Are but His signs, Who lonely paced

The midnight waters drear.
A spirit o'er the heaving waste
He seemed they cried for fear.

Hark! in the gale how softly thrills
The voice that wakes the dead!
Happy, whose ear such music fills
By night upon his bed.

""Tis I," He saith: "be not afraid !"

Whether in ocean vast,

Or where across the moonlight glade
Strange woodland shapes are cast,

Or flickering shadows come and go
In weary hours of gloom,

While midnight lamps burn dim and low,
Round some mysterious room,

One only spell hath power to soothe
When thoughts and dreams appal.

Name thou His Name, Who is the Truth,
And He will hear thy call;

Loneliness.

As when new-risen on Easter night
Amid His own He stood,

Fear with His sudden shade, calm might
Came with His Flesh and Blood;

Him name in Faith, and softly make
The sign to Angels known.

So never need thy young heart ache
In silence and alone.

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4.

SHYNESS.

"Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God."

TEAR not away the veil, dear friend,

Nor from its shelter rudely rend

The heaven-protected flower:

It waits for sun and shower

To woo it kindly forth in its own time,

And when they come, untaught will know its hour of prime.

Blame not the eye that from thee turns,

The cheek that in a moment burns

With tingling fire so bright,

Feeling thine eager sight,—

The lowly drooping brow, the stammering tongue, The giddy wavering thought, scarce knowing right

and wrong.

Shyness.

What if herein weak Nature own

Her trembling underneath His Throne,

Whose eye can ne'er depart

From our frail evil heart?

Who knows how near His look of awful love

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The gaze of aged men may to the young heart prove?

The springs of silent awe, that dwell
Deepest in heart, will highest swell,

When in His destined hour

He calls them out in power.

Hide thou thy face, and fear to look on God,
Else never hope to grasp the wonder-working rod.

With quivering hands that closely fold
Over his downcast eyes, behold

The Shepherd on the Mount

Adores the Living Fount

Of pure unwasting fire: no glance he steals,

But in his heart's deep joy the Dread Eye gazing feels,

Feels it, and gladlier far would die
Than let it go. There will he lie

Till the Dread Voice return,

And he the lore may learn

Of his appointed task-bold deeds to dare, High mysteries to impart, deep penances to bear.

Ere long to the same holy place
He will return, and face to face
Upon the glory gaze,

Then onward bear the rays

To Israel priest and people from his glance

Will shrink, as he from God's in that deep Horeb

trance.

Then tear we not the veil away,

Nor ruthless tell in open day

The tender spirit's dream.

O let the deepening stream

Might from the mountain-springs in silence draw. O mar we not His work, who trains His saints in awe!