Work with the head and heart and hands,
And ever bear in mind
That there are sorrows here to sooth
And spirits bruised to bind,
And cords of love in closer bond
Round human hearts to wind.
'Tis true the flesh will ofttimes fail
When life is dim and drear;
Then closer cling to Him whose voice
Can still each doubt and fear,
And shed on these dark hearts of ours
Heaven's sunshine, calm and clear.
MISS EMMA LAZARUS was born in the city of New York, where she still lives, July 22, 1849. Her first volume of poems was issued in 1866, since which time she has contributed to the press a number of compositions both in prose and verse. This piece is based upon the following passage of Scripture: "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth; while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."— ECCL. xii. 1.
REMEMBER Him, the only One.
Now, ere the years flow by, Now, while the smile is on thy lip, The light within thine eye.
Now, ere for thee the sun have lost
Its glory and its light, And earth rejoice thee not with flowers, Nor with its stars the night. Now, while thou lovest earth, because She is so wondrous fair With daisies and with primroses, And sunlit, waving air;
And not because her bosom holds
Thy dearest and thy best,
And some day will thyself infold
In calm and peaceful rest.
Now, while thou lovest violets,
Because mid grass they wave,
And not because they bloom upon
Some early shapen grave.
Now, while thou lovest trembling stars,
But just because they shine,
And not because they 're nearer one
Who never can be thine.
Now, while thou lovest music's strains,
Because they cheer thy heart,
And not because from aching eyes
They make the tear-drops start.
Now, while thou lovest all on earth.
And deemest all will last,
Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face.
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong,
And the most ancient heavens, through thee,
are fresh and strong.
To humbler functions, awful power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice ;
The confidence of reason give;
And, in the light of truth, thy bondman let me live!
DAILY WORK.
IN the name of God advancing,
Sow thy seed at morning light;
Cheerily the furrows turning,
Labor on with all thy might.
Look not to the far-off future,
Do the work which nearest lies;
Sow thou must before thou reapest,
Rest at last is labor's prize.
Standing still is dangerous ever,
Toil is meant for Christians now;
Let there be, when evening cometh,
Honest sweat upon thy brow;
And the Master shall come smiling,
At the setting of the sun,
Saying, as he pays thy wages,
"Good and faithful one, well done!"
Translated from the German.
IF as a flower doth spread and die,
Thou wouldst extend me to some good,
Before I were by frosts' extremity
Nipt in the bud ;
The sweetness and the praise were thine ;
But the extension and the room,
Which in thy garland I should fill, were mine
At thy great doom.
For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glory be.
The measure of our joys is in this place,
The stuff with thee.
Who dares stand idle on the harvest plain,
While all around him waves the golden grain,
And every servant hears the Master say,
"Go, work to-day "?
The laborers are few, the field is wide;
New stations must be filled, and blanks sup-
From voices distant far, or near at home, The call is "Come."
The enemy is watching, night and day,
To sow the tares, to snatch the seed away:
While we in sleep our duty have forgot,
He slumbered not.
Away with gloomy doubt and faithless fear!
No arm so weak but may do service here;
By feeblest agents can our God fulfil
His righteous will.
No time for rest, till glows the western sky. While the long shadows o'er our pathway l'e And a glad sound comes with the setting sun, "Servants, well done!"
The toil is pleasant, the reward is sure; Blessed are those who to the end endure; How full their joy, how deep their rest shall be, O Lord, with thee!
WORK AND CONTEMPLATION.
THE Woman singeth at her spinning-wheel
A pleasant chant, ballad or barcarolle ;
She thinketh of her song, upon the whole,
Far more than of the flax; and yet the reel
s full, and artfully her fingers feel,
With quick adjustment, provident control,
The lines, too subtly twisted to unroll,
Out to a perfect thread. I hence appeal
To the dear Christian church, that we may do
Our Father's business in these temples mirk,
Thus swift and steadfast; thus intent and
strong
While, thus apart from toil, our souls pursue Some high, calm, spheric tune, and prove our work
The better for the sweetness of our song. ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
HEARING SOME BEAUTIFUL SINGING IN
A CONVENT CHURCH AT ROME.
SWEET Voices! seldom mortal ear
Strains of such potency might hear;
My soul that listened, seemed quite gone,
Dissolved in sweetness, and anon
I was borne upward, till I trod
Among the hierarchy of God.
And when they ceased, as time must bring
An end to every sweetest thing,
With what reluctancy came back
My spirits to their wonted track,
And how I loathed the common life,—
The daily and recurring strife
With petty sins, the lowly road,
And being's ordinary load!
- Why, after such a solemn mood,
Should any meaner thought intrude?
Why will not heaven hereafter give,
That we forevermore may live
Thus at our spirit's topmost bent?
So asked I in my discontent.
But give me, Lord, a wiser heart;
These seasons come, and they depart, —
These seasons, and those higher still,
When we are given to have our fill
Of strength, and life, and joy with thee,
And brightness of thy face to see!
They come, or we could never guess
Of heaven's sublimer blessedness;
They come, to be our strength and cheer
In other times, in doubt or fear,
Or should our solitary way
Lie through the desert many a day.
They go,
- they leave us blank and dead,
That we may learn, when they are fled,
We are but vapors which have won
A moment's brightness from the sun,
And which it may at pleasure fill
With splendor, or unclothe at will.
Well for us they do not abide,
Or we should lose ourselves in pride,
And be as angels, but as they
Who on the battlements of day
Walked, gazing on their power and might,
Till they grew giddy in their height.
Then welcome every nobler time,
When out of reach of earth's dull chime
'Tis ours to drink with purged ears
The music of the solemn spheres,
Or in the desert to have sight
Of those enchanted cities bright,
Which sensual eye can never see:
Thrice welcome may such seasons be;
But welcome too the common way,
The lowly duties of the day,
And all which makes and keeps us low,
Which teaches us ourselves to know,
That we who do our lineage high
Draw from beyond the starry sky,
Are yet upon the other side-
To earth and to its dust allied.
SERVE GOD AND BE CHEERFUL.
The motto of an English Bishop of the seventeenth century. SOBRIE, JUSTE, pie, laETE, was the kindred and comprehensive motto over the mantelpiece of one of his Puritan contemporaries [Nathaniel Ward], the witty minister of Ipswich, "our St. Hilary," as Mather calls him, or, as he calls himself in his own book, "The Simple Cobler of Agawam." W. N.
"SERVE God and be cheerful." The motto
Shall be mine, as the bishop's of old;
On my soul's coat-of-arms I will write it
In letters of azure and gold.
"Serve God and be cheerful," self-balanced,
Whether fortune smile sweetly or frown.
Christ stood king before Pilate. Within me
I carry the sceptre and crown.
"Serve God and be cheerful." Make brighter The brightness that falls to your lot ; The rare or the daily sent blessing Profane not with gloom and with doubt. "Serve God and be cheerful." Each sorrow
"Serve God and be cheerful." The darkness
Only masks the surprises of dawn;
And the deeper and grimmer the midnight,
The brighter and sweeter the morn.
Serve God and be cheerful." The winter
Rolls round to the beautiful spring,
And o'er the green grave of the snowdrift
The nest-building robins will sing.
"Serve God and be cheerful." Look upward!
God's countenance scatters the gloom; And the soft summer light of his heaven Shines over the cross and the tomb.
Serve God and be cheerful." The wrinkles
Of age we may take with a smile;
But the wrinkles of faithless foreboding
Are the crow's-feet of Beelzebub's guile.
"Serve God and be cheerful." Religion
Looks all the more lovely in white;
And God is best served by his servant
When, smiling, he serves in the light,
And lives out the glad tidings of Jesus
In the sunshine he came to impart,
For the fruit of his word and his Spirit
'Is love, joy, and peace" in the heart.
THE ABBEY WALK.
ALONE as I went up and down
In an abbey was fair to see,
Thinking what consolation
Was best in adversity,
On case I cast one side mine eye,
And saw this written on a wall,
"Of what estate, man, that thou be,
Obey, and thank thy God for all.”
Thy kingdom, and thy great empire,
Thy royalty, nor rich array,
Shall nought endure at thy desire,
But, as the wind, will wend away.
Thy gold, and all thy goodes gay,
When fortune list, will from thee fall;
Since thou such samples seest each day,
Obey, and thank thy God for all.
Though thou be blind, or have an halt,
Or in thy face deformed ill,
So it come not through thy default,
No man should thee reprove by skill.
Blame not thy Lord, so is his will:
Spurn not thy foot against the wall,
But with meek heart and prayer still,
Obey, and thank thy God for all.
God, of his justice, must correct,
And of his mercy, pity have:
He is a judge, to none suspect,
To punish sinful man and save.
Though thou be lord above the laif,3
And afterward made bound and thrall,
A poor beggar with scrip and staff,
Obey, and thank thy God for all.
In wealth be meek, heich not thyself,
Be glad in wilful poverty;
Thy power, and thy worldly pelf,
Is nought but very vanity:
Remember him that died on tree,
For thy sake tasted bitter gall;
Who heis low hearts and lowers high;
Obey, and thank thy God for all.
WE are scholars, nothing but scholars,
Little children at school,
Learning our daily lessons,
Subject to law and rule.
And still we go on, learning,
And learning to love our school;
Learning to love our Master,
Learning to love his rule.
And by and by we children
Shall grow into perfect men, And the loving, patient Master From school will dismiss us then.
No more tedious lessons,
No more sighing and tears, But a bound into home immortal, And blessed, blessed years! ELIZABETH PAYSON PRENTISS.
Golden, pleasant chains;
Passing earth's prime blessing- health, Endless, priceless gains;
Holy habits give thee place
With the noblest, best,
All most godlike, of thy race,
And with seraphs blest;
Holy habits are thy joy, Wisdom's pleasant ways, Yielding good without alloy, Lengthening, too, thy days.
Seek them, Christian, night and morn,
Seek them noon and even ;
Seek them till thy soul be born
Without stains — in heaven.
WHAT are we set on earth for? Say, to toil-
Nor seek to leave thy tending of the vines,
For all the heat o' day, till it declines,
And Death's mild curfew shall from work
God did anoint thee with his odorous oil,
To wrestle, not to reign; and he assigns
All thy tears over, like pure crystallines,
For younger fellow-workers of the soil
To wear for amulets. So others shall
Take patience, labor, to their heart and hand.
From thy hand, and thy heart, and thy brave
cheer,
And God's grace fructify through thee to all.
The least flower, with a brimming cup, may stand
And share its dew-drop with another near.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
THOMAS DAVIS is a native of Worcester, England, and a graduate of Queens College, Oxford, of 1832. He is the author of "Songs for the Suffering" and of "Devotional Verses for a Month."
SLOWLY fashioned, link by link,
Slowly waxing strong,
Till the spirit never shrink,
Save from touch of wrong.
JOSIAH GILBERT HOLLAND, the present editor of Scribner's Magazine, was born at Belchertown, Mass., July 24, 1819, and came to public notice as a writer for the Springfield Republican. His writings have been very popular, both in prose and verse.
HEAVEN is not reached at a single bound; But we build the ladder by which we rise From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies, And we mount to its summit round by round.
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