LINES TO D. G. T. OF SHERWOOD. To check me, as my mother did But I have felt thee in my thoughts And when my heart loves God, perhaps And when, dear spirit, I kneel down And thou in life's last hour wilt bring LINES TO D. G. T. OF SHERWOOD. MRS. M. G. HORSFord. BLESSINGS On thee, noble boy! 117 In thy thoughtful look and calm, In thy forehead broad and high, We have seemed to meet again One whose home is in the sky. Thou to earth art still a stranger, Stir the fountains in thy breast. Thou hast yet no Past to shadow But each passing hour must waken Into life's sublime arena, Opening through the world's broad mart, Bear thy mother's gentle spirit, And her kind and loving heart. With exalted hope and purpose, LINES WRITTEN IN A PRAYER-BOOK. 119 With that love for truth and justice After annals shall declare Highest proof of moral greatness, Cloudless pass thine infant days; Blessings on thee, noble boy! WRITTEN IN A PRAYER-BOOK GIVEN TO MY DAUGHTER. BERNARD BARTON. My creed requires no form of prayer; Their use as aids to them. One God hath fashioned them and me; One Spirit is our guide; For each, alike, upon the tree One common Saviour died! Each the same trumpet-call shall wake, In the same heaven to meet! THE SOUL. R. C. WATERSTON. WHY was this ponderous planet hung in air, With grandeur robed, and crowned with beauty fair? Hear ye the voice which whispers from afar, View the glad earth,- her oceans and her rills, Her verdant valleys and her vine-clad hills; Behold with rapture all that meets thy sight, Beaming with love, and touched with heavenly light; But know that earth's magnificence combined, Shrinks to a point, when balanced with the MIND! Let thy free thought go forth, and nobly dare Draw the bright curtain from creation's face, space; Yet feel that those vast scenes before thee brought Are not so wondrous as thy Power of Thought! O Thou, who "spake creation into birth," As thine own image symbolized in man! Arouse thee, Soul! and turn thy piercing eye Up! child of earth, and, wondering, behold This world of thought. Let all its powers unfold |