How often things already won
It urges me to win,

How often makes me look outside
For that which is within!

Our souls go too much out of self
Into ways dark and dim:

'Tis rather God who seeks for us,
Than we who seek for Him.

Yet surely through my tears I saw
God softly drawing near;

How came He without sight or sound

So soon to disappear?

God was not gone: but He so longed

His sweetness to impart,

He too was seeking for a home,
And found it in my heart.

Twice had I erred: a distant God
Was what I could not bear;
Sorrows and cares were at my side;
I longed to have Him there.

But God is never so far off

As even to be near;

He is within our spirit is

The home He holds most dear.

To think of Him as by our side
Is almost as untrue,

As to remove His throne beyond
Those skies of starry blue.

So all the while I thought myself
Homeless, forlorn, and weary,
Missing my joy, I walked the earth
Myself God's sanctuary.

F. W. FABER.

HOW dimly walks the wisest,
On his journey to the grave,

Till Thou, Lamp of Souls, arisest,

Beaming over land and wave!

Blind and weak behold him wander,
Full of doubt and full of dread;

Till the dark is rent asunder,

And the gulf of light is spread.

Shadows were the gyves that bound him,
Now his soul is light in light;
Heav'n within him, Heav'n around him,

Pure, eternal, infinite!

W. ALLINGHAM.

QUA CURSUM VENTUS.

As ships, becalmed at eve, that lay
With canvas drooping, side by side,
Two towers of sail at dawn of day
Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried;

When fell the night, up sprang the breeze,
And all the darkling hours they plied,

Nor dreamt but each the self-same seas
By each was cleaving side by side:

E'en so-but why the tale reveal

Of those, whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel Astounded, soul from soul estranged.

At dead of night their sails were filled
And onward each, rejoicing, steered-
Oh, neither blame, for neither willed

Or wist, what first with dawn appeared!

To veer, how vain! On, onward strain,
Brave barks! In light, in darkness too,
Through winds and tides one compass guides--
To that, and your own selves, be true.

But O blithe breeze! and O great seas!
Though ne'er, that earliest parting past,
On your wide plain they join again,
Together lead them home at last.

One port, methought, alike they sought,
One purpose hold where'er they fare,-
O bounding breeze, O rushing seas!
At last, at last, unite them there!

A. H. CLOUGH.

PROSPICE.

FEAR death?—to feel the fog in my throat,

The mist in my face,

When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,

The power of the night, the press of the storm,

The post of the foe;

Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,

Yet the strong man must go :

For the journey is done and the summit attained, And the barriers fall,

Though a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,

The reward of it all.