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ECHOES OF MANY VOICES

FROM MANY LANDS.

I. CONSOLATION.

ALL are not taken; there are left behind
Living Beloveds, tender looks to bring,
And make the daylight still a happy thing,
And tender voices to make soft the wind.-
But, if it were not so,-If I could find
No love in all the world for comforting,
Nor any path, but hollowly did ring,

Where "dust to dust" the love from life dis

joined;

And if, before those sepulchres unmoving,

I stood alone (as some forsaken lamb

Goes bleating up the moors in weary dearth),

B

Crying, "Where are ye, oh my loved and loving?"

I know a voice would sound, "Daughter, I

AM;

Can I suffice for Heaven, and not for Earth?" E. B. BROWNING.

II.

Io, vo piangendo i miei passati tempi,
I quai posi in amar cosa mortale
Senza levarmi a volo avend' io l' ale,
Per dar, forse di me, non bassi esempi,
Tu, che vedi i miei mali indegni ed empi
Rè del Cielo invisibile, immortale,
Soccorri all' alma disviata e frale

E il mio difetto di tua grazia adempi,
Sicche s' io vissi in guerra ed in tempesta
Mora in pace e in porto; e se la stanza
Fu vana, almen sia la partita onesta,
A quel poco di viver che ni' avanza—
Ed al morir, degni esser tua man presta,
Tu sai ben che in altrui non ho speranza.

PETRARCA.

III. SUBMISSION.

BUT the faint soul must bear up its own weight,
And pitying love, and kind officiousness
Cannot assuage, nor make the burden less,
Probing the unbarbed spirit, that too late
Its overstrainèd pinions doth abate,
And from each gale, unstrung and motionless,
Catcheth a tone of deeper loneliness,
And desolation makes more desolate.
Then darkly gleams the mighty mystery,
That He that bore our sorrows, yea, that He
Alone, the soul can bear, the spirit fill,
Fleeing from the dark phantoms of unrest
Into the arms of Mercy, calmly blest,

"Do with me what Thou wilt, I will lie still."

J. WILLIAMS. Thoughts in Past Years.

IV. "THE WITHERED FLOWER."

THE flowers o' the simmer time,
A' in brown-leaf shrouds are lying;

The nor' wind is swirling the driven snaw

An' tossing the white flakes or e'er they fa',

To hide where a' lay a dying:

But my Flower is withered, an' winna rebloom!

The birks in the erie glen

Their leafless boughs a' wide are tossing; The sough frae the upland forest seems As in wild faem a thousand mountain streams Frae rock to den were crossing :— But my Flower is withered, an' winna rebloom.

The spring maun return again,

Opening the fresh buds o' ilka flower, Drappin' the gowans o'er strath an' lea; Buskin' wi' blossom ilk buss an' tree,

Blessing a' nature wi' walth o' dower:But my Flower is withered, an' winna rebloom.

Till ance this waefu' warld

Its last flowers a' withered, its ways a'toom, An' nought for a lap for the lanesome dying, But the graves where death's latest plenish is lying,

Steerin' to wake at the trump o' doom :Then my Flower, though withered, shall again

rebloom!

V.

DANIEL.

LOOK not mournfully into the Past, it comes not back again; wisely improve the Present, it is thine; go forth to meet the shadowy Future without fear, and with a manly heart.

LONGFELLOW.

VI.

To be thought ill of, worse than we deserve,To have hard speeches said, cold looks dis

played

By those who should have cheered us, when we swerve,

Is one of Heaven's best gifts, and may be made

A treasure ere we know it—a lone field Which to hot hearts may bitter blessings yield. Either we learn from our past sins to shrink When their full guilt is kept before our eye,

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