Page:The Christian Year 1887.djvu/192



O soothe us, haunt us, night and day, Ye gentle Spirits far away, With whom we shared the cup of grace, Then parted; ye to Christ's embrace, We to this lonesome world again, Yet mindful of th' unearthly strain Practised with you at Eden's door, To be sung on, where Angels soar, With blended voices evermore.


 * And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And He came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still.   And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise.—St. Luke vii. 13, 14.

Who says, the wan autumnal soon Beams with too faint a smile To light up nature's face again, And, though the year be on this wane, With thoughts of spring the heart beguile?

Waft him, thou soft September breeze, And gently lay him down Within some circling woodland wall, Where bright leaves, reddening ere they fall, Wave gaily o'er the waters brown.

And let some graceful arch be there With wreathed mullions proud, With burnished ivy for its screen, And moss, that glows as fresh and green As thought beneath an April cloud. -

Who says the widow's heart must break, The childless mother sink? - A kinder truer voice I hear, Which e'en beside that mournful bier Whence parents' eyes would hopeless shrink,

Bids weep no more—O heart bereft, How strange, to thee, that sound! A widow o'er her only son, Feeling more bitterly alone For friends that press officious round.