WITH gentle looks and hearts made calm by sorrow, I see them moving on their earthly way,

They wait, in patience, what may come to-morrow,
Faithful to all the duties of to-day;

They watch around the bedsides of the dying,
And soothe the sufferers with their quiet cares;
They seek the homes where new-born grief is crying,
And mingle service with their silent prayers.
The bloom of youth, the blush of early roses,
Has faded long ago from off their cheek,
But in its stead a holy peace reposes,

A heavenly beauty, angel-like and meek;
The mirth and song, the choral of the dances,
Have died away amid departed years,

The eyes look upward now, with loving glances,
And death itself is shorn of all its fears.

It is the same old, ever-blessed story,

Of holy women clinging round the cross; They had not seen the Lord's transfiguring glory, But they were with him in his shame and loss; Around his grave, with ointments and sweet spices, They hovered, as the birds about their nest; For love like theirs dies not in cold surmises, But kindles courage in the humblest breast. The costliest service human hands can render Comes without cost-is never bought and sold; It flows from human hearts, by love made tender, And moves above the purchase power of gold. On the same paths where selfish greed is stalking, Rating all virtue at a market price,

These saintly feet unselfishly are walking,

To comfort pain and heal the wounds of vice. Then tell me not that earth is wholly barren, While these angelic souls still linger here; Sweeter than roses in the vale of Sharon

Are their kind deeds, besprinkled with a tear; And heaven itself above their path is bending,

To watch their acts of mercy, day by day; And angel bands are on their steps attending, To shed a glory o'er their shining way.

Rev. J. N. Tarbox.

XX.

SUNBURSTS.

THE Ocean stood like crystal.

The soft air

Stirred not the glassy waves, but sweetly there
Had rocked itself to slumber. The blue sky
Leaned silently above, and all its high

And azure-circled roof, beneath the wave,
Was imaged back, and seemed the deep to pave
With its transparent beauty. While, between
The waves and sky, a few white clouds were seen
Floating upon their wings of feathery gold,
As if they knew some charm the universe enrolled.
A holy stillness came, while, in the ray

Of heaven's soft light, a delicate foam-wreath lay
Like silver on the sea. Look! look! why shine
Those floating bubbles, with such light divine?
They break, and from their midst a lily form
Rises from out the wave, in beauty warm.
The wave is by the blue-veined feet scarce prest,
Her silky ringlets float about her breast,
Veiling its fairy loveliness. While her eye
Is soft and deep as the blue heaven is high.
The beautiful is born, and sea and earth

May well revere the hour of that mysterious birth.
R. C. W.

WHAT shall we say of flowers-those flaming banners of the vegetable world, which march in such various and splendid triumph before the coming of its fruits? Duke of Argyle.

Or too much beauty let us complain when we have had a spring day too delightful, a sunbeam too delicately spun, an autumn too abundant. The finest writers in the world have been the most luxuriant.

NATURE never did betray

Gilfillan.

The heart that loved her. 'Tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold,
Is full of blessings.

Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee; and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when the mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms;
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations !

Wordsworth.

FASTEN your souls so high, that constantly
The smile of your heroic cheer may float
Above all floods of earthly agonies,

Purification being the joy of pain.

Elizabeth B. Browning.

A THING of beauty is a joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore on every morrow are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'erdarkened ways
Made for our searching; yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

My heart is awed within me, when I think
Of the great miracle that still goes on
In silence round me-the perpetual work
Of thy creation, finished, yet renewed
Forever. Written on thy works I read
The lesson of thy own eternity.

Keats.

Lo! all grow old and die—but, see again!
How on the faltering footsteps of decay
Youth presses-ever gay and beautiful youth
In all its beautiful forms. These lofty trees
Wave not less proudly than their ancestors
Moulder beneath them. Oh, there is not lost
One of earth's charms; upon her bosom yet,
After the fight of untold centuries,
The freshness of her far beginning lies,
And yet shall lie.

Bryant.

As nightingales do upon glow-worms feed,

So poets live upon the living light of nature and beauty. Bailey.

GOD has made this world very fair. He fashioned it in beauty when there was no eye to behold it but his own. All along the wild forest he has carved the forms of beauty. Every hill and dale and tree and landscape is a picture of beauty. Every cloud and mist-wreath and vapor-veil is a shadowy reflection of beauty. Every spring and rivulet, every river and lake and ocean, is a glassy mirror of beauty. Every diamond and rock and pebbly beach is a mine of beauty. Every sea and planet and star is a blazing face of beauty. All along the aisles of earth, all over the arches of heaven, all through the expanse of the universe, are scattered in rich and infinite profusion the life germs of beauty. All natural motion is beauty in action. From the mote that plays its little frolic in the sunbeam, to the world that blazes along the sapphire spaces of the firmament, are visible the ever varying features of the enrapturing spirit of beauty.

ALL things have something more than barren use:
There is a scent upon the brier,

A tremulous splendor in the autumn dews;
Cold morns are fringed with fire.

The clodded earth goes up in sweet-breathed flowers;
In music dies poor human speech;

And in beauty blow those hearts of ours

When love is born in each.

Life is transfigured in the soft and tender
Light of love, as a volume dun

Of rolling smoke becomes a wreathed splendor

In the declining sun.

Alexander Smith.