Where shall we aid and comfort find
With toils and perils all around?
Command, O mighty God, the wind
To bear us whither we are bound.
Oh bring us to our home once more,
From weary wanderings safe to shore;
And those who follow us with prayer
Keep thou in thy most tender care.
And as the needle, while we rove,
To one point still is true and just,
So let our hope and faith and love
Be fix'd in One in whom we trust;
His word is mighty still to save,
He still can walk the stormiest wave,
And hold his followers with his hand,
For his are heaven and sea and land.
MAN'S THREE GUESTS.
Mrs. Sigourney.
A KNOCKING at the castle-gate
When the bloom was on the tree,
And the youthful master, all elate,
Himself came forth to see.
A jocund lady waited there,
Gay was her robe, of colours rare,
Her tresses bright to the zephyr stream'd,
And her car on its silver axle gleam'd,
Like the gorgeous barge of that queen of yore,
Whose silken sail and flashing oar
Sparkling Cydnus proudly bore.
The youth, enraptured at her smile,
And won by her enchanting wile
And flatteries vain,
Welcomed her in, with all her train,
Placing her in the chiefest seat,
While as a vassal at her feet
He knelt, and paid her homage sweet.
She deck'd his halls with garlands gay,
Bidding the sprightly viol play,
Till by her magic power
Day turn'd to night, and night to day,
For every fleeting hour
Bow'd to pleasure as its queen;
And so, that siren guest, of mirthful mien,
Linger'd till the vernal ray
And summer's latest rose had sigh'd itself away.
A KNOCKING at the gate!
And the lordling of the hall,
A strong and bearded man withal,
Held parley at the threshold-stone,
In the pomp of his estate.
And then the warder's horn was blown,
The ponderous bolts drawn one by one,
And slowly in, with sandals torn,
Came a pilgrim, travel-worn.
A burden at his back he bare,
And coldly said, "My name is Care!"
Plodding and weary years he brought,
And a pillow worn with ceaseless thought;
And bade his votary ask of Fame,
Or Wealth, or wild Ambition's claim,
Payment for the toil he taught.
But dark with dregs was the cup
he quaff'd, And 'mid his harvest proud
The mocking tare look up and laugh'd
Till his haughty heart was bow'd,
And wrinkles on his forehead hung, and o'er his path a cloud.
AGAIN, A KNOCKING at the gate
At the wintry eventide,
And querulous was the voice that cried,
"Who cometh here so late?"
"Ho! rouse the sentinel from his sleep,
Strict guard at every loop-hole keep!
And "man the towers!" he would have said,
But alas! his early friends were dead,
And his eagle glance was awed,
And a frost that never thaw'd ·
Had settled on his head.
But that thundering at the gate
From morn till midnight late,
Knew no rest,
And a boding tone of fate,
Like an owlet's cry of hate,
Chill'd his breast.
Yet he raised the palsied hand,
And, eager, gave command
To repel the threatening guest.
So the Esculapian band,
In their armour old and tried,
Were summon'd to his side,
And the watchful nurses came,
Whose lamp, like vestal flame,
Never died.
But the tottering bulwarks their trust betray'd,
And the old man groan'd as a breach was made;
Then through the chasm a skeleton foot
And a fleshless hand to a shaft was put,
And he was clay.
WHAT IS THAT, MOTHER?
George W. Doane.
WHAT is that, Mother ?-The lark, my child!—
The morn has but just look'd out, and smiled,
When he starts from his humble grassy nest,
And is up and away, with the dew on his breast,
And a hymn in his heart, to yon pure bright sphere,
To warble it out in his Maker's ear.
Ever, my child, be thy morn's first lays
Tuned, like the lark's, to thy Maker's praise.
What is that, Mother ?-The dove, my son!-
And that low, sweet voice, like a widow's moan,
Is flowing out from her gentle breast,
Constant and pure, by that lonely nest,
As the wave is pour'd from some crystal urn,
For her distant dear one's quick return:
Ever, my son, be thou like the dove,
In friendship as faithful, as constant in love. What is that, Mother?-The eagle, boy!— Proudly careering his course of joy;
Firm, on his own mountain vigour relying,
Breasting the dark storm, the red bolt defying,
His wing on the wind, and his eye on the sun,
He swerves not a hair, but bears onward, right on.
Boy, may the eagle's flight ever be thine,
Onward, and upward, and true to the line.
What is that, Mother?-The swan, my love!
He is floating down from his native grove;
No loved one now, no nestling nigh,
He is floating down, by himself to die;
Death darkens his eye, and unplumes his wings,
Yet his sweetest song is the last he sings.
LIVE SO, MY LOVE, THAT WHEN DEATH SHALL COME,
SWAN-LIKE AND SWEET, IT MAY WAFT THEE HOME.
LOVE,-whose forgetfulness is beauty's death,
Whose mystic key, these cells of thou and I,
Into the infinite freedom openeth,
And makes the body's dark and narrow grate
The wide-flung leaves of Heaven's palace-gate.
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