For we speak of you cheerfully, always,
As journeying on:

Not as one who is dead do we name you
We say you are gone.

For how could we speak of you sadly,
We who watched while the grace

Of eternity's wonderful beauty

Grew over your face?

Do we call the star lost that is hidden
In the great light of morn?

Do we fashion a shroud for the young child
In the day it is born?

Yet behold! this were wise to their folly
Who mourn, sore distressed

When a soul that is summoned believing
Enters into its rest!

PHOEBE CARY.

A

A Year in Heaven.

YEAR uncalendared; for what

Hast thou to do with mortal time?

Its dole of moments entereth not

That circle, mystic and sublime,

Whose unreached center is the throne
Of Him, before whose awful brow
Meeting eternities are known

As but an everlasting now.

The thought removes thee far away,-
Too far,-beyond my love and tears;

Ah, let me hold thee as I may,

And count thy time by earthly years!

A YEAR IN HEAVEN.

A year of blessedness; wherein

Not one dim cloud hath crossed thy soul;
No sigh of grief, no touch of sin,

No frail mortality's control:
Nor once hath disappointment stung,
Nor care world-weary made thee pine;
But rapture, such as human tongue
Hath found no language for, is thine.
Made perfect at thy passing, who
Can sum thy added glory now?
As on, and onward, upward, through
The angel ranks that lowly bow,
Ascending still from height to height,
Unfaltering, where rapt spirits trod,
Nor pausing 'mid their circles bright,
Thou tendest inward unto God.

A year of progress in the lore

That's only learned in Heaven; thy mind
Unclogged of clay, and free to soar,

Hath left the realms of doubt behind;
And wondrous things which finite thought
In vain essayed to solve, appear
To thy untasked inquiries, fraught
With explanations strangely clear.
Thy reason owns no forced control,

As held it here in needful thrall:
God's mysteries court thy questioning soul,
And thou may'st search and know them all.

A year of love; thy yearning heart
Was always tender, e'en to tears
With sympathies, whose sacred art
Made holy all thy cherished years;
But love, whose speechless ecstasy
Had overborne the finite, now
Throbs through thy being, pure and free,
And burns upon thy radiant brow:

459

For thou those hands' dear clasp hast felt,
Where still the nail-prints are displayed;
And thou before that face hast knelt,

Which wears the scars the thorns have made.

A year without thee; I had thought
My orphaned heart would break and die
Ere time had meek quiescence brought,
Or soothed the tears it could not dry.
And yet I live to faint and quail

Before the human grief I bear;

To miss thee so, then drown the wail
That trembles on my lips in prayer;
Thou glorying, while I weakly pine;
Thou praising, while I vainly thrill;
And thus between thy heart and mine
The distance ever widening still.

A year of tears to me; to thee,
The end of thy probation's strife,

The archway to eternity,

The portal of immortal life:
To me the pall, the bier, the sod;

To thee the palm of victory given.

Enough, my heart! thank God! thank God!

That thou hast been a year in Heaven.

ANONYMOUS

A Year in Heaven.

ONE year among the angels, beloved, thou hast been,

One year has heaven's white portal shut back the

sound of sin;

And yet no voice, no whisper, comes floating down from

thee,

To tell us what glad wonder a year of heaven may be.

A YEAR IN HEAVEN.

Our hearts before it listen,-the beautiful closed gate:
The silence yearns around us: we listen and we wait.
It is thy heavenly birthday, on earth thy lilies bloom;
In thine immortal garland canst find for these no room?

461

Thou lovedst all things lovely when walking with us here: Now from the heights of heaven seems earth no longer dear?

We cannot paint thee moving in white-robed state afar,
Nor dream our flower of comfort a cool and distant star.

Heaven is but life made richer; therein can be no loss: To meet our love and longing thou hast no gulf to cross: No adamant between us uprears its rocky screen;

A veil before us only:-thou in the light serene.

That veil 'twixt earth and heaven a breath might waft aside:
We breathe one air, beloved, we follow one dear Guide:
Passed into open vision, out of our mist and rain,
Thou seest how sorrow blossoms, how peace is won from
pain.

And half we feel thee leaning from thy deep calm of bliss,
To say of earth, "Beloved, how beautiful it is!
The lilies in this splendor, the green leaves in this dew ;-
O earth is also heaven, with God's light clothed anew!"

So, when the sky seems bluer, and when the blossoms wear
Some tender mystic shading we never knew was there,
We'll say
"We see things earthly by light of sainted eyes:
She bends where we are gazing, to-day, from paradise."

Because we know thee near us and nearer still to Him
Who fills thy cup of being with glory to the brim,
We will not stain with grieving our fair, though fainter light
But cling to thee in spirit as if thou wert in sight.

And as in waves of beauty the swift years come and go,
Upon celestial currents our deeper life shall flow,

Hearing, from that sweet country where blighting never

came,

Love chime the hours immortal, in earth and heaven the

same.

LUCY LARCOM.

O

A Little While.

FOR the peace which floweth as a river,

Making life's desert places bloom and smile!
O for the faith to grasp heaven's bright "forever,"
Amid the shadows of earth's "little while!"

A little while for patient vigil-keeping,

To face the stern, to battle with the strong;
A little while to sow the seed with weeping,
Then bind the sheaves and sing the harvest-song.

A little while to wear the weeds of sadness,

To pace with weary steps through noisy ways;
Then to pour forth the fragrant oil of gladness,
And clasp the girdle round the robe of praise.

A little while midst shadow and illusion

To strive by faith love's mysteries to spell:
Then read each dark enigma's bright solution,—
Then hail sight's verdict, "He doth all things well "

A little while the earthen pitcher taking

To wayside brooks from far-off fountains fed;
Then the cool lip its thirst forever slaking
Beside the fullness of the fountain-head.

A little while to keep the oil from failing,

A little while faith's flickering lamp to trim,
And then, the Bridegroom's coming footsteps hailing,
To haste to meet him with the bridal-hymn.