Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 127.djvu/398

BETWEEN THE LIGHTS.

A little pause in life, while daylight lingers
Between the sunset and the pale moonrise,
When daily labour slips from weary fingers,
And soft grey shadows veil the aching eyes.

Old perfumes wander back from fields of clover
Seen in the light of suns that long have set;
Beloved ones, whose earthly toil is over,
Draw near, as if they lived among us yet.

Old voices call me, through the dusk returning,
I hear the echoes of departed feet; —
And then I ask, with vain and troubled yearning.
What is the charm that makes old things so sweet?

Must the old joys be evermore withholden?
Even their memory keeps me pure and true;
And yet, from out Jerusalem the Golden
God speaketh, saying, " I make all things new."

"Father," I cry, "the old must still be nearer;
Stifle my love, or give me back the past!
Give me the fair old earth, whose paths are dearer
Than all Thy shining streets, and mansions vast"

Peace, peace, — the Lord of earth and heaven knoweth
The human soul in all its heat and strife;
Out of His throne no stream of Lethe floweth.
But the clear river of eternal life.

He giveth life, ay, life in all its sweetness,
Old loves, old sunny scenes will He restore;
Only the curse of sin and incompleteness
Shall taint thine earth and vex thine heart no more.

Serve Him in daily work and earnest living.
And faith shall lift thee to His sunlit heights;
Then shall a psalm of gladness and thanks-giving
Fill the calm hour that comes between the lights.

Sarah Doudney.

Sunday Magazine.

---

A BURIED LOVE.

Our love was born amid the purple heather,
When winds were still, and vesper lights were red;
For one bright year we cherished it together;
Now, it lies cold and dead.

Dead; and across the brown hill-ridges, wailing,
Comes the wild autumn in her swift return.
With sullen tears, and misty garments trailing
Over the faded fern.

Ah, there may come a time — God send it quickly —
When love's lone grave shall wear a fragrant wreath
Of blooms, and velvet mosses, piling thickly
Upon the dust beneath.

And we, across the heather slow returning,
May seek, perchance, this sacred mound of ours;
Seek it, unvexed by any foolish yearning,
And find it lost in flowers.

Sarah Doudney.

Good Words.

---

FORGET-ME-NOT.

I am the flower that every age has sung.
My name has trembled on the unwilling tongue;
Midst sad farewells how mournfully has rung
Forget-me-not!

I image best the heaven's eternal blue!
Though transient clouds may hide it from the view,
It shineth still, faith's never-changing hue,
Forget-me-not.

The restless brook, the river's deeper flow.
Beside my quiet home still come and go;
I kiss the waters, murmuring soft and low,
Forget-me-not.

The birds above me hovering on the wing,
List the hushed whisper, and the woodlands ring
With the light choral as they answering sing,
Forget-me-not.

The laughing eddies hastening to the sea
With rippling echoes mock the symphony.
The rude winds toss it on their pinions free,
Forget-me-not.

And human voices catch the sweet refrain.
In loving accents fraught with human pain,
Repeating still the never-dying strain,
Forget-me-not.

Isabella M. Mortimer.

Golden Hours.

---

SONG.

With thee my thoughts are calm and sweet.
Without thee they are wild and sad;
With thee my life is all complete,
Without thee it is stormy — mad:
Be true to me, my love, be true!
I'm nothing, if I have not you.

With thee my heart is aye at rest,
Without thee it is tempest-tost;
With thee my life is fully blest.
Without thee I am wreck'd and lost:
Be true to me, my love, be true!
I'm nothing, if I have not you.

Mary Cowden Clarke.

Temple Bar.