For the clouds came down out of heaven; With light he was robed and crowned, Till glory exceeded glory

On the gathering storm around.

They melted to mists of silver;
That slid like a winding-sheet,
In swathings of shroud-like whiteness,
From his forehead to his feet.

And then he was seen no longer;
With the sound of a sobbing rain
The hills withdrew under blackness, -
A mourning funeral-train.

And amid the vanished mountains
We sat, through an autumn day,
Remembering the trusted spirits
Who had passed from sight away;

And knew that their resurrection
Would be but a veil let down
To show them still in their places,
Unchangeable, and our own ;

And knew that the living who love us,
Love on, though the mists of doubt

May level our grand horizon,

And beauty and joy shut out.

And knew — O comforting wonder!

That the mightiest Love of all, Perceived not, is round about us Like an everlasting wall.

So, amid invisible summits,

We wrapped us in calms of thought. Faith lulled us to slumber; and morning To life the dead mountains brought.

Lucy Larcom.

YE DAINTY MOSSES.

YE dainty mosses, lichens gray,

Pressed each to each in tender fold,

And peacefully thus, day by day,
Returning to their mould;

Brown leaves, that with aërial grace

Slip from your branch like birds a-wing,
Each leaving in the appointed place
Its bud of future spring; -

If we, God's conscious creatures, knew
But half your faith in our decay,
We should not tremble as we do
When summoned clay to clay.

But with an equal patience sweet

We should put off this mortal gear, In whatsoe'er new form is meet Content to reappear.

Knowing each germ of life He gives
Must have in Him its source and rise,
Being that of His being lives

May change, but never dies.

Ye dead leaves, dropping soft and slow,
Ye mosses green and lichens fair,
Go to your graves, as I will go,
For God is also there.

Mrs. Craik

THE STREAM OF LIFE.

STREAM descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,

The flow'rets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden plots the children play,
The fields the laborers till,
The houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death,
Our waking eyes behold,
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.

Strong purposes our minds possess,
Our hearts affections fill,

We toil and earn, we seek and learn,
And thou descendest still.

O end to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,

To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?

A roar we hear upon thy shore,
As we our course fulfil;

Scarce we divine a sun will shine
And be above us still.

Arthur Hugh Clough.

THE GOLDEN ISLAND: ARRAN FROM AYR.

D1

EEP set in distant seas it lies;

The morning vapors float and fall,

The noonday clouds above it rise,
Then drop as white as virgin's pall.

And sometimes, when that shroud uplifts,

The far green fields show strange and fair ; Mute waterfalls in silver rifts

Sparkle adown the hillside bare.

But ah! mists gather, more and more;
And though the blue sky has no tears,
And the sea laughs with light all o’er, —
The lovely Island disappears.

O vanished Island of the blest!
O dream of all things pure and high!
Hid in deep seas, as faithful breast

Hides loves that have but seemed to die,

Whether on seas dividing tossed,

Or led through fertile lands the while,
Better lose all things than have lost
The memory of the morning Isle !

For lo! when gloaming shadows glide,
And all is calm in earth and air,
Above the heaving of the tide
The lonely Island rises fair;

Its purple peaks shine, outlined grand
And clear, as noble lives nigh done;
While stretches bright from land to land
The broad sea-pathway to the sun.