CHILD of the mist, come with me to the sun!
Thy brow is dark and heavy with despair;
Come where the rays of hope, the Holy One
Sheds on the creatures of his sleepless care.
How sad thine eyes, poor child of gloomy doubt;
How downcast on the clouded earth they rest!
Come from the vale of misty shadows out,
And dwell within the vineyard of the blest.
Thou art but finite-why then ask to know
The hidden wanderings of the God of heaven!
Thy ways are thine, and his are his to go-
But where, is knowledge not to mortals given!
Then why, because upon thy tender eye,
He pours not all his dazzling floods of light,
Wilt thou reject his radiant love, and lie
Buried in shadows of a starless night?
What though he wraps himself in clouds of wrath,
And makes the everlasting mountains bow?
Lo! in the sky, along his vaulted path,
Glows the bright signet of his ancient vow!
What though he scatters the perpetual hills,
And drives asunder nations with his sword?
One gentle look the raging tempest stills,
And the whole earth reposes at his word!
Child of the mist, come with me to the sun!
Cast off the veil that damps thy cheek with tears;
Come where the eye of the Eternal One,
With beams of love the stricken spirit cheers.
This is the New Jerusalem on earth!
A city radiant with balmy light;
Where smiling children of the second birth
Walk with their God in robes of stainless white.
THERE's a crown for the monarch, a golden crown-
And many a ray from its wreath streams down,
Of an iris hue from a thousand gems,
That are woven in blossoms on jeweled stems;
They've rifled the depths of Golconda's mine,
And stolen the pearls from the ocean brine;
But the rarest gem, and the finest gold
On a brow of care, lies heavy and cold.
There's a crown for the victor of lotus-flowers,
Braided with myrtle from tropical bowers;
And the golden hearts of the nymphæa gleam
From their snowy bells, with a mellow beam.
They have stripped the breast of the sacred Nile,
And ravished the bowers of the vine-clad isle;
But the sweetest flower from the holy flood,
And the vine, will fade on a brow of blood;
There's a crown for the poet, a wreath of bay—
A tribute of praise to his thrilling lay.
The amaranth twines with the laurel bough,
And seeks a repose on his pensive brow.
They've searched in the depths of Italia's groves,
To find out the chaplet a poet loves;
But a fadeless wreath in vain they have sought-
It withers away on a brow of thought.
There's a crown for the christian, a crown of life,
Gained in the issues of bloodless strife.
'Tis a halo of hope, of joy and of love,
Brightened by sunbeams from fountains above.
They've gathered its rays from sources afar, From seraphim's eyes, and Bethlehem's star ; And the flow of its light will ever increase, For a christian's brow a brow of peace.
"The pitcher, be broken at the fountain.' ECCL. xii. 6.
A CHILD of bright and laughing eye,
With dimpled arm upraised,
Upon a tempting rose, hung high,
With eager wishes gazed.
A gracious zephyr bent it down-
He grasped it with a shout;
But ere he called the flower his own,
Its leaves all scattered out!
A youth a gentle maiden loved,
With truth and constancy;
And every passing year but proved
His love's intensity.
The very eve that would have made
That gentle girl his bride-
Just when the sky began to fade-
That very eve she died!
A warrior in the pride of life,
With glory for his boast,
Went forth in steel to join the strife,
And slay a mighty host.
Before his comrades' rushing steeds,
The vanquished army flies;
That proud one heeds it not, but bleeds
Low on the ground—and dies!
|