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LOSS.

GRIEVE not much for loss of wealth,
Loss of friends, or loss of fame,
Loss of years, or loss of health;

Answer, hast thou lost the shame
Whose early tremor once could flush
Thy cheek, and make thine eyes to gush,
And send thy spirit, sad and sore,
To kneel with face upon the floor,
Burden'd with consciousness of sin?
Art thou cold and hard within,-
Sometimes looking back surprised
On thy old mood, scarce recognised,
As on a picture of thy face

In blooming childhood's transient grace?
Then hast thou cause for grief; and most

In seldom missing what is lost.
With the loss of Yesterday,

Thou hast lost To-day, To-morrow,-
All thou might'st have been. O pray,

(It pray thou canst) for poignant sorrow. W. ALLINGHAM.

LOST DAYS.

THE lost days of my life until to-day,

Where were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food, but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered but still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in hell who thirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death

God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with last low breath. "I am thyself-what hast thou done to me?" “And I—and I-thyself," (lo! each one saith) "And thou thyself to all eternity."

DANTE G. ROSSETTI.

"MAY BE THE LORD WILL LOOK UPON MY TEARS."

DROP, drop slow tears!

And bathe those beauteous feet,

Which brought from heaven

The news and Prince of Peace.

K

Cease not, wet eyes,

For mercy to entreat To cry for vengeance

Sin doth never cease.

In your deep floods.

Drown all my faults and fears,

Nor let His eye

See sin but through my tears.

PHINEAS FLETCHER.

Tudicium

miki

adhuc

superest

Prayer and Aspiration.

BLEST BE THY LOV

LEST be Thy Love, dear Lord,

That taught us this sweet way, Only to love Thee for Thyself, And for that love obey.

O Thou, our souls' chief hope!
We to Thy mercy fly :

Where'er we are, Thou canst protect,

Whate'er we need, supply.

Whether we sleep or wake,
To Thee we both resign;
By night we see, as well as day,
If Thy light on us shine.

Whether we live or die,
Both we submit to Thee;

In death we live, as well as life,

If Thine in death we be.

JOHN AUSTIN. (1668.)

STRENGTH IN

PRAYER.

LORD, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make,
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take,
What parched grounds refresh, as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower ;
We rise, and all the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear ;
We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power.
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others that we are not always strong,

That we are ever overborne with care,
That we should ever weak or heartless be,
Anxious or troubled, when with us is prayer,

And joy and strength and courage are with Thee?

TRENCH.

READINESS FOR

PRAYER.

IF we with earnest effort could succeed
To make our life one long connected prayer,
As lives of some perhaps have been and are,
If, never leaving Thee, we had no need
Our wandering spirits back again to lead
Into Thy presence, but continued there,

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