THE HOME SICKNESS.

29

It is not that the cross

Is heavier than this drooping frame can bear,
Or that I find no kindred heart to share

The burden, which, in these last days of ill,
Seems to press heavier, sharper, sorer still,-
But I am homesick!

It is not that the snare

Is laid around for my unwary feet,
And that a thousand wily tempters greet

My slippery steps and lead me far astray

From that safe guidance of the narrow way,But I am homesick!

It is not that the path

Is rough and perilous, beset with foes,
From the first step down to its weary close,

Strewn with the flint, the briar, and the thorn,

That wound my limbs and leave my raiment torn, But I am homesick!

It is not that the sky

Is darkly sad, and the unloving air

Chills me to fainting; and the clouds that there

30

THE HOME SICKNESS.

Hang over me seem signal clouds unfurled, Portending wrath to an unready world,— But I am homesick!

It is not that the earth

Has grown less bright and fair,-that these grey hills,

These ever-lapsing, ever-lulling rills,

And these breeze-haunted woods, that ocean clear, Have now become less beautiful, less dear,— But I am homesick!

Let me, then, weary be!

I shrink not,-murmur not;

In all this homelessness I see

The Church's pilgrim-lot ;

Her lot until her absent Lord shall come,
And the long homeless here, shall find a home.

Then no more weariness!

No gathering cloud of gloom;
Then no dull weight of loneliness,

No greedy cravings for the tomb :
For death shall then be swallowed up of life,
And the glad victory shall end the strife!

THE LAND OF LIGHT.

THAT clime is not this dull clime of ours;

All, all is brightness there;

A sweeter influence breathes around its flowers,
And a far milder air.

No calm below is like that calm above.
No region here is like that realm of love;
Earth's softest spring ne 'er shed so soft a light,
Earth's brightest summer never shone so bright.

That sky is not like this sad sky of ours,

Tinged with earth's change and care:
No shadow dims it, and no rain-cloud lowers,-
No broken sunshine there!

One everlasting stretch of azure pours
Its stainless splendor o'er these sinless shores;
For there Jehovah shines with heavenly ray,
There Jesus reigns dispensing endless day.

32

THE LAND OF LIGHT.

Those dwellers there are not like these of earth,
No mortal stain they bear;

And yet they seem of kindred blood and birth,—
Whence, and how came they there?
Earth was their native soil, from sin and shame,
Through tribulation they to glory came;
Bond-slaves delivered from sin's crushing load,
Brands plucked from burning by the hand of God.

Those robes of theirs are not for these below;
No angel's half so bright!

Whence came that beauty, whence that living glow?
Whence came that radiant white?

Washed in the blood of the atoning Lamb,
Fair as the light those robes of theirs became,
And now, all tears wiped off from every eye,
They wander where the freshest pastures lie,
Through all the nightless day of that unfading
sky!

THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN.

ON THE GREAT EXHIBITION, 1851.

HA! yon burst of crystal splendor,
Sunlight, starlight, blent in one;
Starlight set in arctic azure,

Sunlight from the burning zone!·
Gold and silver, gems and marble,
All creation's jewelry;

Earth's uncovered waste of riches,
Treasures of the ancient sea.
Heir of glory,

What is that to thee and me?

Iris and Aurora braided

How the woven colors shine!
Snow-gleams from an Alpine summit,

Torch-light from a spar-roofed mine.