NIGHT is the time for rest:
How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Down on our own delightful bed!
Night is the time for dreams;
The gay romance of life,
When truth that is, and truth that seeins
Mix in fantastic strife:
Ah! visions, less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by day-light are.
Night is the time for toil;
To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang and heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep;
To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory The joys of other years;
Hopes, that were angels at their birth, But died when young like things of earth.
O FATHER! raise me from these clouds of time,
My soul is darken'd with its doubts and fears;
Bless and exalt me with those hopes subiime,
Which still are brightening through eternal years.
For I am but of dust; my largest thought
Can scarcely reach beyond this speck of earth,
Senseless alike my sorrow and my mirth;
I weep-yet know not how a tear is wrought;
I smile and yet am ignorance and clay;
O thou great Being, who hast form'd my spirit,
Console me, teach me how I
may inherit
The heaven thou offerest, thine eternal day.
Rouse all my drooping faculties; for thee
I fain would kindle heart, and mind, and soul.
Alas! what am I? as my brief years roll,
How vain the aim to reach infinity,
To know Omniscience; yet I can believe
That thou, O God! art Glory, Light, and Love;
Some shadow of thy attributes conceive,
In every daily mercy that I prove.
Yes! not a sunbeam meets my raptured eye,
And not a breeze plays softly on my cheek,
And not a pale star lights the evening sky,
But of thy glory to my soul they speak;
And oft as morn, with pure, reviving gale,
And night with shades of beauty, and repose,
Bring their sweet change, O how my rapt heart glows,
Thy care, thy love, thy guardian power to hai..
And thus indeed I know thee-ever feeling
Eternal tenderness, unbounded blessing;
Whether I smile or weep, alike possessing
My life in kindness, stili alike revealing
Good, good in every thing; yes-even these tears
Are nature's blest relief, and they may turn
To gems of light in those immortal spheres
Where love is understood, and angels never mourn.
SHE bowed her head before the throne
Of the eternal King
The sun upon her forehead shone
With the first light of spring;
In meekness and in love she stood,
A thing of mortal care;
But pure and strong is womanhood
In faithfulness and prayer.
She had been chastened with that woe
The young heart, in its pride,
Ill bears when wakening from the glow
Love's happy dreams supplied;
But she had in her weakness sought
The Spirit's strength and food;
And faith within her sou. had wrought
A deep and fervent mood.
The people of her fathers' land
Had left their onward path;
And God had raised his threatening hand
Against them in his wrath;
Her voice arose with theirs-the few
Who still were faithful there;
And peace was given, and healing dew,
To woman's voice of prayer.
The king sat in his purple state,
And power-dominion-robed;
But there was darkness in his fate,
His sick'ning heart was probed;
And priest and peer their vows preferr'd
With quick and courtier care;
But whose on high was soonest heard?
Sad woman's lonely prayer.
Wild war was raging-proudly rose
The chieftains of the realm;
And thousands met their country's foes
With spear and crested helm-
And thousands fell, and wrathful men
Raged in their mad despair;
What heard the God of battles then?
Meek woman's secret prayer.
Oh! strong is woman in the
Of loveliness and youth;
And rich in her heart's treasured dower
Of strong, unchanging truth;
But who may tell her spirit's might,
Above what strength may dare,
When in life's troubles and its night
ffer heart is bowed in prayer?
WHEN the first day-beam bless'd the sky,
I marked the varied clouds on high,-
The clouds through which the sun-light broke,
As if it came from heaven, and woke
Their sleepy shadows into smiles,
And wooed them with a thousand wiles:-
Those at a distance yet, were cold
And dull and naked, after night;
But on, toward the east, they roll'd,
And clad them in a robe of light.
Others, as if they loved to dwell
In darkness, moved but slowly on,
And when on them its brightness fell,
But little of their gloom had gone:
One, gloomier still, its course delays,
As though too heavy for the sky,
Then breaks and passes gaily by :-
While some had gathered round the rays
That gave them hues and forms so fair,
As loath to leave that glorious place,
To lose their beauty, and to trace
Their pathway through the murky air.
I marked, when day was at its height,
Others of many a varied dye,
More fair of form, more purely bright
Than those that deck'd the morning sky,
And gazed, 'till over all on high
The sun held uncontrolled sway,
And chased from heaven all gloom away,
While the few clouds that o'er it past,
No beam obscured, no shadow cast.
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