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Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow
For him who lives above all years,
Who all-immortal makes the Now,
And is not ta'en in Time's arrears:
His life's a hymn
The seraphim

Might hark to hear or help to sing,
And to his soul

The boundless whole
Its bounty all doth daily bring.

"All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith:
"The wealth I am, must thou become:
Richer and richer, breath by breath,
Immortal gain, immortal room!"
And since all his
Mine also is,

Life's gift outruns my fancies far,

And drowns the dream

In larger stream,

As morning drinks the morning star.

ROYALTY.

THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose

eyes

Suffices not all worth the city knows To pay that debt which his own heart he owes;

For less than level to his bosom rise The low crowd's heaven and stars : above their skies

Runneth the road his daily feet have pressed;

A loftier heaven he beareth in his breast, And o'er the summits of achieving hies With never a thought of merit or of meed; Choosing divinest labors through a pride Of soul, that holdeth appetite to feed Ever on angel-herbage, naught beside; Nor praises more himself for hero-deed Than stones for weight, or open seas for tide.

And still repeat, to all the street,
"T is he,-the king is here";
The long procession moveth on,
Each nobler form they see,
With changeful suit they still salute,
And cry, "T is he! 't is he!"

So, even so, when men were young,
And earth and heaven was new,
And His immediate presence he

From human hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too. "He is!" the prophet-tongues proclaimed ;

In joy and hasty fear, "He is!" aloud replied the crowd,

"Is, here, and here, and here."

"He is! They are!" in distance seen On yon Olympus high,

In those Avernian woods abide,

And walk this azure sky: "They are! They are!" to every show Its eyes the baby turned,

And blazes sacrificial, tall,

On thousand altars burned: "They are! They are!"-On Sinai's top

Far seen the lightning's shone,
The thunder broke, a trumpet spoke,
And God said, "I am One."

God spake it out, "I, God, am One";
The unheeding ages ran,
And baby thoughts again, again,

Have dogged the growing man:
And as of old from Sinai's top

God said that God is One, By Science strict so speaks he now To tell us, There is None! Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's A Mécanique Céleste!

And heart and mind of human kind

A watch-work as the rest!

Is this a Voice, as was the Voice
Whose speaking told abroad,
When thunder pealed, and mountain
reeled,

The ancient truth of God?

Ah, not the Voice; 't is but the cloud,

The outer darkness dense,

Where image none, nor e'er was seen
Similitude of sense.

"T is but the cloudy darkness dense,
That wrapt the Mount around;
While in amaze the people stays,
To hear the Coming Sound.

Some chosen prophet-soul the while

Shall dare, sublimely meek,
Within the shroud of blackest cloud
The Deity to seek :
Mid atheistic systems dark,

And darker hearts' despair,

That soul has heard perchance his word, And on the dusky air,

His skirts, as passed He by, to see

Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf.

"T is but the cloudy darkness dense;
Though blank the tale it tells,
No God, no Truth! yet He, in sooth,
Is there, within it dwells;
Within the sceptic darkness deep

He dwells that none may see,
Till idol forms and idol thoughts

Have passed and ceased to be: No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth, So stand the doctrine's half; On Egypt's track return not back, Nor own the Golden Calf.

Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can:

No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er-
Believe it ne'er-O Man!

But turn not then to seek again
What first the ill began;
No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith
God's self-completing plan;
Receive it not, but leave it not,

And wait it out, O man!

The Man that went the cloud within

Is gone and vanished quite; "He cometh not," the people cries, "Nor bringeth God to sight": "Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!" Deluding and deluded cries

The Prophet's brother-Priest: And Israel all bows down to fall Before the gilded beast.

Devout, indeed! that priestly creed,

O Man, reject as sin!
The clouded hill attend thou still,
And him that went within.

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He yet shall bring some worthy thing
For waiting souls to see;
Some sacred word that he hath heard
Their light and life shall be;
Some lofty part, than which the heart
Adopt no nobler can,

Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe,
And thou shalt do, O Man!

FROM THE "BOTHIE OF TOBER-NAVUOLICH."

WHERE does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it?

What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with?

If there is battle 't is battle by night; I stand in the darkness,

Here in the midst of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides,

Signal and password known; which is friend, which is foeman?

Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother.

O that the armies indeed were arrayed!
O joy of the onset!

Sound, thou trumpet of God, come forth
Great Cause, and array us!
King and leader appear, thy soldiers an-
swering seek thee.

Would that the armies indeed were
arrayed. O where is the battle!
Neither battle I see, nor arraying, nor
King in Israel,

Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation,

Backed by a solemn appeal, "For God's sake do not stir there!"

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

O STREAM descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flow'rets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden plots the children play,
The fields the laborers till,
The houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death, Our waking eyes behold,

Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old.

Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill,

We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still.

O end to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,

To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?

A roar we hear upon thy shore,
As we our course fulfil;

Scarce we divine a sun will shine
And be above us still.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day

Are scarce, long leagues apart, de-
scried;

When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied,

Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas

By each was cleaving, side by side:

E'en so, but why the tale reveal

Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel,

Astounded, soul from soul estranged?

At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered : Ah, neither blame, for neither willed,

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

SAMUEL LONGFELLOW.

[U. S. A.]

THE GOLDEN SUNSET.

THE golden sea its mirror spreads
Beneath the golden skies,
And but a narrow strip between
Of land and shadow lies.

The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds,
Dissolved in glory float,

And, midway of the radiant flood,
Hangs silently the boat.

The sea is but another sky,

The sky a sea as well,

And which is earth, and which the heav

ens,

The eye can scarcely tell.

So when for us life's evening hour
Soft passing shall descend,
May glory born of earth and heaven,
The earth and heavens blend;

Flooded with peace the spirit float,
With silent rapture glow,
Till where earth ends and heaven begins
The soul shall scarcely know.

UNKNOWN.

QUIET FROM GOD.