When weary with the long day's care,
And earthly change from pain to pain,
And lost, and ready to despair,
Thy kind voice calls me back again:
Oh, my true friend!    I am not lone,
While then canst speak with such a tone!

So hopeless is the world without;
The world within I doubly prize;
Thy world, where guile, and hate, and doubt,
And cold suspicion never rise;
Where thou, and I, and Liberty,
Have undisputed sovereignty.

What matters it, that all around
Danger, and guilt, and darkness lie,
If but within our bosom's bound
We hold a bright, untroubled sky,
Warm with ten thousand mingled rays
Of suns that know no winter days?

Reason, indeed, may oft complain
For Nature's sad reality,
And tell the suffering heart how vain

11.30 P.M., DEC. 31


Friend, when the year is on the wing,
'Tis held a fair and comely thing
To turn reflective glances
Over the days' forbidden Scroll,
See if we're better on the whole,
And average our chances.

Yet 'tis an awful thing to drag
Each separate deed from out the bag
That up till now has hidden 't,
And bring before the shuddering view
All that we swore we wouldn't do,
Or should have done, but didn't.

The broken code, the baffled laws
Our little private faults and flaws,
And every naughty habit,
Come whistling through the Waste of Life,
Until one longs to take a knife,
Feel for his heart, and stab it.

Unchanged, exultant, one and all
Rise up spontaneous to the call,
And bring their stings behind ...

What is a home? A guarded space,
Wherein a few, unfairly blest,
Shall sit together, face to face,
And bask and purr and be at rest?

Where cushioned walls rise up between
Its inmates and the common air,
The common pain, and pad and screen
From blows of fate or winds of care?

Where Art may blossom strong and free,
And Pleasure furl her silken wing,
And every laden moment be
A precious and peculiar thing?

And Past and Future, softly veiled
In hiding mists, shall float and lie
Forgotten half, and unassailed
By either hope or memory,

While the luxurious Present weaves
Her perfumed spells untried, untrue,
Broiders her garments, heaps her sheaves,
All for the pleasure of a few?

Can it be this, the longed-for thing

I faced a future all unknown,
No opening could I see,
I heard without the night wind moan,
The ways were dark to me,--
"I cannot face it all alone
O be Thou near to me!"

I had done sums, and sums, and sums,
Inside my aching head.
I'd tried in vain to pierce the glooms
That lay so thick ahead.
But two and two will not make five,
Nor will do when I'm dead.

And then I thought of Him who fed
Five thousand hungry men,
With five small casual loaves of bread,--
Would he were here again!--
Dear God! hast Thou still miracles
For the troubled sons of men?

He has, He will, He worketh still,
In ways most wonderful.
He drew me from the miry clay,
He filled my cup quite full.
And while my heart can speak I'll tell
His lov...

It's a long loin 'at's niver a turn, an' th' longest loin ends somewhear. Ther's a end to mooast things, an' this is th' end o' the year. When a chap gets turned o' forty, years dooant seem as long as once they did - he begins to be feeared o' time rolling on - but it's fooilish, for it nawther gooas faster nor slower nor iver it did. But he's a happy chap 'at, when th' year ends, can luk back an' think ha mich gooid he's done, for it isn't what a chap will do for th' futer, its what he has done i'th' past 'at fowk mun judge by. Its net wise for onybody to booast o' what they mean to do in a month's time, becoss we cannot tell what a month's time may do for us. We can hardly help havin' a gloomy thowt or two at this part o'th' year, but Kursmiss comes to cheer us up a bit, an' he's nooan ov a gooid sooart 'at can't be jolly once i'th' yea...

Come hither lads and hearken,
for a tale there is to tell,
Of the wonderful days a-coming, when all
shall be better than well.

And the tale shall be told of a country,
a land in the midst of the sea,
And folk shall call it England
in the days that are going to be.

There more than one in a thousand
in the days that are yet to come,
Shall have some hope of the morrow,
some joy of the ancient home.

* * * * *

For then, laugh not, but listen,
to this strange tale of mine,
All folk that are in England
shall be better lodged than swine.

Then a man shall work and bethink him,
and rejoice in the deeds of his hand,
Nor yet come home in the even
too faint and weary to stand.

Men in that time a-coming
shall...

What shall we be like when
We cast this earthly body and attain
To immortality?
What shall we be like then?

Ah, who shall say
What vast expansions shall be ours that day?
What transformations of this house of clay,
To fit the heavenly mansions and the light of day?
Ah, who shall say?

But this we know,--
We drop a seed into the ground,
A tiny, shapeless thing, shrivelled and dry,
And, in the fulness of its time, is seen
A form of peerless beauty, robed and crowned
Beyond the pride of any earthly queen,
Instinct with loveliness, and sweet and rare,
The perfect emblem of its Maker's care.

This from a shrivelled seed?--
--Then may man hope indeed!

For man is but the seed of what he shall be.
When, in the fulness of his p...

Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Acts 4:12.


Swiftly we float upon time's tide
Adown the stream of years.
Sometimes past hills of joy we glide,
Sometimes through vales of tears.

Age follows youth, which, ere we know,
Has vanished like a dream,
And takes its glamour from the glow
Of mem'ry's silvery gleam.

There is no halt; and more and more
There seems an open sea
Reaching us with its ceaseless roar
It is eternity.

There is one Pilot that we need,
One who can safely steer,
One who at heaven's court can plead,
And all our journey cheer.

'Tis Jesus Christ; and all who see
In him the truth, the way,
Are in possession...

Along the aisle where prayer was made,
A woman, all in black arrayed,
Close-veiled, between the kneeling host,
With gliding motion of a ghost,
Passed to the desk, and laid thereon
A scroll which bore these words alone,
Pray for me!

Back from the place of worshipping
She glided like a guilty thing
The rustle of her draperies, stirred
By hurrying feet, alone was heard;
While, full of awe, the preacher read,
As out into the dark she sped:
"Pray for me!"

Back to the night from whence she came,
To unimagined grief or shame!
Across the threshold of that door
None knew the burden that she bore;
Alone she left the written scroll,
The legend of a troubled soul,--
Pray for me!

Glide on, poor ghost of woe or sin!
Thou leav'...

Gleaming folds of read and gold linger in the western sky;
Fleecy clouds of purest tint, mingle with the purple dye.

Faintly to the dreamy mind comes the sound of earthly life;
Far beyond the shining banks, cometh rest from worldly strife.

Through the sunset's misty veil, now we look with longing eyes,
To behold more beauteous sight than the evening's glor'ous skies.

Slowly now the red banks part, showing what is hidden there;
Flushing hills of shadowy light, piercing through the dark'ning air.

Like the rainbow's promise clear, God has placed His emblem there,
Giving life and trust to all, love unbounded, rich and rare.

Glimpses of a life beyond come to each faint, weary heart,
And we long for that bright shore where the loved ones ne'er shall part.
...

His thundering car
Is heard from afar,
And his trumpet notes sound
All the country around;
Stop your ears as you will,
That loud blast and shrill
Is heard by you still.
Borne along by the gale,
In his frost coat of mail,
Midst snow, sleet, and hail,
He comes without fail,
And drives all before him,
Though men beg and implore him
Just to let them take breath,
Or he'll drive them to death.
But he comes in great state,
And for none will he wait,
Though he sees their distress
Yet he spares them no less,
For the cold stiff limb
Is nothing to him;
And o'er countless blue noses,
His hard heart he closes.
His own children fear him
And dare not come near him;
E'en his favorite child[4]
Has been known to run wild
At...

Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind.
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And-under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.
May she be granted beauty and yet not
Beauty to make a stranger's eye distraught,
Or hers before a looking-glass...

An angel saw me sitting by a brook,
Pleased with the silence, and the melodies
Of wind and water which did fall and rise:
He gently stirred his plumes and from them shook
An outworn doubt, which fell on me and took
The shape of darkness, hiding all the skies,
Blinding the sun, but giving to my eyes
An inextinguishable wish to look;
When, lo! thick as the buds of spring there came,
Crowd upon crowd, informing all the sky,
A host of splendours watching silently,
With lustrous eyes that wept as if in blame,
And waving hands that crossed in lines of flame,
And signalled things I hope to hold although I die!

        The hills again reach skyward with a smile.
            Again, with waking life along its way,
        The landscape marches westward mile on mile
            And time throbs white into another day.

        Though eager life must wait on livelihood,
            And all our hopes be tethered to the mart,
        Lacking the eagle's wild, high freedom, would
            That ours might be this day the eagle's heart!

A curious vision on mine eyes unfurled
    In the deep night.    I saw, or seemed to see,
    Two Centuries meet, and sit down vis-a-vis
Across the great round table of the world:
One with suggested sorrows in his mien,
    And on his brow the furrowed lines of thought;
    And one whose glad expectant presence brought
A glow and radiance from the realms unseen.

Hand clasped with hand, in silence for a space
    The Centuries sat; the sad old eyes of one
    (As grave paternal eyes regard a son)
Gazing upon that other eager face.
And then a voice, as cadenceless and gray
    As the sea's monody in winter time,
    Mingled with tones melodious, as the chime
Of bird choirs, singing in the dawns of May.

THE OLD CENTURY SPEAKS

By you, Hope s...

God hath two wings which He doth ever move;
The one is mercy, and the next is love:
Under the first the sinners ever trust;
And with the last He still directs the just.

Lo! Time, at last, has brought, with tardy flight,
The long-anticipated, wish'd-for night;
How on this blissful night, while yet remote,
Did Hope and Fancy with fond rapture doat!
Like eagles, oft, in glory's dazzling sky,
With full-stretch'd pinions have they soar'd on high,
To greet the appearance of the poet's name,
Dawning conspicuous mid the stars of fame.

Alas! they soar not now; the demon, Fear,
Has hurl'd the cherubs from their heavenly sphere:
Fancy, o'erwhelm'd with terror, grovelling lies;
The world of torment opens on her eyes,
Darkness and hissing all she sees and hears;
        ("The speaker pauses the audience are
            supposed to clap, when he continues,")
But Hope, returning to dispel her fears,
Claps her bright wings; the magic s...

Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed today,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
Pleas'd to the last, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly giv'n,
That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurl'd,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions soar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
What future bliss, he gives not thee to know,
But gives th...