And when, or how, or where we met

I own to me's a secret yet.

But this I know, when thou art fled,

Where'er they lay these limbs, this head,
No clod so valueless shall be,

As all that then remains of me.

O, whither, whither dost thou fly,

Where bend unseen thy trackless course,
And in this strange divorce,

Ah, tell where I must seek this compound I?

To the vast ocean of empyreal flame,

From whence thy essence came,

Dost thou thy flight pursue, when freed
From matter's base uncumbering weed?
Or dost thou, hid from sight,

Wait, like some spell-bound knight,
Through blank, oblivious years the appointed hour
To break thy trance and reassume thy power?
Yet canst thou, without thought or feeling be?
O, say what art thou, when no more thou 'rt thee?

Life! we've been long together,

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 'T is hard to part when friends are dear,Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear:

Then steal away, give little warning,

Choose thine own time;

Say not Good Night,-but in some brighter clime Bid me Good Morning.

26

ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD.

VI.

CONSOLATION.

THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.

A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.

To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.

There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance!
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.

Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will!

O thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned:
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

THEY ARE ALL GONE.

THEY are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear;

It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,-

Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.

I see them walking in an air of glory,

Whose light doth trample on my days,My days which are at best but dull and hoary, Mere glimmering and decays.

O holy hope! and high humility,

High as the heavens above!

These are your walks, and you have showed them

me

To kindle my cold love.

Dear, beauteous death,-the jewel of the just,Shining nowhere but in the dark!