Life is a vine branch, A vintager, death; More near with each breath, Seek God, O my soul! For time quickly flies Though far seems the goal. 152 IT SINGETH LOW IN EVERY HEART. It singeth low in every heart, A song of those who answer not, However we may call. They throng the silence of the breast, We see them as of yore,— The kind, the brave, the true, the sweet, Though they are here no more. 'T is hard to take the burden up, But oh! 't is good to think of them When we are troubled sore; Thanks be to God that such have been, Although they are no more. 153 More home-like seems the vast Unknown, Since they have entered there; To follow them were not so hard, They cannot be where God is not, Whate'er betides, Thy love abides, SOWING AND REAPING. Sow with a generous hand, Pause not for toil and pain; Weary not through the heat of summer, For the sheaves of golden grain. Scatter the seed and fear not,- O sow!-for the hours are fleeting Before the waving cornfields Shall gladden the sunny day. Sow-and look onward, upward, You have sown to-day in tears. 154 IN UNITY WITH GOD AND MAN. Eternal Ruler of the ceaseless round Of circling planets singing on their way; Guide of the nations from the night profound Into the glory of the perfect day; Rule in our hearts that we may ever be Guided and strengthened and upheld by Thee. We would be one in hatred of all wrong, One in our love of all things sweet and fair, One with the joy that breaketh into song, One with the grief that trembles into prayer, One in the power that makes Thy children free To follow truth and thus to follow Thee. Oh, clothe us with Thy heavenly armor, Lord! Thy trusty shield, Thy word of Love divine; Our inspiration be Thy constant word; We ask no victories that are not Thine; Give or withhold, let pain or pleasure be, Enough to know that we are serving Thee. 155 WEEP NO MORE. Relentless and unswerving in its course, Time reaches onward in its dread career; And earth that nourished, earth that was the source, Reclaims her part, resigned with many a tear. But why bewail the fate of our loved dead? They dread no more for whom we vainly mourn ; Their pangs are past, their souls from shackles free, Their prison gates were oped, their fetters torn, Eternity! O mighty, wond'rous thought! A dream that points to hope of future meed, 156 AT THE PORTAL OF THE GRAVE. I. Alas for him who never sees The stars shine through his cypress-trees! And love can never lose its own. II. So live, that when thy summons comes to join To that mysterious realm where each shall take |