS.

VI.

DEATH:  IMMORTALITY:  HEAVEN.

* * * * *

THE PROSPECT.

  Methinks we do as fretful children do,
    Leaning their faces on the window-pane
    To sigh the glass dim with their own breath’s stain,
  And shut the sky and landscape from their view;
  And, thus, alas! since God the maker drew
    A mystic separation ’twixt those twain,—­
    The life beyond us and our souls in pain,—­
  We miss the prospect which we are called unto
  By grief we are fools to use.  Be still and strong,
  O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
    And keep thy soul’s large windows pure from wrong;
  That so, as life’s appointment issueth,
    Thy vision may be clear to watch along
  The sunset consummation-lights of death.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

* * * * *

THE LOST PLEIAD.

  Not in the sky,
  Where it was seen,
  Nor on the white tops of the glistening wave,
  Nor in the mansions of the hidden deep,—­
  Though green,
  And beautiful, its caves of mystery;—­
  Shall the bright watcher have
  A place, and as of old high station keep.

  Gone, gone! 
  Oh, never more to cheer
  The mariner who holds his course alone
  On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
  When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,
  Shall it appear,
  With the sweet fixedness of certain light,
  Down-shining on the shut eyes of the deep.

  Vain, vain! 
  Hopeless most idly then, shall he look forth,
  That mariner from his bark. 
  Howe’er the north
  Does raise his certain lamp, when tempests lower—­
  He sees no more that perished light again! 
  And gloomier grows the hour
  Which may not, through the thick and crowding dark,
  Restore that lost and loved one to her tower.