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LABOR AND REST.

There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand
On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet
Than when at first he took thee by the hand,

Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet.
He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still,
Life's early glory to thine eyes again;

Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fill
Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then.

Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here,

Of mountains where immortal morn prevails?
Comes there not through the silence, to thine ear,
A gentle rustling of the morning gales?

A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore,
Of streams that water banks forever fair;
And voices of the loved ones gone before,
More musical in that celestial air?

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

Labor and Rest.

WO hands upon the breast,

TWO

And labor's done;

Two pale feet crossed in rest,—

The race is run;

Two eyes with coin-weights shut,

And all tears cease;

Two lips where grief is mute,

And wrath at peace!—

So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot,—

God in his mercy answereth not.

Two hands to work addressed

Aye for his praise;

Two feet that never rest,

Walking his ways;

355

Two eyes that look above,

Still through all tears;

Two lips that breathe but love,

Nevermore fears,

So pray we afterward low on our knees;—
Pardon those erring prayers!

Father, hear these!

DINAH MARIA MULOCK.

I

God.

'Whom have I in Heaven but Thee ?"

LOVE (and have some cause to love) the earth ;

She is my Maker's creature, therefore good;

She is my mother, for she gave me birth;

She is my tender nurse; she gives me food;

But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee?
And what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh

My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouthed choir sustain me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me:

But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to thee?

I love the sea; she is my fellow-creature,

My careful purveyor: she provides me store;
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore;

But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth, to me?

THE SOUL.

To Heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky;

But what is Heaven, just God, compared to thee?
Without thy presence, Heaven's no Heaven to me.

Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without thy presence, Heaven itself 's no pleasure.
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or Heaven to me?

357

FRANCIS QUArles.

The Soul.

AGAIN, how can she but immortal be,

When with the motions of both will and wit,

She still aspireth to eternity,

And never rests till she attain to it?

Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher

Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; Then since to Eternal God she doth aspire,

She cannot be but an eternal thing.

"All moving things to other things do move

Of the same kind, which shows their nature such ;"
So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above,
Till both their proper elements do touch.

And as the moisture which the thirsty earth

Sucks from the sea to fill her empty veins,
From out her womb at last doth take a birth,
And runs a lymph along the grassy plains.

Long doth she stay, as loth to leave the land
From whose soft side she first did issue make;
She tastes all places, turns to every hand,
Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake.

Yet Nature so her streams doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the ocean marry,

Within whose watery bosom first she lay.

E'en so the soul, which in this earthly mould
The spirit of God doth secretly infuse,
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And only this material world she views.

At first her mother Earth she holdeth dear,

And doth embrace the world and worldly things;
She flies close by the ground and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings:

Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught
That with her heavenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be.

For who did ever yet in honor, health,

Or pleasure of the sense contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish, when he had wealth? Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind?

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

Which seem sweet flowers with luster fresh and gay,—

She lights on that and this, and tasteth all,

But pleased with none, doth rise and soar away

So, when the soul finds here no true content,
And like Noah's dove can no sure footing take,
She doth return from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make.

THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH. 359

So, while the virgin soul on earth doth stay,

She, wooed and tempted in ten thousand ways,
By these great powers which on the earth bear sway,
The wisdom of the world, wealth, pleasure, praise;

With these sometimes she doth her time beguile,
These do by fibs her fantasy possess;

But she distastes them all within a while,
And in the sweetest finds a tediousness:

But if upon the world's Almighty King
She once doth fix her humble loving thought,
Who, by his picture drawn in everything,

And sacred messages, her love has sought:

Of him she thinks she cannot think too much;
The honey tasted still, is ever sweet;
The pleasure of her ravished thought is such,

As almost here she with her bliss doth meet.

But when in heaven she shall his essence see,

This is her sovereign good and perfect bliss:
Her longings, wishes, hopes, all finished be,
Her joys are full, her motions rest in this.

There is she crowned with garlands of content;
There doth she manna eat,and nectar drink;
That presence doth such high delights present
As never tongue could speak, nor heart could think.
SIR JOHN DAvies.

The spacious Firmament on high.

HE spacious firmament on high,

THE

With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.

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