Where is the Summer with flushed, rosy face,
Who bade thee linger on the green hill side,
And bade thy weary eyes earth's beauty trace?
Fair Summer, with her sunburnt rosy face?

Or where is Autumn harvest-blest and crowned, Who owed to thee, Old Year, his swelling grain, His ripened mast, his colored robe that wound Like a rich glory over hill and plain?

Alas! they all are gone, and thee bereft !
Old Winter follows thee with frozen feet,
The only one of many friends that's left,

His last gift brings to thee, a winding sheet.

As down the aisle of Time 'mid wind-swept leaves
With faltering steps the Old Year takes his way,—
Who bids him stay, or for his going grieves?
The weary Year amid the wind-swept leaves?

DEATH.

We call him Death!

We cannot see his angel face

With its unknown and heavenly grace;
Nor hear we what he saith.

Noiseless he comes

Unwelcome and unbidden guest.

Unseen, on his resistless quest,

He enters all our homes.

But they who go,

They see him lift the veil that lies
Like a dark mystery-his eyes

Must have a loving glow;

His voice must be

Oh, sweet! to lure them from our side.
He leads to Life! when we but say, "they died."
Oh! deep, deep mystery!

And all they leave;

Home love, home joys with us they knew,
Duties and pleasures, aye-and sorrows too ;-
Methinks they do not grieve.

Mysterious Guide!

To lure them willingly from out our arms,

How dost thou plead with them of unknown charms Unto our sense denied?

But we shall know

We, too, shall turn with gladness to thy call;
Earth's joys, earth's gifts, shall be to us no thrall,
But we with thee shall go.

LINES

On a box of Daffodils, bearing the motto "For cheery thoughts," sent us in mid-winter by our friend, R. A. S.

There is a love that seeks the lonely,

That bringeth sunshine wheresoe'er it wills,

That lives not for life's selfish pleasures only;
And this say to me all the Daffodils.

The breath of coming Spring these flowers bringing, A freight of fragrance on the chilly air;

Spring's birds e'en now within my heart are singing, And all the snowy hills fresh verdure wear.

'Tis sweet to know, when ice and snow are round us, And stormy threatening all the dark air fills,

Love's kindly thought unknown, hath sought and found

us,

And sent glad tidings by the Daffodils.

OUR FATHER.

The veil that hides the great Invisible
Lo! we may put aside by prayer—
And calling Father, in earth's twilight
May see and feel that He is there.

No towering wall of awful grandeur

Hides Him from our poor, trembling sight. Our Father does not leave his children Groping below in endless night.

Though want and care and pain may hold us,
His voice shall come like healing balm ;

In darkest hours His love enfold us,
And bid life's troubled waves be calm.

THE GENIUS OF THE PAST.

Silent she sits, Sphinx-like, amid the sands
That Time, relentless Time, has round her flung;
Their sexton-waves encompass her her hands
Powerless, that once men's souls in anguish wrung
With torture, blood and chains, fierce, fiendish hate,
That put to shame Religion's holy name !
Where blinded eyes saw not heaven's mystic gate
Open to angels, 'mid the curling flame.
Thy mighty works, O Past! are sad to view,
For they are sepulchres that hold men's bones;
Whose vast proportions crushed men as they grew,
And breathe e'en now of unpaid misery's moans.
And thou, with stony eyes, beheld'st it all,
While we, unknown of Life, heard not its call.

SUNSET AND STARLIGHT.

Lift up the curtains gloriously

O hands of coming Eve!

And let the sad tints fade away

Like thoughts of those who grieve;
And let the waiting eyes afar

Behold the golden gates ajar.

Light up the candles, hands of Night,
And tell us of that home

Amid thy starry halls of light,

Where weary steps shall come,

Away from griefs and cares of earth

To find a shelter round God's hearth.

SWEET SUMMER TIME.

Sweet summer time, whither away?
Upon thy robe the flowerets lay
Soft fingers, pleading thee to stay.

The blue skies smiling overhead
Would, darkened, weep to see thee dead;
The breezes, too, would miss thy tread,

As wandering through the purpled grass
They bend it low to see thee pass—
If thou must go-to grieve, alas !

Oh, stay! to hear each warbler's song
Amid the boughs, a happy throng;
Their joy doth half to thee belong.

Around thy hills and o'er the wold
Stay, Midas-like, to scatter gold!
Thy sunny hours a glory hold.

Who will not miss thy golden hours,
Thy heaven-taught birds, thy smiling flowers-
Man's sole bequest from Eden's bowers?

FLOWERS.

[A vestige of Eden.]

Out of creation speaks the voice that formed,

The breath of Heaven Earth's inmost soul has warmed.