Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 139.pdf/331

COMMISSIONED.

"Do their errands; enter into the sacrifice with them;
be a link yourself in the divine chain, and feel the
joy and life of it."

What can I do for thee, beloved,
Whose feet so little while ago
Trod the same wayside dust with mine,
And now up paths I do not know
Speed, without sound or sign?

What can I do? The perfect life
All fresh and fair and beautiful
Has opened its wide arms to thee;
Thy cup is over-brimmed and full;
Nothing remains for me.

I used to do so many things:
Love thee and chide thee and caress;
Brush little straws from off thy way,
Tempering with my poor tenderness
The heat of thy short day.

Not much, but very sweet to give;
And it is grief of griefs to bear
That all these ministries are o'er,
And thou, so happy, love, elsewhere,
Dost need me never more.

And I can do for thee but this:
(Working on blindly, knowing not
If I may give thee pleasure so;)
Out of my own dull, shadowed lot
I can arise, and go

To sadder lives and darker homes,
A messenger, dear heart, from thee
Who wast on earth a comforter;
And say to those who welcome me,
I am sent forth by her:

Feeling the while how good it is
To do thy errands thus, and think
It may be, in the blue, far space,
Thou watchest from the heaven's brink,
A smile upon thy face.

And when the day's work ends with day,
And star-eyed evening, stealing in,
Waves her cool hand to flying noon,
And restless, surging thoughts begin,
Like sad bells out of tune,

I'll pray, "Dear Lord, to whose great love
Nor bound nor limit-line is set,
Give to my darling, I implore,
Some new, sweet joy, not tasted yet,
For I can give no more."

And, with the words my thoughts shall climb
With following feet the heavenly stair
Up which thy steps so lately sped,
And seeing thee so happy there,
Come back half comforted.

Susan Coolidge.
Sunday Afternoon for November.

---

HOLYDAY.

Half-Greek adown the Highland glen
And singing to the open sky,
I passed beyond the ways of men
And found my vale in Arcady.

The bees were drowsy on the slope,
The air was wondrous sweet and still,
And all my heart beat high with hope
Of marvels on the Grecian hill.

The light cloak from my shoulders flew,
My bare brown limbs were light and free;
The lark whose rapture thrilled me through
Was but a singing bird to me:

For I was Greek in Hellas' prime
And singing to the clear bright air,
And Grecian bees were in the thyme
And the lost charm in all things fair.

Hills beyond hills from blue to grey
Faint to the misty Highland sky,
But I have been an hour away
In my own vale of Arcady.

From tree to tree the whisper creeps,
"Look, sister, at the wayward man!
His are the eyes of one who sleeps
Within the vale Arcadian."

"Hush, hush!" the pine-tree sighs, "and look,"
The lav'rock peeps from heather sweet,
And headlong streams the Highland brook
To break in laughter at my feet.

Blackwood's Magazine.J. S.

---

WE WELL TO MOURN?

Yes, grieve! it can be no offence to Him
Who made us sensitive our loss to know;
The hand that takes the cup filled to the brim
May well with trembling make it overflow.

Who sends us sorrow means it should be felt;
Who gave us tears would surely have them shed;
And metal that the "furnace" doth not melt,
May yet be hardened all the more instead.

Where love abounded will the grief abound?
To check our grief is but to chide our love;
With withered leaves the more bestrewed the ground,
The fuller that the rose hath bloomed above!

Yes, grieve! 'tis nature's —- that is, God's — behest,
If what is nature called is will divine:
Who fain would grieve not cannot know how blest
It is to sorrow, and yet not repine.

Spectator.S. H.