O Love, who soon shalt bid me rise
From out this dying life of ours;
O Love, who soon o'er yonder skies
Shalt set me in the fadeless bowers,
O Love, I give myself to Thee,
Thine ever, only Thine to be.

JOHANN SCHEffler (AngelUS SILESIUS), 1657.

HOU knowest that I am not blest

THO

As Thou would'st have me be,

Till all the peace and joy of faith

Possess my soul in Thee;
And still I seek 'mid many fears,
With yearnings unexprest,

The comfort of Thy strengthening love,

Thy soothing, settling rest.

And while I wait for all Thy joys,

My yearning heart to fill,

Teach me to walk and work with Thee,

And at Thy feet sit still.

ANNA L. WARING.

"All things work together for good to them that love God." ROMANS viii. 28.

O

WHAT a load of struggle and distress

Falls off before the cross! The feverish care;

The wish that we were other than we are ;

The sick regrets; the yearnings numberless ;

The thought, "this might have been," so apt to press

On the reluctant soul; even past despair,
Past sin itself - all all is turned to fair,
Aye! to a scheme of ordered happiness,
So soon as we love God, or rather know
That God loves us!- Accepting the great pledge
Of His concern for all our wants and woe,
We cease to tremble upon danger's edge;
While varying troubles form and burst anew,
Safe in a Father's arms we smile as infants do!
CHAUNCY HARE TOWNSHEND.

HEAVEN AND THE SAINTS.

FROM "ELEONORA."

AS precious gums are not for lasting fire,

They but perfume the temple, and expire; So was she soon exhaled, and vanished hence; A short, sweet odor, of a vast expense. She vanished, we can scarcely say she died; For but a now did heaven and earth divide : She passed serenely with a single breath; This moment perfect health, the next was death : As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue, Or, one dream passed, we slide into a new; So close they follow, such wild order keep, We think ourselves awake, and are asleep :

So softly death succeeded life in her :

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there.
No pains she suffered, nor expired with noise;
Her soul was whispered out with God's still voice.
JOHN DRYDEN.

ON THE RELIGIOUS MEMORY OF MRS. CATHERINE THOMSON,

MY CHRISTIAN FRIEND, DECEASED 16 DECEMBER, 1646.

WHEN

HEN Faith and Love, which parted from thee
never,

Had ripened thy just soul to dwell with God,
Meekly thou didst resign this earthy load

Of death, called life, which us from life doth sever.
Thy works and alms and all thy good endeavor
Stayed not behind, nor in the grave were trod;
But, as Faith pointed with her golden rod,
Followed thee up to joy and bliss forever.
Love led them on, and Faith, who knew them best,
Thy handmaids, clad them o'er with purple beams
And azure wings, that up they flew so drest,
And spake the truth of thee on glorious themes
Before the Judge; who thenceforth bid thee rest,
And drink thy fill of pure immortal streams.

JOHN MILTON.

"SHE DWELT AMONG THE UNTRODDEN

WAYS."

HE dwelt among the untrodden ways

Sesicle the springs of Dove,

A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love :

A violet by a mossy stone

Half hidden from the eye!
Fair as a star, when only one

Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know

When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,

The difference to me!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, 1799.

ELEGY ON MISTRESS ELIZABETH DRURY.

SHE, of whose soul, if we may say, 't was gold,
Her body was the Electrum, and did hold

Many degrees of that; we understood
Her by her sight; her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one might almost say, her body thought.

She whom we celebrate is gone before :
She who had here so much essential joy,
As no chance could distract, much less destroy;
Who with God's presence was acquainted so,
(Hearing and speaking to Him), as to know
His face in any natural stone or tree
Better than when in images they be :