Life of our life, and Light of all our seeing,
How shall we rest on any hope but thee?
What time our souls, to thee for refuge fleeing,
Long for the home where there is no more sea?
For still this sea of life, with endless wailing,
Dashes above our heads its blinding spray,
And vanquished hearts, sick with remorse and failing,
Moan like the waves at set of autumn day.
And ever round us swells the insatiate ocean
Of sin and doubt that lures us to our grave;
When its wild billows, with their mad commotion,
Would sweep us down—then only thou canst save.
And deep and dark the fearful gloom unlighted
Of that untried and all-surrounding sea,
On whose bleak shore arriving-lone-benighted,
We fall and lose ourselves at last in thee.
Yea! in thy life our little lives are ended,
Into thy depths our trembling spirits fall;
In thee enfolded, gathered, comprehended,
As holds the sea her waves
thou hold'st us all!
Eliza Scudder.
Within the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good.
I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long;
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And he can do no wrong.
I will not think the last farewell we hear,
Is more than brief “good-bye" that a friend saith,
Turning toward home, that to our home lies near;
I will not think so harshly of kind death.
I will not think the last looks of dear eyes,
Fade with the light that fades of our dim air;
But that the apparent glories of the skies
Weigh down their lids with beams too bright to bear.
Our dead have left us for no dark, strange lands,
Unwelcomed there, and with no friends to meet;
But hands of angels hold the trembling hands,
And hands of angels guide the faltering feet.
I will not think the soul gropes dumb and blind,
A brief space through our world, death-doomed from birth;
I will not think that Love shall ever find
A fairer heaven than he made of earth.
The Excursion."
One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only;
;-an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power,
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to Good.
The darts of anguish fix not where the seat
Of suffering hath been thoroughly fortified
By acquiescence in the Will Supreme
For time and for eternity; by faith,
Faith absolute in God, including hope;
And the defence that lies in boundless love
Of his perfections; with habitual dread
Of aught unworthily conceived, endured
Impatiently, ill done or left undone,
To the dishonor of his holy Name.
Soul of our souls, and safeguard of the world,
Sustain, thou only canst, the sick of heart!
William Wordsworth.
Our beloved have departed,
While we tarry, heavy-hearted,
In the dreary, empty house:
They have ended life's brief story,
They have reached the home of glory,
Over death victorious.
Hush that sobbing, weep more lightly;
On we travel, daily, nightly,
To the rest that they have found.
Are we not upon the river,
Sailing fast, to meet forever
On more holy, happy ground?
On we haste, to home invited,
There with friends to be united
In a surer bond than here;
Meeting soon, and met forever!
Glorious Hope, forsake us never,
For thy glimmering light is dear!
Ah! the way is shining clearer,
As we journey ever nearer
To the everlasting home;
Comrades, who await our landing,
Friends, who round the throne are standing,
We salute you, and we come!
From the German.
(Littell's "Living Age.")
All as God wills, who wisely heeds
To give or to withhold,
And knoweth more of all my needs
Than all my prayers have told!
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