“But the way is hard for you—­very hard,” said Mrs. Endicott.

“It is my preparation for Heaven,” replied the patient sufferer, while a smile, not caught from earth, made beautiful her countenance.  “If my Heavenly Father could have made the way smoother, He would have done so.  As it is, I thank Him daily for the roughness, and would not ask to have a stone removed or a rough place made even.”

LOOK ON THIS PICTURE.

  O, IT is life! departed days
  Fling back their brightness while I gaze—­
  ’Tis Emma’s self—­this brow so fair,
  Half-curtained in this glossy hair,
  These eyes, the very home of love,
  The dark thin arches traced above,
  These red-ripe lips that almost speak,
  The fainter blush of this pure cheek,
  The rose and lily’s beauteous strife—­
  It is—­ah, no! ’tis all but life.

  ’Tis all but life—­art could not save
  Thy graces, Emma, from the grave;
  Thy cheek is pale, thy smile is past,
  Thy love-lit eyes have looked their last,
  Mouldering beneath the coffin’s lid,
  All we adored of thee is hid;
  Thy heart, where goodness loved to dwell,
  Is throbless in the narrow cell: 
  Thy gentle voice shall charm no more,
  Its last, last joyful note is o’er.

  Oft, oft, indeed, it hath been sung,
  The requiem of the fair and young;
  The theme is old, alas! how old,
  Of grief that will not be controlled,
  Of sighs that speak a father’s woe,
  Of pangs that none but mothers know,
  Of friendship with its bursting heart,
  Doomed from the idol-one to part—­
  Still its sad debt must feeling pay,
  Till feeling, too, shall pass away.

  O say, why age, and grief, and pain,
  Shall long to go, but long in vain? 
  Why vice is left to mock at time,
  And gray in years, grow gray in crime;
  While youth, that every eye makes glad,
  And beauty, all in radiance clad,
  And goodness, cheering every heart,
  Come, but come only to depart;
  Sunbeams, to cheer life’s wintry day,
  Sunbeams, to flash, then fade away?

  ’Tis darkness all! black banners wave
  Round the cold borders of the grave;
  Then when in agony we bend
  O’er the fresh sod that hides a friend,
  One only comfort then we know—­
  We, too, shall quit this world of woe;
  We, too, shall find a quiet place
  With the dear lost ones of our race;
  Our crumbling bones with theirs shall blend,
  And life’s sad story find an end.

  And is this all—­this mournful doom? 
  Beams no glad light beyond the tomb? 
  Mark how yon clouds in darkness ride;
  They do not quench the orb they hide;
  Still there it wheels—­the tempest o’er,
  In a bright sky to burn once more;
  So, far above the clouds of time,
  Faith can behold a world sublime—­
  There, when the storms of life are past,
  The light beyond shall break at last.