Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/776

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I'M IN THE DARK, ETC.


I'M IN THE DARK.

"I'm in the dark!" cried little Josephine,
A saucy maiden of but summers three;
The lamp was out, the grey dawn yet unseen—
"I'm in the dark! I'm in the dark!" said she.

"I'm in the dark!" Yet fear not, little one,
Those are beside thee who for thee would die;
The night, midwinter deep, will soon be gone,
And the glad day stand in the eastern sky.

Light is thy wish, and in that wish we share—
"Light, light, more light!" "O Lord, that I may see!"
Some, for unholy uses make the prayer,
And some, that they the nearer heaven may be.

Some would uplift the curtain of the year,
And clutch its secrets with irreverent hand,
That barn and press may burst with autumn gear,
Or they among earth's foremost princes stand.

And some would lift the veil of flesh, and see
If all be real on the other side,
If truth be spoken of the One in Three,
Or if the seers of Jewry raved and lied.

And some, more happy, of the night complain,
"It is far spent, and yet there is no day;"
Weary and sad they watch the window-pane—
"When will He come? Oh, why so long away?"

"I'm in the dark!" My darling, so are all,
Save those blest spirits who have fought and won;
Light shines upon them there behind the pall,
Light uncreated, brighter than the sun.

"I'm in the dark!" Ah me, that wild lament
Will one day be the ruined spirits' wail,
When all the lamps of love and grace are spent,
And not one ray to pierce hell's awful veil!

Like thine, my child, our terrors and our cares
Are of mere trifles, sickness, want, and pain.
A holier fear, in answer to our prayers,
Give, Lord, and light to make the highway plain;

Light, as we need it, step by step to tread
The road to us allotted, strait and steep,
The thorny waste with cloud and storm o'erspread,
Then death's drear pass, and heaven's all-crystal keep.

Sunday Magazine.George S. Outram.




A FEATHER.

"Drop me a feather out of the blue,
Bird flying up to the sun:"
Higher and higher the skylark flew,
But dropped he never a one.

"Only a feather I ask of thee
Fresh from the purer air:"
Upward the lark flew bold and free
To heaven, and vanished there.
 
Only the sound of a rapturous song
Throbbed in the tremulous light;
Only a voice could linger long
At such a wondrous height.

"Drop me a feather!" but while I cry,
Lo! like a vision fair,
The bird from the heart of the glowing sky
Sinks through the joyous air.

Downward sinking and singing alone,
But the song which was glad above
Takes ever a deeper and dearer tone,
For it trembles with earthly love.
 
And the feather I asked from the boundless heaven
Were a gift of little worth;
For oh what a boon by the lark is given
When he brings all heaven to earth!

Blackwood's Magazine.J. R. S.




THREE HOUSES.

Three houses all alike, all piteous
With winking windows and a midday gloom,
All choked with London fog, and hideous
With monster sideboard in the dining-room;
Alike, yet all unlike as blight and bloom.
For the first holds fair lady Gwendoline,
Whom I have never seen;
The second bonnie Kate,
Whom I nor love nor hate;
But the third house holds in its heart for me
My little Dorothy.

My lady, dost thou bind thy bright brown hair,
Or dost thou steal adown the noiseless stair?
Love, thou art in the house, and gazing there
I turn to thee.

Blackwood's Magazine.J. R. S.