The Border-Lands.

I cannot see the golden gate
Unfolding yet to welcome me;
I cannot yet anticipate

The joy of heaven's jubilee.

But I will calmly watch and pray,
Until I hear my Saviour's voice,
Calling my happy soul away

To see his glory, and rejoice.

129

THE TRUE LIGHT.

To thee, to all, my sinking voice,
Beloved! would fain once more proclaim,
In Christ alone may those rejoice
Deceived by every other name.

In all but Him our sins have been,
And wanderings dark of doubtful mind;
In Him alone on earth is seen

God's perfect will for all mankind.

The shadows round me close and press,
But still that radiant orb I see,

And more I seem its light to bless

Than aught near worlds could give to me.

As light and warmth to noontide hours,
To sweetest voices tuneful songs,
And as to summer fields the flowers,

So heaven to heavenly souls belongs.

DUST TO DUST.

On blessing, wearing semblance of a curse,
We fear thee, thou stern sentence; yet to be
Linked to immortal bodies, were far worse
Than thus to be set free.

For mingling with the life-blood, through each

vein

The venom of the Serpent's bite has run, And only thus might be expelled again,— Thus only health be won.

Shall we not then a gracious sentence own, Now since the leprosy has fretted through The entire house, that Thou wilt take it down, And build it all anew?

Build it this time, since Thou wilt build again, An holy house where righteousness may dwell; And we, though in the unbuilding there be pain, Will still affirm,—'T is well.

THE ILLUSION OF LIFE.

MYSTERIOUS Night! when our first parent

knew

Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,

Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! creation widened in man's view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed

Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us

blind?

Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?

If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

THE FUTURE LIFE.

How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps The disembodied spirits of the dead,

When all of thee that time could wither sleeps, And perishes among the dust we tread?

For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain,
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.

Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?

My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,

And must thou never utter it in heaven?

In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind,

In the resplendence of that glorious sphere, And larger movements of the unfettered mind,

Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?