“Put out the candle, for the sun has risen !
All other lights, above, below, grow dim; .
Go, Soul! like Paul and Silas, from thy prison;
Christ hath redeemed thee—be complete in Him.”
ANONYMOUS.

MY

The Return of Youth.

Y friend, thou sorrowest for thy golden prime, For thy fair youthful years, too swift of flight; Thou musest with wet eyes upon the time

Of cheerful hopes that filled the world with light,— Years when thy heart was bold, thy hand was strong, And quick the thought that moved thy tongue to speak And willing faith was thine, and scorn of wrong Summoned the sudden crimson to thy cheek.

Thou lookest forward on the coming days,
Shuddering to feel their shadow o'er thee creep:
A path, thick-set with changes and decays,

Slopes downward to the place of common sleep;
And they who walked with thee in life's first stage,
Leave, one by one, thy side; and, waiting near,
Thou seest the sad companions of thy age,—

Dull love of rest, and weariness, and fear.

Yet grieve thou not, nor think thy youth is gone,
Nor deem that glorious season e'er could die;
Thy pleasant youth, a little while withdrawn,
Waits on the horizon of a brighter sky ;—
Waits like the morn, that folds her wing and hides,
Till the slow stars bring back her dawning hour;
Waits like the vanished Spring, that slumbering bides
Her own sweet time to waken bud and flower.

LABOR AND REST.

There shall he welcome thee, when thou shalt stand
On his bright morning hills, with smiles more sweet
Than when at first he took thee by the hand,

Through the fair earth to lead thy tender feet.
He shall bring back, but brighter, broader still,
Life's early glory to thine eyes again;

Shall clothe thy spirit with new strength, and fill
Thy leaping heart with warmer love than then.

Hast thou not glimpses, in the twilight here,

Of mountains where immortal morn prevails?
Comes there not through the silence, to thine ear,
A gentle rustling of the morning gales?

A murmur, wafted from that glorious shore,
Of streams that water banks forever fair;
And voices of the loved ones gone before,
More musical in that celestial air?

WILLIAM C. BRYANT.

Labor and Rest.

WO hands upon the breast,

Tw

And labor's done;

Two pale feet crossed in rest,

The race is run;

Two eyes with coin-weights shut,

And all tears cease;

Two lips where grief is mute,

And wrath at peace!—

So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot,—

God in his mercy answereth not.

Two hands to work addressed

Aye for his praise;

Two feet that never rest,

Walking his ways;

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Two eyes that look above,

Still through all tears;

Two lips that breathe but love,

Nevermore fears,

So pray we afterward low on our knees;—
Pardon those erring prayers!

Father, hear these!

DINAH MARIA MULOCK

God.

"Whom have I in Heaven but Thee ?"

I LOVE (and have some cause to love) the earth;

She is my Maker's creature, therefore good;

She is my mother, for she gave me birth;

She is my tender nurse; she gives me food;
But what's a creature, Lord, compared with thee?
And what's my mother or my nurse to me?

I love the air; her dainty sweets refresh

My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me; Her shrill-mouthed choir sustain me with their flesh, And with their polyphonian notes delight me:

But what's the air, or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to thee?

I love the sea; she is my fellow-creature,

My careful purveyor: she provides me store; She walls me round; she makes my diet greater; She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore; But, Lord of oceans, when compared with thee, What is the ocean, or her wealth, to me?

THE SOUL.

To Heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky;

But what is Heaven, just God, compared to thee?
Without thy presence, Heaven's no Heaven to me.

Without thy presence, earth gives no refection;
Without thy presence, sea affords no treasure;
Without thy presence, air's a rank infection;
Without thy presence, Heaven itself 's no pleasure.
If not possessed, if not enjoyed in thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or Heaven to me?

FRANCIS QUARLES.

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The Soul.

AGAIN, how can she but immortal be,

When with the motions of both will and wit,

She still aspireth to eternity,

And never rests till she attain to it?

Water in conduit-pipes can rise no higher

Than the well-head from whence it first doth spring; Then since to Eternal God she doth aspire,

She cannot but be an eternal thing.

"All moving things to other things do move

Of the same kind, which shows their nature such ;"
So earth falls down, and fire doth mount above,
Till both their proper elements do touch.

And as the moisture which the thirsty earth
Sucks from the sea to fill her empty veins,
From out her womb at last doth take a birth,
And runs a lymph along the grassy plains.

Long doth she stay, as loth to leave the land
From whose soft side she first did issue make;
She tastes all places, turns to every hand,
Her flowery banks unwilling to forsake.

Yet Nature so her streams doth lead and carry,
As that her course doth make no final stay,
Till she herself unto the ocean marry,

Within whose watery bosom first she lay.

E'en so the soul, which in this earthly mould
The spirit of God doth secretly infuse,
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And only this material world she views.

At first her mother Earth she holdeth dear,

And doth embrace the world and worldly things;
She flies close by the ground and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings:

Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught
That with her heavenly nature doth agree;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be.

For who did ever yet in honor, health,

Or pleasure of the sense,contentment find? Who ever ceased to wish, when he had wealth? Or, having wisdom, was not vexed in mind?

Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,

Which seem sweet flowers with lustre fresh and gay,—

She lights on that and this, and tasteth all,

But pleased with none, doth rise and soar away—

So, when the soul finds here no true content,

And like Noah's dove can no sure footing take, She doth return from whence she first was sent, And flies to Him that first her wings did make.