PROGRESS. But we weak ones, but we sinners, To thy pure and perfect day. Shall things withered, fashions olden, Why this faithless tarrying? By the old aspirants glorious, By thy dearest, By thy Milton and thy Paul, By their holy, high achieving, By their visions more divine, By each gift of our receiving From these mighty ones of thine, By the radiance That on us from them doth shine, By each saving word unspoken, By thy truth, as yet half won, 157 By each idol still unbroken, Our Almighty, help us on! Nearer to thee would we venture, Into day more glorious break; Fair bequests and costly make. Ours must be a nobler story Than was ever writ before: Be your smiles and winnings more! TRUE REST. J. S. DWIGHT. SWEET is the pleasure Is not true leisure One with true toil? AROUSE THEE, SOUL! ROBERT NICOLL. AROUSE thee, soul! Be, what thou surely art, An emanation from the Deity, A flutter of that heart Which fills all nature, sea, and earth and sky: Arouse thee, soul! Arouse thee, soul! And let the body do Some worthy deed for human happiness, Arouse thee, soul! Leave nothings of the earth; High as yon heaven, pure as heaven's air: THE HOURS. 161 THE HOURS. JONES VERY. THE minutes have their trusts as they go by, To bear His love who wings their viewless flight; To Him they bear their record as they fly, And never from their ceaseless round alight. Rich with the life Thou liv'st they come to me: O may I all that life to others show, That they from strife may rise and rest in Thee, And all thy peace in Christ by me may know! Then shall the morning call me from my rest, With joyful hope that I thy child may live; And when the evening comes 't will make me blest, To know that Thou wilt peaceful slumbers give, Such as Thou dost to weary laborers send, Whose sleep from Thee doth with the dews descend. 14* |