You will find in blade and blossom,

Sweet small voices, odorous, Tender pleaders of my cause, That shall speak me as I was, When the grass grows over me.

When the grass shall cover me! Ah, beloved in my sorrow, Very patient can I wait; Knowing that or soon or late, There will dawn a clearer morrow: When your heart will moan, "Alas, Now I know how true she was; Now I know how dear she was,' When the grass grows over me.

UNKNOWN.

AGAIN.

O, SWEET and fair! O, rich and rare! That day so long ago.

The autumn sunshine everywhere,

The heather all aglow,

The ferns were clad in cloth of gold,

The waves sang on the shore.
Such suns will shine, such waves will sing
Forever evermore.

O, fit and few! O, tried and true!
The friends who met that day.
Each one the other's spirit knew,

And so in earnest play

The hours flew past, until at last

The twilight kissed the shore. We said, "Such days shall come again Forever evermore.

One day again, no cloud of pain

A shadow o'er us cast;

And yet we strove in vain, in vain,
To conjure up the past;

Like, but unlike, -the sun that shone,
The waves that beat the shore,
The words we said, the songs we sung,
Like, — unlike, —evermore.

For ghosts unseen crept in between,

And, when our songs flowed free, Sang discords in an undertone,

And marred our harmony. "The past is ours, not yours," they said: "The waves that beat the shore, Though like the same, are not the same, O, never, never more!"

The sails, like flakes of roseate pearl,

Float in upon the mist; The waves are broken precious stones, Sapphire and amethyst, Washed from celestial basement walls By suns unsetting kissed. Out through the utmost gates of space, Past where the gay stars drift, To the widening Infinite, my soul Glides on, a vessel swift; Yet loses not her anchorage In yonder azure rift.

Here sit I, as a little child:

The threshold of God's door

Is that clear band of chrysoprase ;
Now the vast temple floor,
The blinding glory of the dome
I bow my head before :
The universe, O God, is home,

In height or depth, to me;
Yet here upon thy footstool green
Content am I to be;
Glad, when is opened to my need
Some sea-like glimpse of thee.

275

NANCY A. W. PRIEST. 277

"I WILL ABIDE IN THINE HOUSE."
AMONG SO many, can He care?
Can special love be everywhere?
A myriad homes, -a myriad ways, -
And God's eye over every place.

Over; but in? The world is full;
A grand omnipotence must rule;
But is there life that doth abide
With mine own living, side by side?

So many, and so wide abroad:
Can any heart have all of God?
From the great spaces, vague and dim,
May one small household gather Him?

We know she is safe on the farther side, Where all the ransomed and angels be; Over the river, the mystic river,

My childhood's idol is waiting for me.

For none return from those quiet shores, Who cross with the boatman cold and pale;

We hear the dip of the golden oars,

And catch a gleam of the snowy sail,And lo! they have passed from our yearning heart;

They cross the stream, and are gone for aye;

We may not sunder the veil apart,

That hides from our vision the gates of day.

We only know that their barks no more May sail with us o'er life's stormy sea; Yet somewhere, I know, on the unseen shore,

They watch, and beckon, and wait for me.

And I sit and think, when the sunset's

The look, the air, that frets thy sight
May be a token that below
The soul has closed in deadly fight
With some infernal fiery foe,
Whose glance would scorch thy smiling
grace,

And cast thee shuddering on thy face!

The fall thou darest to despise,

Has suffered it, that he may rise
May be the angel's slackened hand

And take a firmer, surer stand;
Or, trusting less to earthly things,
May henceforth learn to use his wings.

And judge none lost; but wait and see,
With hopeful pity, not disdain;
The depth of the abyss may be

The measure of the height of pain
And love and glory that may raise
This soul to God in after days!