THE BANKS IN AUTUMN.
O NOW I see what beauties lay
O'er summer's close,
And autumn's calm breathing with decay,
With her last dying rose,
Sweeter than spring.
A calm awaiting seems to lie
O'er leaf and wave;
A calm undressing, all so silently,
For calmness of the grave,
Unrepining.
'Tis thus when, all its wanderings past,
On the still tide
The bark doth hang its idle sail at last,
And like a shadow glide
Into its rest.
The noiseless brook its banks along
Winds like a lake,
Save stilly heard a rippling under-song,
Whose passing eddies make
Silence more still.
Upon the dread and dim serene,
Each thought that breaks,
And every breath that stirs the quiet scene,
A mighty Being speaks,
Whom we await.
Such is the awful calm they learn
Beneath Thy cross
Who fain would sit, looking for thy return,
And count the world but loss
HERE may the band that now in triumph shines
And that, before they were invested thus,
In earthly bodies carried heavenly minds,
Pitch round about, in order glorious,
Their sunny tents, and houses luminous,
All their eternal day in songs employing,
Joying their end, without end of their joying,
While their Almighty Prince destruction is de-
stroying.
No sorrow now hangs clouding in their brow,
No bloodless malady impales their face,
No age drops on their hair his silver snow,
No nakedness their bodies doth embase,
No poverty themselves or theirs disgrace;
No fear of death the joy of life devours,
No unchaste sleep their precious time deflowers, No loss, no grief, no change, wait on their winged hours.
But now their naked bodies scorn the cold, And from their eyes joy looks, and laughs at pain: The infant wonders how he came so old, The old man how he came so young again : Where all are rich, and yet no gold they owe; And all are kings, and yet no subjects know, All full, and yet no time on food do they bestow.
In midst of their City Celestial,
Where the Eternal Temple should have rose,
Lightened the Idea Beatifical:
End and beginning of each thing that grows,
Whose self no end, nor yet beginning knows : That hath no eyes to see, nor ears to hear, Yet sees and hears, and is all eye, all ear, That nowhere is contained, and yet is everywhere!
Faster and more fast,
O'er night's brim, day boils at last ;
Boils, pure gold, o'er the cloud-cup's brim
Where spurting and suppressed it lay ;
For not a froth-flake touched the rim
Of yonder gap in the solid gray
Of the eastern cloud, an hour away;
But forth one wavelet, then another, curled,
Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed,
Rose, reddened, and its seething breast
Flickered in bounds, grew old, then overflowed
the world.
R. BROWNING, Pippa passes.
THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH.
WHEREFORE shrink and say, ""Tis vain ;
In their hour hell-powers must reign;
Vainly, vainly would we force
Fatal Error's torrent course;
Earth is mighty, we are frail,
Faith is gone, and Hope must fail."
Yet along the Church's sky
Stars are scattered, pure and high;
Yet her wasted gardens bear
Autumn violets, sweet and rare-
Relics of a spring-time clear,
Earnests of a bright new year.
Israel yet hath thousands sealed,
Who to Baal never kneeled ;
Seize the banner, spread its fold!
Seize it with no faltering hold!
Spread its foldings high and fair,
Let all see the Cross is there!
What, if to the trumpet's sound
Voices few come answering round?
Scarce a votary swell the burst,
When the anthem peals at first?
God hath sown and He will reap;
Growth is slow when roots are deep:
He will aid the work begun,
For the Love of His Dear Son ;
He will breathe in their true breath,
Who, serene in prayer and faith,
Would our dying embers fan
Bright as when their glow began.
THEY whose course on earth is o'er,
Think they of their brethren more?
They before the Throne who bow,
Feel they for their brethren now?
Yea, the dead in Christ have still
Part in all our joy and ill;
Keeping all our steps in view,
Guiding them, it may be, too.
We by enemies distrest,—
They in Paradise at rest ;
We the captives, they the freed,-
We and they are one indeed :
One, in all we seek or shun;
One, because our Lord is One;
One in heart and one in love;
We below and they above.
Those who many a land divides,
Many mountains, many tides,
Have they with each other part?
Have they fellowship at heart?
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