D

A LITANY

Phineas Fletcher

ROP, drop, slow tears,

And bathe those beauteous feet
Which brought from Heaven

The news and Prince of Peace.

Cease not, wet eyes,

His mercy to entreat:
To cry for vengeance

Sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods

Drown all my faults and fears;

Nor let His eye

See sin, but through my tears.

Recompense

RECOMPENSE

By E. E. H. in London "Pilot."

HAT shall we have who toiled all night through tempest,

W

At nets let down in vain, or laboring

oar?

Yonder, the morn breaks, and, beyond the breaking,

A Watcher and a welcome on the shore!

What shall we have whose little hoard of twilight
Came nearest to the light of others' day?

God gave to all the blue dome of His building—

Only earth's clouds between were sometimes gray.

What shall we have who missed life's loveliest meanings

Who bore the burden of the incomplete? There is a wider room for our probation,

And we shall know our missed things when we meet !

What shall we have on whom Time laid for guerdon
The pricking brier and the grieving thorn?
How many an earthly trail of piercing shadow
Hedged up in bud a heavenly rose unborn!

What shall we have whose ghostly galleons foundered,

No man may know in what unfathomed seas? All seas give up the dead things in their keeping; Even our ships of dream? Yea, even these!

ΙΟΙ

S

THE GUEST

Harriet McEwen Kimball

PEECHLESS Sorrow sat with me;
I was sighing wearily;

Lamp and fire were out; the rain
Wildly beat the window-pane.

In the dark I heard a knock,

And a hand was on the lock;
One in waiting spake to me,
Saying sweetly,

"I am come to sup with thee."

All my room was dark and damp:
"Sorrow," said I, "Trim the lamp,
Light the fire, and cheer thy face,
Set the guest-chair in its place."
And again I heard the knock;
In the dark I found the lock:
"Enter, I have turned the key;
Enter Stranger,

Who art come to sup with me."

Opening wide the door he came,
But I could not speak his name;
In the guest-chair took his place,
But I could not see his face.
When my cheerful fire was beaming,
When my little lamp was gleaming,
And the feast was spread for three,
Lo, my Master

Was the Guest that supped with me!

Thalassa! Thalassa!

I

THALASSA! THALASSA!

CRY OF THE TEN THOUSAND

Joseph Brownlee Brown

STAND upon the summit of my life:

Behind, the camp, the court, the field, the

grove,

The battle and the burden; vast, afar,

Beyond these weary ways, Behold! the Sea!
The sea o'erswept by clouds and winds and wings,
By thoughts and wishes manifold, whose breath
Is freshness and whose mighty pulse is peace.
Palter no question of the horizon dim,
Cut loose the bark; such voyage itself is rest,
Majestic motion, unimpeded scope,

A widening heaven, a current without care,
Eternity!-deliverance, promise, course!
Time-tired souls salute thee from the shore.

THE OTHER WORLD

Harriet Beecher Stowe

T lies around us like a cloud,

I

The world we do not see;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring us there to be.

Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks
Amid our worldly cares;

Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.

Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between,
With breathings almost heard.

The silence, awful, sweet, and calm,
They have no power to break;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.

So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,
So near to press they seem,

They lull us gently to our rest,

They melt into our dream.