Yes, ere I sink to rest,

By the fire's dying light,

Thou Lord of Earth and Heaven!

I bless thee, who hast given Unto life's fainting travellers the night,The soft, still, holy night!

THE RISING MOON.

W. B. O. PEABODY.

THE moon is up! how calm and slow
She wheels above the hill!
The weary winds forget to blow,

And all the world lies still.

The way-worn travellers with delight
Her rising brightness see,
Revealing all the paths and plains,
And gilding every tree.

It glistens where the hurrying stream
Its little rippling heaves;

It falls upon the forest-shade,
And sparkles on the leaves.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

So once on Judah's evening hills
The heavenly lustre spread;
The Gospel sounded from the blaze,
And shepherds gazed with dread.

And still that light upon the world
Its guiding splendor throws,
Bright in the opening hours of life,
And brighter at its close.

The waning moon in time shall fail
To walk the midnight skies;

But God hath kindled this bright light
With fire that never dies.

THE LIGHT OF STARS.

W. H. FURNESS.

SLOWLY, by God's hand unfurled,
Down around the weary world
Falls the darkness: O how still
Is the working of His will!

Mighty Spirit, ever nigh!
Work in me as silently;

Veil the day's distracting sights,
Show me heaven's eternal lights.

25

Living stars to view be brought,
In the boundless realms of thought;
High and infinite desires,

Flaming like those upper fires!

Holy Truth, eternal Right, -
Let them break upon my sight;
Let them shine serene and still,
And with light my being fill.

THE INFINITY OF SPACE.

JOHN STERLING.

WHEN up to nightly skies we gaze,
Where stars pursue their endless ways,
We think we see from earth's low clod
The wide and shining home of God.

But could we rise to moon or sun,
Or path where planets duly run,
Still heaven would spread above us far,
And earth remote would seem a star.

"T is vain to dream those tracts of space With all their worlds approach His face; One glory fills each wheeling ball,

One love has shaped and moved them all.

27

THE INFINITY OF SPACE.

This earth, with all its dust and tears,
Is His no less than yonder spheres;
And rain-drops weak, and grains of sand
Are stamped by His immediate hand.

The rock, the wave, the little flower,
All fed by streams of living power,
That spring from one Almighty will,
Whate'er His thought conceives, fulfil.

And is this all that man can claim?
Is this our longing's final aim?

To be like all things round, — no more
Than pebbles cast on Time's gray shore?

Can man, no more than beast, aspire
To know his being's awful Sire?
And, born and lost on Nature's breast,
No blessing seek but there to rest?

Not this our doom, thou God benign!
Whose rays on us unclouded shine:
Thy breath sustains yon fiery dome;
But man is most thy favored home.

We view those halls of painted air,
And own Thy presence makes them fair;
But dearer still to thee, O Lord!
Is he whose thoughts to thine accord.

MELODIES AND MYSTERIES.

CHARLES MACKAY.

WOULDST thou know what the blithe bird pipeth High in the morning air?

Wouldst thou know what the blithe stream sing

eth,

Rippling o'er pebbles bare?

Sorrow the mystery shall teach thee
And the words declare.

Wouldst thou find in the rose's blossom
More than thy fellows find?
More in the fragrance of the lily

Than odor on the wind?

Love Nature, and her smallest atoms
Shall whisper to thy mind.

Wouldst thou know what the moon discourseth To the docile sea ?

Wouldst hear the echoes of the music

Of the far infinity!

Sorrow shall ope the founts of knowledge,
And heaven shall sing to thee.

Wouldst thou see through the riddle of Being
Further than others can?