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Emblem, when life's day is closing
Of the deep repose of home;
Storms the joy of calm redoubling

In the mansions of the blest;

Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

Watton, 1847.

III.

66 "AND SO HE BRINGETH THEM TO THE HAVEN WHERE

THEY WOULD BE."

YES, billow after billow - see they come

Faster and rougher, as her little boat

Nears evermore the haven.

Oftentimes

It seems to sink and fall adown the wave,

As if borne backward by the struggling tide:

Yet mounting billow after billow, wave

On wave o'er-riding, tempest-tost and shatter'd,

Still, still it nears the haven evermore.

"Poor mariner, art thou not sadly weary?"

Dear brother, rest is sweeter after toil.

"Grows not thine eye confused and dim with sight

Of nothing but the wintry waters?" True,

But then my pole-star, constant and serene,
Above the changing waters changes not.
"But what if clouds, as often, veil the sky?
Oh, then, an unseen hand hath ever ta'en
The rudder from my feeble hands the while
And I cling to it.
"Answer me once more,

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Mariner, what think'st thou when the waters bear

Thy frail boat backward from the long'd-for harbor?"

Oh, brother, though innumerable waves

Still seem to rise betwixt me and my home
Still billow after billow, wave on wave

I know that they are number'd: not one less
Should bear me homeward if I had

my will;

For One who knows what tempests are to weather,

O'er whom there broke the wildest billows once,

He bids these waters swell. In His good time

The last rough wave shall bear me on its bosom
Into the haven of eternal peace.

No billows after-they are number'd, brother.

66

Oh, gentle mariner, steer on, steer on:

My tears shall flow for thee, but they are tears

In which faith strives with grief, and overcomes."

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A NIGHT AT SANDGATE.

It was a strange and fearful night that same:
We had been talking of the troublous days
That seem'd to lie before us, and the clouds
Of gloom and tempest that were brooding round
The militant church of God: wherein we thought
Not one there gather'd would pass on unscathed.
And yet all hearts beat high, and glistening eyes
Burnt brightly as with coming triumph :—none
Hung back, none trembled, none were sore afraid.
He, whom unknown we knew, unseen we loved,

Was Pilot of our vessel, and He held

At beck the whirlwinds and the storms and clouds;

And He seem'd with us, saying,

66

Fear

Lo! I am with you alway: in the world

ye not,

Ye shall have tribulation; let your hearts

Be of good cheer, O ye of little faith,

For I, your Lord, have overcome the world."

So in to one another's eyes we look'd,

And found there sorrow and dismay? nay, found

Such high enthusiast hopes as burn, like stars
'Mid drifting clouds, the brighter at near view

Of sufferings to be suffer'd and for Him,
Of high deeds to be ventured and for Him,
Of peril clasping our affection closer.

Amid that company were two who long

Had held bright standards in the warrior host

Of God - brave hearts

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and as we heard them tell

Of conflicts deepening ever on the skirts
Of Christendom's blood-sprinkled battle-field,
The fire and light of love spontaneous rush'd
From heart to heart, and lit their altar-flame.

The evening wore away: and one by one
At length we parted lingering and loath,
For golden are such hours and brief and few:
But drawn, as I divine, by kindred thoughts,

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