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as by the waves we sit,?Your bright sail winging shoreward--by and by?
Go, life, since go you must,?Uncertain guest and whimsical ally!?All questionless you came, unquestioned go;?What does it mean to live, or what to die??Smiling we watch you vanish, for we know?Somewhere is nobler living--by and by.
EBB AND FLOW.
How easily He turns the tides!?Just now the yellow beach was dry,?Just now the gaunt rocks all were bare,?The sun beat hot, and thirstily?Each sea-weed waved its long brown hair,?And bent and languished as in pain;?Then, in a flashing moment's space,?The white foam-feet which spurned the sand?Paused in their joyous outward race,?Wheeled, wavered, turned them to the land,?And, a swift legionary band,?Poured oil the waiting shores again.
How easily He turns the tides!?The fulness of my yesterday?Has vanished like a rapid dream,?And pitiless and far away?The cool, refreshing waters gleam:?Grim rocks of dread and doubt and pain
Rear their dark fronts where once was sea;?But I can smile and wait for Him?Who turns the tides so easily,?Fills the spent rock-pool to its brim,?And up from the horizon dim?Leads His bright morning waves again.
ANGELUS.
Softly drops the crimson sun:?Softly down from overhead,?Drop the bell-notes, one by one,?Melting in the melting red;?Sign to angel bands unsleeping,--?"Day is done, the dark is dread,?Take the world in care and keeping.
"Set the white-robed sentries close,?Wrap our want and weariness?In the surety of repose;?Let the shining presences,?Bearing fragrance on their wings,?Stand about our beds to bless,?Fright away all evil things.
"Rays of Him whose shadow pours?Through all lives a brimming glory,?Float o'er darksome woods and moors,?Float above the billows hoary;?Shine, through night and storm and sin,?Tangled fate and bitter story,?Guide the lost and wandering in!"
Now the last red ray is gone;?Now the twilight shadows hie;?Still the bell-notes, one by one,?Send their soft voice to the sky,?Praying, as with human lip,--?"Angels, hasten, night is nigh,?Take us to thy guardianship."
THE MORNING COMES BEFORE THE SUN.
Slow buds the pink dawn like a rose?From out night's gray and cloudy sheath;?Softly and still it grows and grows,?Petal by petal, leaf by leaf;?Each sleep-imprisoned creature breaks?Its dreamy fetters, one by one,?And love awakes, and labor wakes,--?The morning comes before the sun.
What is this message from the light?So fairer far than light can be??Youth stands a-tiptoe, eager, bright,?In haste the risen sun to see;?Ah! check thy lunging, restless heart,?Count the charmed moments as they run,?It is life's best and fairest part,?This morning hour before the sun.
When once thy day shall burst to flower,?When once the sun shall climb the sky,?And busy hour by busy hour,?The urgent noontide draws anigh;?When the long shadows creep abreast,?To dim the happy task half done,?Thou wilt recall this pause of rest,?This morning hush before the sun.
To each, one dawning and one dew,?One fresh young hour is given by fate,?One rose flush on the early blue.?Be not impatient then, but wait!?Clasp the sweet peace on earth and sky,?By midnight angels woven and spun;?Better than day its prophecy,--?The morning comes before the sun.
LABORARE EST ORARE.
"Although St. Franceses was unwearied in her devotions, yet if, during her prayers, she was called away by her husband or any domestic duty, she would close the book cheerfully, saying that a wife and a mother, when called upon, must quit her God at the alter to find Him in her domestic affairs."?--Legends of the Monastic Orders,
How infinite and sweet, Thou everywhere?And all abounding Love, Thy service is!?Thou liest an ocean round my world of care,?My petty every-day; and fresh and fair,?Pour Thy strong tides through all my crevices,?Until the silence ripples into prayer.
That Thy full glory may abound, increase,?And so Thy likeness shall be formed in me,?I pray; the answer is not rest or peace,?But charges, duties, wants, anxieties,?Till there seems room for everything but Thee,?And never time for anything but these.
And I should fear, but lo! amid the press,?The whirl and hum and pressure of my day,?I hear Thy garment's sweep, Thy seamless dress,?And close beside my work and weariness?Discern Thy gracious form, not far away,?But very near, O Lord, to help and bless.
The busy fingers fly, the eyes may see?Only the glancing needle which they hold,?But all my life it, blossoming inwardly,?And every breath is like a litany,?While through each labor, like a thread of gold,?Is woven the sweet consciousness of Thee.
EIGHTEEN.
Ah! grown a dim and fairy shade,?Dear child, who, fifteen years ago,?Out of our arms escaped and fled?With swift white feet, as if afraid,?To hide beneath the grass, the snow,?that sunny little head.
This is your birthday! Fair, so fair,?And grown to gracious maiden-height,?And versed in heavenly lore and ways;?White-vested as the angels are,?In very light of very light,?Somehow, somewhere, you keep the day
With those new friends, whom "new" we call,?But who are dearer now than we,?And better known by fate and name:?And do they smile and say, "How tall?The child becomes, how radiant, she?Who was so little