16

THE CHARMER.

"Let not your heart be troubled," then He said,

I go before you to prepare your place,

I will return to take you with Me there."

And since that hour the awful foe is charmed,
And life and death are glorified and fair.
Whither He went we know; the way we know,
And with firm step press on to meet Him there.

MRS. HARRIET B. STOWE.

THE VOICES OF NATURE.

EARIED with the golden glare, With the noise of worldly things, Take us to Thy larger air, To the shadow of Thy wings! In the wild with Nature lonely, Listening for Thy message only.

Sweeps aside, as vague or vain,
All of spiritual source;

Soul, a function of the brain ;
God a metaphor for force :
So half pride of heart, half humbly,
Sits and waits his future dumbly.

The whole universe is less

Than one atom-grain of thought;

C

18

THE VOICES OF NATURE.

Forms of man's own consciousness,

Space and Time o'erwhelm him not
Feeblest-born and last in season,
Yet sole child and heir of reason.

Voice of Nature in the heart,

Narrow through our science, though

Here we only know in part,

Give us faith in what we know !

To a fuller life aspiring,

Satisfy the heart's desiring.

Tell us of a force, behind

Nature's force, supreme, alone:

Tell us of a larger mind

Than the partial power we own;

Tell us of a Being wholly

Wise and great and just and holy :

Toning down the pride of mind

To a wiser humbleness,

Teach the limits of mankind,

Weak to know and prompt to guess,

THE VOICES OF NATURE.

On the mighty shores that bound us
Childlike gathering trifles round us :

Teach how, yet, what here we know
To the unknown leads the way,
As the light that faint and low,

Prophesies consummate day;

How the little arc before us
Proves the perfect circle o'er us;

How the marr'd unequal scheme
That on all sides here we meet,
Either is a lawless dream,

Or must somewhere be complete;
Where or when, if near, or distant,
Known but to the One Existent.

He is. We meanwhile repair
From the noise of human things

To the fields of larger air,

To the shadow of His wings: Listening for His message only In the wild with Nature lonely.

FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE.

19

ONE BY ONE.

"I will come and receive you unto myself." "The Master is come, and calleth for thee."

OT sweeping up together

In whirlwind or in cloud,

In the hush of the summer weather, Or when storms are thund'ring loud But one by one, they go

In the sweetness none may know.