28.

In life our absent friend is far away :

But death may bring our friend exceeding near, Show him familiar faces long so dear

And lead him back in reach of words we say.

He only cannot utter yea or nay

In any voice accustomed to our ear;
He only cannot make his face appear
And turn the sun back on our shadowed day.
The dead may be around us, dear and dead;
The unforgotten dearest dead may be

Watching us, with unslumbering eyes and heart,

Brimful of words which cannot yet be said,

Brimful of knowledge they may not impart, Brimful of love for you and love for me.

"FOR THINE OWN SAKE, O MY GOD."

7EARIED of sinning, wearied of repentance,

WEARIE

Wearied of self, I turn, my God, to Thee;

To Thee, my Judge, on Whose all-righteous sentence

Hangs mine eternity:

I turn to Thee, I plead Thyself with Thee, —
Be pitiful to me.

Wearied I loathe myself, I loathe my sinning,
My stains, my festering sores, my misery:
Thou the Beginning, Thou ere my beginning
Didst see and didst foresee

Me miserable, me sinful, ruined me, —
I plead Thyself with Thee.

I plead Thyself with Thee Who art my Maker,
Regard Thy handiwork that cries to Thee;
I plead Thyself with Thee Who wast partaker
Of mine infirmity,

Love made Thee what Thou art, the love of me,

I plead Thyself with Thee.

UNTIL THE DAY BREAK.

'HEN will the day bring its pleasure?

WH

When will the night bring its rest?

Reaper and gleaner and thresher

Peer toward the east and the west :

The Sower He knoweth, and He knoweth best.

Meteors flash forth and expire,

Northern lights kindle and pale ;
These are the days of desire,

Of eyes looking upward that fail;
Vanishing days as a finishing tale.

Bows down the crop in its glory
Tenfold, fifty-fold, hundred-fold;

The millet is ripened and hoary,

The wheat ears are ripened to gold :
Why keep us waiting in dimness and cold?

The Lord of the harvest, He knoweth
Who knoweth the first and the last :
The Sower Who patiently soweth,

He scanneth the present and past :

He saith, "What thou hast, what remaineth, hold fast."

Yet, Lord, o'er Thy toil-wearied weepers

The storm-clouds hang muttering and frown: On threshers and gleaners and reapers, O Lord of the harvest, look down;

Oh for the harvest, the shout, and the crown!

"Not so," saith the Lord of the reapers, The Lord of the first and the last : "O My toilers, My weary, My weepers, What ye have, what remaineth, hold fast. Hide in My heart till the vengeance be past.”

"OF HIM THAT WAS READY TO PERISH."

LORD, I am waiting, weeping, watching for Thee:

My youth and hope lie by me buried and dead, My wandering love hath not where to lay its head Except Thou say "Come to Me."

My noon is ended, abolished from life and light,
My noon is ended, ended and done away,

My sun went down in the hours that still were day,
And my lingering day is night.

How long, O Lord, how long in my desperate pain Shall I weep and watch, shall I weep and long for Thee?

Is Thy grace ended, Thy love cut off from me?

How long shall I long in vain?

O God Who before the beginning hast seen the end, Who hast made me flesh and blood, not frost and

not fire,

Who hast filled me full of needs and love and

desire

And a heart that craves a friend,