were it severed only

By an idle thought of strife, Such as time may knit together; Not the broken chord of life!

O, I fling my spirit backward, And I pass o'er years of pain; All I loved is rising round me, All the lost returns again.

Brighter, fairer far than living,

With no trace of woe or pain, Robed in everlasting beauty,

Shall I see them once again,

By the light that never fadeth,
Underneath eternal skies,

When the dawn of resurrection
Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.

WILLIAM EDMONSTOWNE AYTOUN.

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 wilt 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?
The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?

A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.

For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,

Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;

And wrath has left its scar that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.

Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name, The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?

Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this
The wisdom which is love- till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.

A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.

To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes :
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.

There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance !
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.

Angel of Patience! sent to calm

Our feverish brows with cooling palm ; To lay the storms of hope and fear, And reconcile life's smile and tear; The throbs of wounded pride to still, And make our own our Father's will!

O thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day ;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned:
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

FRIENDS DEPARTED.

THEY are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,

And my sad thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.