Sick or healthful, slave or free, So his love to Christ endure? Only, since our souls will shrink Suspiria. Keble. AKE them, O Death! and bear away Take them, O Grave! and let them lie As garments by the soul laid by, Take them, O great Eternity! Our little life is but a gust, That bends the branches of thy tree, And trails its blossoms in the dust! Longfellow. Mortality. "And we shall be changed." E dainty mosses, lichens grey, Brown leaves, that with aërial grace Slip from your branch like birds a-wing, Each leaving in the appointed place Its bud of future spring; If we, God's conscious creatures, knew But with an equal patience sweet, Content to re-appear. Knowing each germ of life He gives May change, but never dies. Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow, Go to your graves, as I will go, For God is also there. My Times are in Thy hand. T ATHER, I know that all my life And the changes that are sure to come But I ask Thee for a patient mind, I ask Thee for a thoughtful love, I would not have the restless will I would be treated as a child, Wherever in the world I am, I have a fellowship with hearts And a work of lowly love to do For the Lord on whom I wait. So I ask Thee for the daily strength, And a mind to blend with outward life, While keeping at thy side; Content to fill a little space, So Thou be glorified. And if some things I do not ask, I would have my spirit filled the more There are briars besetting every path, That call for patient care; And an earnest need for prayer; In a service that Thy love appoints, There are no bonds for me; For my secret heart is taught "the truth," That makes Thy children "free," And a life of self-renouncing love, Is a life of liberty. A. L. Waring. Milton on his Blindness. AM old and blind; Men point at me as smitten by God's frown, Afflicted and deserted by my kind; Yet I am not cast down. I am weak, yet strong; I murmur not that I no longer seePoor, old, and helpless, I the more belong, Father supreme! to Thee. O merciful One! When men are farthest, then Thou art most near; When friends pass by, my weakness shun, Thy chariot I hear. Thy glorious face Is leaning towards me, and its holy light Shines in upon my lonely dwelling place, And there is no more night. I recognise Thy purpose, clearly shewn ; My vision Thou hast dimmed that I may see Thyself Thyself alone. I have nought to fear; This darkness is but the shadow of Thy wing: Beneath it I am almost sacred, here Can come no evil thing. |