FOLLOW THOU ME. With thee and with thy saints to cast my Ah, my dear Lord, let me not be forgot, lot: 229 Let me not live in vain! Can we not part in silence, since for ever, This world and I? From scorn and taunt refrain? Must it still hate and wound? still stir the fever Of this poor throbbing brain? Ah, yes, it must be so, my God, my God; "Tis the true discipline, the needed rod, Else I should live in vain! The foe is strong,—his venomed rage I dread, But more than this, oh give me toiling faith, Restore to me the freshness of my youth, And give me back my soul's keen edge again: Ah, let my spring return! bright hope and truth Shall I not you regain? No wasted life, my God, shall mine now be, Hours, days, and years filled up with toil for thee: I shall not live in vain! VANITY. Τα άληθως ἀγαθα οὐκ ἐστιν ἐν τῇ κατηραμενη γῆ .-ORIGEN. NAY 'tis not that we fancied it, This magic world of ours; We thought its skies were only blue, Its streams all summer-bright and glad, Green avenue of palms. But clouds came up with glooom and shade, Our sky was overcast, The hot mist threw its blight around, Sunshine and flowers went past. Hopes perished, that had hung like wreaths Around youth's buoyant brow, And joys, like withered autumn leaves, Dropped from the shaken bough. Yet from these clouds comes forth the light,Light beaming from on high; And from these faded flowers spring up The flowers that can not die. Far fairer is the land we seek, Far sunnier than the hills of time Are its eternal hills; Far fresher than the rills of earth Are its eternal rills. No blight can fall upon its flowers, For Christ, its sun, is there. 232 MACHPELAH. O Sun of love and peace, arise, And all this world a dream. MACHPELAH. ONLY a tomb, no more! A rock-hewn sepulchre, And this, and this is all that's thine, Only a tomb, no more! A future resting-place, When God shall lay thee down, and bid This cave and field,—no more, Canst thou thy dwelling call; That land of thine,-plains, hills, woods, streams, The stranger has it all! MACHPELAH. Thy altar and thy tent Are all that thou hast here: With these content, thou passest on, Thy life unrest and toil; Thy course a pilgrimage; Only in death thou goest down, To claim thy heritage ; A heritage which death Shall seal to thee for aye, A resurrection-heritage When all things pass away. A home of endless peace, Beyond these hills of strife; When these old rocks give up their dead, And death shall end in life. A heritage of life, Beyond this guarded gloom, A kingdom, not a field or cave; 233 |