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RESIGNATION.

Then, then it is Faith's tear-dimmed eyes
See through ethereal space,
Amidst the angel-crowded skies,

That dear, that well-known face.

With beckoning hand she seems to say,
"Though, all her sufferings o'er,
Your little one is borne away

To this celestial shore,

"Doubt not she longs to welcome you
To her glad, bright abode,

There, happy, endless ages through,

To live with her and God."

REV. W. CALVERT.

RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel for her children crying
Will not be comforted!

RESIGNATION.

Let us be patient! these severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors ;
Amid these earthly damps

What seem to us but dim, funereal tapers

May be Heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! what seems so is transition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead the child of our affection

But gone unto that school,

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,
And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives - whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year her tender steps pursuing,
Behold her grown more fair.

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RESIGNATION.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times, impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean
That cannot be at rest;

We will be patient! and assuage the feeling

We cannot wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

LONGFELLOW.

THE ALPINE SHEPHERD.

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THE ALPINE SHEPHERD.

WHEN on my ear your loss was knelled.
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little rill from memory swelled,

Which once had soothed my bitter thirst.

And I was fain to bear to you
Some portion of their mild relief,
That it might be as healing dew,
To steal some fever from your grief.

After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death
Like a long twilight haunting lay;

And friends came round with us to weep
Her little spirit's swift remove,

This story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love :

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They in the valley's sheltering care Soon crop the meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare,

The shepherd strives to make them climb

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THE ALPINE SHEPHERD.

"To airy shelves of pasture green,

That hang along the mountain's side,
Where grass and flowers together lean,

And down through mist the sunbeams slide.

"But naught can tempt the timid things
The steep and rugged path to try,
Though sweet the shepherd calls and sings,
And seared below the pastures lie,

"Till in his arms the lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go,

Then, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rock and snow.

"And in those pastures lifted fair,

More dewy soft than lowland mead,
The shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed."

This parable, by Nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south-wind free
O'er frozen brooks, that float unsheathed
From icy thraldom to the sea.

A blissful vision through the night
Would all my happy senses sway,
Of the Good Shepherd on the height,
Or climbing up the starry way,