The soul, immortal, could not rest beneath
Earth's canopy of flowers and grassy sod;
Nor can we hold it by our love or grief-
Earth freed, it seeks its God.

THE UNSEEN PAINTER.

I sit and gaze at evening's hour
Where unseen pencils tint the sky;
As some great painters show their power
With mighty efforts ere they die.
Yet all unseen, though felt, the power

That spreads such glories for man's eye.

How poor and mean the gloss and glare
Of earthly fabrics to that sight,
Surely the Angels tints must wear

These, or with mornings' blush bedight,-
Or soft white clouds that float the air
Clothe every sinless child of light.

Hues change and pass to deep'ning gloom;
Yet bless the heart before they go,
And shed a glory round the room

Where we life's common things must know.

Yet pass they not to Night's dark womb

Till they have shown us Heaven's bright glow.

THE HIGHEST LOVE.

A subtile essence never born of sense,
Strongest when that which moves the senses fades ;
And shrinking ever from the glare of day,
As violets hide them in the lonely glades.
A strong out-reaching to another self
That which in self can no completeness find;
Thwarted, full oft, by earthly chance and time,
Yet soul to soul unknown can firmly bind;
And in its secret heart, unseen of all,

Holy of Holies where no feet intrude,

Pure and undimmed burns on the heavenly flame
And lights with silent joy the solitude.
And when unknown it passes to the skies,
Angels above, from earth see angels rise.

HUMAN HOPE.

Like to an airy bird,

With every feather stirred,

A skylark mounting upward to the sky;
What though its nest we pass

Where low winds wave the grass,
And butterflies and bees go flitting by!

It lives not in the Now

Though blossoms deck the bough,

The harvest field with golden spires it sees,

The seed falls in the ground;
It knows no burial mound,

But crimson fruits that glow amid the trees.

And when fierce storms do blow,
And bare boughs in the snow

Songless and flowerless stretch through gloom afar,
Still, still the angel Hope

Bids us with ills to cope,
And through the darkest shades see every star.

BEREAVEMENT.

There was a time

When Joy was daily guest;
Its flowers bloomed brightly
As in summer meadow;
But now forgotten

Is each early quest—

And all is shadow.

A shadow all?

The golden sunshine steals,

Its clasp falls lightly
As in soft caressing:
Nature unchanging,
Her glad face reveals
In daily blessing.

And there is joy,

Though our cup sorrow fills;
Spring brings her flowers
And lays them in our hand.
Leaping and singing

Rush the frolic rills
Throughout the land

And from grief's storm,-
Though not 'neath earthly skies,—
The soul now bending

In unspoken sadness,

Shall hear a kind voice
Say to it, "Arise!

Life still hath gladness."

A CRUSHED ROSEBUD.

A rosebud on the pavement lying,

Crushed by some traveller's heel in passing by; 'Twould seem a breath of fragrance e'en in dying Comes from the spot where its soiled petals lie.

A young girl lured within the city's bound,

Pure as the rose that decked her native hill— A spotless dove, where human hawks are found, And like the dove, without a thought of ill.

The evening breeze seeks vainly for the flower
That bloomed in beauty by the cottage door-
A shapeless mass, as hurrying hour by hour,
Each busy footstep crushed it more and more.
A faint, faint image of that deeper wrong,
That demon deed which blots out purity!
Its doer heeds no more than drunken song,
And welcomed by the world how oft is he!

O dying flower! kissed by the dewy morn,

The sun no more shall bless thee from on high; O fallen one! how long shall earth's deep scorn Tread thee to dust, and pass thy slayer by?

THE FASHION OF THIS WORLD PASSES AWAY.

How poor and mean the gauds and hoards of earth To those who watch the receding steps of love, E'en when those steps have turned from us above, And no more echo round the board and hearth.

We wonder why men toil and plough and sow
When earthly life at most is but a span ;—
Or why they hate and wrong their fellow-man,
When to their narrow graves how soon they go !

We wonder where the beauty once loved flies
And no more tints the tree, the grass, the flower;
And where the glory that once filled the skies,
The joys that gilded every passing hour.