Laughing children run to meet her From the home-door opened wide;

Loving words and kisses greet her, Pattering feet run by her side;

All the home comes forth to meet her.

III.

Look once more! a pilgrim weary Standeth in the twilight gray;

All around is strange and dreary,
And she asks, with plaintive query,
"Can you show the homeward way?
Lead me homeward: I am weary."

Then a Presence stood to guide her,
Pointed where the way did lie;
Gently spoke and walked beside her
To a gateway dim and high.

"Home," she breathed, with restful sigh,
To the Presence that did guide her.

IV.

Homeward still, the tiny maiden,
Motherhood, love and care laden,
Age, with weight of years oppressed,
Homeward turn for love and rest.
And the home, with open door,
Waits with "Welcome" evermore.

W. H. Savage.

The Sunset Way.

THE sun that sinks when Eventide Sits veiled, with dewy eyes,

Beside the gateway of the West,

On other lands doth rise.

The life that sinks, when failing breath Is hushed to stillness at the last,

Veiled in the mystery of death,

Is as a star when clouds sweep past.

Night's gateway is the gate of Dawn, Death's gate the gate of Birth;

The sun that set is shining on;

The soul now lost to earth,

Emerging from the brief eclipse By evening shadows cast,

Smiles, star-like, in that other morn Where pain and death are past.

And, spreading fair and sweet before, Are fields of rest and peace,

Where joy doth sing for evermore, And love doth still increase.

O friends, who take the sunset way And fear the coming night,

Each sunset is a birth of day, Your steps approach the light.

Love cannot die: eternity

Shall keep your sacred trust, be sure;
"For God is love," and heaven must be
A home where love may dwell secure.

Look onward! High above the tomb The omens of the morning shine!

The evening has its transient gloom, The morrow comes with beams divine.

W. H. Savage.

The Finished Life.

THERE'S a beauty of the spring-time
With its fresh grass and its flowers,
With the song-birds in the branches
And the children's happy hours.

But there is no less of beauty

When the leaves turn gold and brown

In the short'ning days of autumn,

And far south the birds have flown.

If the rough hand of the tempest
Tears away the fresh young leaves
Over youthful vigor wasted,

Who can wonder if one grieves?

But when off the autumn branches
Drop the brown leaves one by one,
Seems it then as fair and fitting
As the setting of the sun.

Here the old man by the fireside

Backward looks through tender tears,
And he says, "With wife and children
Trod I long and happy years."

As he sitteth by the window,
Looking o'er the city ways,
Whispers he, "Success and honor
Have been mine in gone by days.

"I have seen the world's fair beauty;
I have tasted all its sweet;
Now, beyond my two and threescore,
Life for me is all complete.

"For the face of her who loved me
Beckons to me far away:

I have wrought the work God gave me,
Then why should I longer stay?"

And O friends, who'd dare to keep him?
Let us sound no fun'r'al knell;
But say of his life, "Twas blessed!"
And say of his death, "'Tis well!"

M. J. S.

“Better Off.”

"HE'S better off." With words like these Kind friends their comfort try to speak.

None doubts it of a man like him;

Yet far off sound the words, and weak.

The heart that loves is not content,
How well soe'er the loved one be,

To have him happy far away,

But cries, "I want him still with me!"

That other country may be fair,

Brighter than aught the earth has shown,

But better any place with him

Than to be left here all alone.

Thus pleads the heart that God has made,-
He cannot blame what he has given,—
For heaven without love could not be,
And, having love, the earth is heaven.

The folded hands, the closing eyes,

The yielding up of failing breath,— These not the worst: to tear apart Two hearts that truly love is death.

Since love is all the joy of life,

In earth below or heaven above,
Somewhere, we cannot help but trust,
God keeps for us the ones we love.

Like ships the storms drive far apart
Wide o'er the sea 'neath cloud and sun.

We still sail for the self-same port,

And meet there when the voyage is done.

And as we tell the story o'er,

How we were driven by the blast,

More sweet will be those sunny hours
By contrast with the sorrows past.

Death's Lesson.

FROM these closed eyes, and these white lips
Where loving smiles no longer play,

What to the ear that silence hears,

Does Death to us, the living, say?

"Sweet friends, the words of love you wish
You'd said to me while I could hear
Take heed, in days to come, you speak
To living ones who still are near.

M. J. S.

'No more for me can you do aught,

Save make the flowers bloom where I sleep: But hearts of living ones still ache,

And eyes of living ones still weep.

"Pour out on them the love and care

You wish you could on me bestow: Then, when some other falls asleep, O'er vain regrets no tears shall flow."

Death, then, would teach us how to live,-
How we shall die need give no care,—
Live as we'll wish we had; and then
Death's face becomes divinely fair.

A. K. C.

WHEN falls the night upon the earth,
And all in shadow lies,

The sun's not dead: his radiance still
Beams bright on other skies.

And when the dawn star groweth dim
Upon the brow of morn,

It still shines on, though earthly eyes,
That miss it, grow forlorn.

Some other world is glad to see

Our star that's gone away:

The light whose going makes our night
Makes somewhere else a day.

The feet that cease there walking here,
Tired of the way they've trod,
With strength renewed go travelling
The pathway up to God.

The hand whose patient fingers now

Have laid earth's labor by,
With loving skill has taken up

Some higher ministry.

M. J. S