University of Virginia Library

So many dropping into the Unseen,
The Everlasting! when removed awhile
From some associate scene wherein we dwelt
A few years since, we ask, and asking find
So many gone. E'en this too speaks of Peace,
Setting at rest the anxious restless thoughts
For this day and the morrow,—speaks of Peace,
For none of this world's troubles reach them more.
'Tis like a Sabbath that surrounds us all,
So near us and about us endless rest;
On our unquiet days and troubled nights
It casts its shadow of eternal Peace.

Straight mounts the morning smoke 'mid leafy elms,
Whose green and yellow hangings half conceal
And half disclose a low-thatch'd cottage roof,
Peaceful and still; beneath the frost-lined eaves
Twitter the birds, and feebly one or two
Prolongs a cheering note; in the clear air
The lowing cow proclaims the homestead near.
Then the cock-crow is heard from vales below,
And solitary rook sails floating by,
Flapping his black wings on the vaulted blue.
The shadows sleep upon the dewy ground,
Save where the smoke plays with the doubtful light.

And ever and anon on such a morn,
As if in pity for a scene so fair,
Winter doth seem as to withhold his hand,
Gazing on features which so lovely are,
Before his stifling grasp hath quench'd the light.
But lo, to-morrow his rude harbinger
Wakes, the deep-sighing wind, as no more given
Warrant to spare, and says the time is come.
And all the scene is changed—the sky o'ercast,
The air is full of leaves, a very shower
Of the decay and fall, that emblem meet
Of fleeting generations and man's life,
Drifting awhile upon the wind, and borne
Now up, now down, now onward, some before,
Some after, yet all falling to the ground.

We are like falling leaves, nay rather say
As fallen, and arising in their fall,
Like leaves within that fabled Sibyl's cave,
Inscribed with mighty destinies, which still
In vain we would decipher, while they seem
To sport at random with the winds at play.

“Now is the autumn of the Tree of Life;”—
We all have sinnèd, and our life decays;
Our sins are like the winds that bear away.

How fast we pass into the Great Unseen
Which is around us! all of us are gone
Or going; those but yesterday
Whose eyes of love and sweet intelligence
Shared mutual thought with us, are now within
That place which doth surround us, which alone
Stable and true appears; parts of ourselves,
Like branches of one tree upon a wall,
Associates of our childhood and our youth,
Yea, they too of our manhood, household friends
E'en of last year are there; what is yet more,
We too are on the verge we soon must pass,
How soon we know not; it may be this year—
This month—this week—this day—and we may be
All suddenly awake, and the door closed
Behind us, and around the unchanging year.
Yet each day as it nearer brings, the while
Deadens our sense of the Unseen, and lays
Films o'er the spiritual eye; as when asleep
Some thread of a strange dream, which we pursue,
With incident and person holds the thoughts,
Still loath to let it go, albeit vain
And mix'd with sorrow, till the wakeful sense
Breaks in upon us with substantial hand,
Brushing away the spirit-tangling web.

Ah, welladay!—we yawn—some yesterday
Who spoke this lesson now themselves are gone,
And 'tis to them no more a thing of words,—
But we to-day still moralize, the few
Left on a topmost bough, while all the rest
Are harvested and gone. We rub our eyes
And look around, and stretch our arms, and then
We are as if we were to be for aye,
Conversing of necessity and death
For images of pastime, till the past
And present, and the living and the dead,
Blend in our dreams together. For in truth
Man's spirit knows not death, but sets aside
The interlinear boundaries of the flesh,
And in its thoughts, which are its proper self,
Holds intercourse with those which are unseen
As if they were still with us.

Now again
Nature herself the lesson hath resumed
Of her autumnal shades; prelusive signs
In the cool freshness of the dewy morn,
And in the comings on of chilly eve
Speak of approaching winter. Shadows huge
Upon the mountain sides or green mown fields
Lie beautiful, like massy heaps or drifts
Of stationary darkness, yet anon,
Long motionless, they move, and moving show
The calm of Heaven the more, like sounds that make
The stillness audible;—to bring on man
Reflection suited to declining age,
Seasons of meditation; all the air,
And nature's self in all the things that live
Is eloquent with wisdom, of decay
Speaking to man and of approaching death.

I pause, and listen, and would drink full deep
Into my inner spirit all the words
She speaks in living imagery, or writes
On pages of the elements; for such
I deem not but an idle fancy's toys
To deck the moral, or the poet's tale,
The metaphor and image, to adorn
Delineations of autumnal life,
And give the form and colour to the page.
But I would hear them as the Voice of God
Speaking to us through nature, His still Voice
The which alone to hear and understand
Is wisdom; mighty boon, great privilege
Vouchsafed to few! That Voice from Heaven of old
Which spake to Christ in speaking seem'd to some
But thunder, unto some angelic sounds
Divine in sweetness, to the mind of Christ
Audible only as the Voice of God.
And when to Paul at midday o'er the sun,
As in a sheet of lightning, Christ appear'd,
Paul only heard the Voice of Him that spake.
And therefore in the Autumnal signs I pray,
That hearing I may hear the Voice of God,
Not as the beasts that perish. It is this
Which gives a living tongue from other worlds
To seasons and their change; to sights and sounds
Gives utterance, makes them more than Angel-tongued.
O Thou that teachest knowledge unto man,
Who givest the seeing eye, the hearing ear,
Whom to love is to know, to know is life,
Teach me to hear Thee, and with eyes and ears
Take in Thy counsels sent to one that's born
To live with Thee for ever. Linear signs
Are on the dial's face, all dead and mute
In their significance, until the sun
Shines on them; and the written face abroad
Of nature, and Thy book of life itself
Is dead and profitless, until Thy Sun,
The living Spirit of Incarnate God,
Shines on them. Not alone be mine to read
What Matthew wrote or John by Thee inspired,
And Chrysostom and Austin taught of Thee;
But oft, when rising up from these I take
My solitary walk, and muse alone
In the fresh morn without, in all may hear
Thy voices numberless, nay rather say
That still small Voice alone, wherein so oft
Thou speakest to the inner heart of man.

The thunder, and the whirlwind, and the fire—
These were but to arouse and humble man,
That he in awe might listen, when his God
Would speak unto his heart; the Judgments loud
That walk abroad, and with their iron tread
Shake kingdoms, or o'erthrow the hearth and home
In household visitations, whirlwind-voiced,
What are they? but the herald's warning cry,
The sterner preparations which precede
When Thou wouldst speak unto the heart alone;—
E'en as that herald trump which shall be heard
'Midst the loud last convulsions of the world,
Before that silence when that awful Voice
Most stilly, yet more loud than falling worlds,
Shall thrill the deep abysses of the soul,
That whisper which shall never pass away,
“Come unto Me, ye blessed!” Therefore meet
This very stillness of the autumnal day
I deem, to listen for the awful sound,
The stillness wherein God would speak to man.

“Harvest is past, the summer at an end,
And we not saved;” so the Prophet speaks
Who long'd to lodge in some vast wilderness,
And over Israel wept. Is it e'en so
Of that our summer which knows no return,
Once for all gone? The spring and summer-time
Of our short life on silver-plumèd wings
Have vanish'd; all their morning hopes that caught
The gladdening Eye of Heaven; the clouds that pass'd
And passing dropp'd in tears, yea, days that shook
And spake in thunder-voices to the soul,
And winds that came loaded with heavy thoughts
And ruffled us awhile; and gloomy days
That seem'd from us to shut the light of Heaven:—
The many mornings we have waked to sense,
To day-dreams sadder than our sleeping thoughts,—
The many days that lifted up themselves
That we might not discern the sound, nor hear
Beat on the earth their multitudinous feet
That bore us to the grave; eager desires
That buoy'd us and gave wings; affections, too,
Which had too much of earth, and therefore took
From what was due to Heaven; gleams of bright love
Which bathed our steps in sunshine for awhile,
Yet sped not on our journey;—tender ties
Of kindred which wove chains about our heart,
Part of itself, yet all the while by prayer
Not sanctified, nor link'd unto the Throne,
The hidden life with God;—then halcyon days,
And clear transparent streams, where serpents rose,
'Mid green tufts floating in their glassy deeps,
And pass'd in speckled beauty on the wave
In morning hours of spring: all, all are gone,
Afflictions too, and sore bereavements stern,
That seem'd to squeeze the heart all full of tears
Till it was dry, yea, very dry, nor had
One drop remaining, yet again at sight
Of pity flow'd anew all full of tears,
As if its stores were endless, or the Rock
Within it had been smitten with the rod,
And Christ, the Crucified, became within
A fountain of fresh pity never dry;—
But that, too, pass'd beneath the scorching sun
Of the unfeeling world. The summer then
Was on us, and alas! in the world's sun
The ripening of affections.

Greater aims
And large aspiring thoughts have been awhile
Like building up of stately palaces
Of goodly presence and commanding air,
And bright in sunshine, basking airy towers
Which hid their golden heads in the blue sky;
A fair assemblage, not of chambers meet
For pride or pleasure, but of holy shrines,
Towers to devotion sanctified; yet now
The tide of time, or like an ocean vast
The shoreless and unseen eternity,
With time its ebbing and returning tide,
Washes the base, and tries if all be built
Upon the Rock of Ages.

All that's built
On Christ is built in lowliness, with self
Subdued and buried, so that when we fail
There may be something which can bear us up,
Above that infinite of after-death,
With omnipresent, everlasting power;
That neither death, nor life, nor height, nor depth,
Nor angels, and dominions of the Unseen,
Nor things that present are, nor things to come,
The soul may shake from her sure resting-place,
Or sever from the love of God in Christ.
Not what we leave behind of good report
Or goodly-seeming deeds, but what with us
We take to follow, this shall clothe the soul
With living spiritual wings, and bear her up
Unto the gate of Heaven, to greet the Morn
Of Resurrection, and return with Him
That brings the Day which sets not—when at last
The golden-crownèd Reaper shall descend,
Sitting on a white cloud, and in His hand
The sickle; and the angelic voice shall cry,
“Thrust in the sickle, for the earth is ripe
For harvest,”—and 'tis answer'd, “All is done.”

E'en now He is descending on the earth,
And in descending pauses for a while
And gives to man the season and the space
For preparation and reflections meet.
It is the Autumn of the fleeting year,
It is the Autumn of declining age,
It is the Autumn of the fading world,
Which like the life of man throws fast behind
All that it once so prized and doated on.
Where are the mighty nations which have been?
And where their cities? sea-crown'd Tyre and Troy,
Carthage and Lacedæmon, either Thebes,
Wall'd Babylon, and ancient Nineveh,
And all the thousand cities which had thought
To live for ever? Where their crownèd heights?
Where their foundations? O'er the silent wastes
Where not a stone remains, the Echo sighs,
“No more,”—oh, what a word is that “No more,”
Written on all that has been! while the past
Eats up the present, preys on it, pursues
So swiftly, that the empires of the world
E'en in their very being are like clouds
Fast fleeting, while in fleeting they disclose
The everlasting kingdom of the Saints,
Amid the places of the gathering Dead.
Behold, the Reaper is descending seen,
And then the vision and the scene is changed,
He comes, and in His hand He bears the fan
To purge His floor, and gather in His barn;
And then shall an angelic voice repeat
The Prophet's plaint and Nature's yearly cry;—
“Ye had your summer—but 'tis ended now;
The harvest of the earth is come and gone!”
“And we not saved?” Let this warning voice
Sound in our ears, and waken all within
That's capable of fear; for short must be
The time, whate'er it be, which oft from Heaven
God hath declared is short: then sweet, with sound
Like music's very self, the voice that speaks
Of interval between, of time yet given,
Of summer not yet gone, nor harvest past,
Though short indeed the time;—but not yet gone
Nor ended; sweet to know in this reprieve
The inexhausted goodness of our God.
“I hear, and ere they speak will answer them.”
“Come unto Me, and I will give you rest;”
“Seek Me, and ye shall find.” Then I will seek;
Unto Him will I come, to Him will speak;
And He shall answer me, and give me rest.
His Providence and Grace shall gird me round
And aid me, till e'en yet I find His peace;—
Shall aid me, though it be with seeming war;
Shall press me, though it be with Hand severe;
Making the world to me a stepdame stern,
Not mine own mother, or a mournful place
Of ruins, or a land possess'd of foes;
That when I ask of it for its sweet songs,
A grief may answer me; when I would pluck
Its flowers, a thorn may warn me back, to fear
And nothing find to lean upon. The fields
Of Autumn, and the falling leaves, and cold
And moaning winds that speak like tearful sighs,
May all the soul attune to sad regrets;
Till Winter's self shall come, and o'er these sights
Of desolation, with her covering pall
Gently let fall her virgin robe from Heaven,
Bringing on nature's grave her silvery veils,
And spangled plumes of white.

The ethereal space
The clouds are traversing; upon the earth
Fleet mighty shadows, as if o'er our heads
Angelic wings were moving in the skies
On embassies of love; and o'er the soul
Pass solemn sadnesses from the Unseen,
Disposing to reflection, and such thoughts
As may the heart make better, turning grief
To pensiveness of wisdom, not unmeet
For sights that are without which speak of love
That may that sorrow lighten.

What are these
Upon the wings of the departing year
So beautiful around us? day by day
Decays that put on beauty, verdant slopes
Wherein all hues are mingling, yet distinct
In order'd fair gradations, rainbow tints
That seem to lay on earth amidst its tears
The promises of Heaven. What are these signs?
Calm mornings as the mists have clear'd away
And ope the face of Heaven, fruits ere they fall
Hanging in beauteous fulness, spangled drops
That catch in radiant gems the smiles of Heaven;
The creeping woodbines as by fairy hands
Led up on verdant branches, as if taught
To show their flowery bells on foreign stems,
And others matted o'er, a very cloud
Of hanging beauty on the hedges wild,
And all the glowing riches of the time
Gladdening the hearts of men:—what are these signs?
What is their language? 'tis, I fear, by man
Mislearn'd, misconstrued, misinterpreted;
Such are but footsteps of the Almighty God
Walking abroad in goodness, and the light
That marks His presence as He passes by,
Like as when manifest to eyes of flesh
He went forth doing good and healing all;
That sadness and disease and death itself
Stay'd not His Presence, but departing fled.
Yet what were these but tokens, that to Him
All men henceforth in faith might turn, nor rest
With outward signs and gifts of but a day,
But seek in Him the eternal Day of God,
Where no disease comes nigh? for those His gifts
Were but for time; disease and death that fled
Again return'd with mandate to destroy.
He gave the wondrous bread with His own hands
Creative, but in giving o'er them grieved,
“Seek Me not for the bread which hath sustain'd
Your dying bodies, but the better Bread
Which cometh down from Heaven, for He that feeds
Your dying bodies is the Bread of souls.”
Seek not His gifts, but in His gifts seek Him,
The Giver, and the Gift Unspeakable,
That which is Bread indeed and very Life.

So Nature's outward tokens shed abroad
Should lead us from these gifts to pass in faith
To Him that promises, in nought to rest,
In nothing to rejoice, but in those things
Which He declares good for the immortal soul,
The things that make us meet on Him to wait,
In Him to serve Him and on Him to rest,
By Him to find Himself who is the Life.
O miserable thankfulness! in these
The daily tokens of parental care
To overflow with gratitude, and yet
Forget the higher things which He would give,
And love of Him the Giver; better 'twere
To mourn and in an aching void of heart,
Amid the bounties of the teeming year,
To feel a desolation all around,
An emptiness of all that satisfies,
Without the truer life which is in God.

There is no death like that which puts on life,
Or seeming life, which only lives to die,
Lives more the more abundantly to die
In signs of wealth or power, wherein the soul
Dies ne'er to live again—while Nature fades
I hear a better wisdom walk abroad,
In sympathies of solemn tenderness.

Our friends are dropping from us—or from sight
Are hidden or estranged, as we ourselves
Draw to the Unseen Land: 'tis so, O Lord,
Thou fain wouldst lead us to depend on Thee,
With us alone in dying—lead our thoughts
To Thee and those with Thee beyond the grave.

'Tis the Autumnal Hallowmas, and now
The season mindful of the sacred dead
Brings on our path the household of the Saints—
Gather'd into the garner safe from harm.
The Dead—the mighty Dead—how they around
From out their generations look on us,
As worms of yesterday, that creep and lift
Our heads unto the moon—and then depart!

Many the Saints whom we revere and love,
By intercourse of books in converse held,
The stars that beautify our nightly Heaven,
And then in silent watches seem brought near;
But when we turn to Thee—and Thee behold,
And in beholding Thee adore and love
Thy Manhood full of Godhead, 'tis the Sun
Compared with whom the stars have disappear'd;
For we have life and light within Thy beams,
And all things we behold on every side
Have life and light in Thee—in Thee the year
Wanes not, nor knows of an Autumnal shade;
For in Thee there is Life, and Light, and Love.
Now is Thy kingdom come, but not to bring
The short-lived seasons and the changing moon
And self-returning year, its circles still
Inwreathing, but Thy Coming to prepare,
The Bride to wed with that great spousal ring
Which is eternity. The Sundays now
That bear us on with the declining year
In Name and purpose speak the Unchangeable,—
Creator, Saviour, sanctifying Guide,
Which was, which is, and which is yet to be,
The mystery of Godhead, Three in One.
And he that rightly hath received Thee
Hath in himself a living Trinity;
In body, soul, and spirit fill'd with Thee,
And therefore fill'd with light; Night become Day,
The world a new creation, wherein shines
The Lamb Himself, the everlasting Light.
And what are these our Sundays bearing on
Summer and Autumn—but the marble steps,
Steps of obedience in the Triune God,
Who is our Temple, building up in Him
In whom there are no seasons of decay
And no Autumnal signs? Around us now
And in us—nearer than the air we breathe,
Is omnipresent power of endless Love;
For God is Love; and wheresoe'er we be
It is to breathe in Heaven that love to know,
To know it more and more. And thanks to Thee
In the revealing of Thyself below,
Who nothing hast required but faith in Thee,
That we may to Thy Godhead entrance find
And into all Thy love. At every step
Faith in Thy power, Thy goodness, and Thy truth
Was as the threefold cord around the soul,
By which Thou in Thy ways wouldst draw to Thee,—
E'en as a cord held out to drowning men
By which they o'er the billows pass secure.

What doth this lengthen'd Season teach but love,
Uniting in the bond of Three in One,
Since from his midday tower of Pentecost
Descends the Sun that rules our sacred year?
The Easter Morn is every week restored,
Our Sundays all one glowing Whitsuntide,
Like Sabbaths of one Jubilee, that pass
And yet are ever present; for 'tis now
One Easter Morn, one Sabbath all the year;
Which hath the hidden Manna stored with God,
Imparted unto each as worthy found.
His presence o'er His tabernacle dwells,
The sheltering Cloud becomes the pillar'd Flame,—
In the hot day a shade of dewy night,
In the dark night a gleam of genial day,—
While still the Church, a pilgrim Heavenly led,
From week to week her journey travels on,
From Pentecost to Advent, to our view
Unfolding some new mercies of our God,
Some manifold disclosures of His love
From out His written Word, which thus anew
From Sunday unto Sunday makes to bloom
The desert like a rose, and makes to rise
Rivers of water in the wilderness.
For such by meditation they become
Still week by week renew'd—each Sunday fresh
With its own lesson for the passing week,
Palm-trees and verdant springs:—no more we need
But that from well-spring of the heart within,
They should in word and action flow around,
And turn us more to prayer. In prayer to live
It needs that all without be desolate,
The soul itself feel poor and needing aid,
And comfortless, that it may earnest seek
The Comforter—nay, should with anxious fears
Be straiten'd, and as one in straits, herself
Gird up for the strait gate and narrow way,
And feel the harvest past, the summer gone,
And we not saved; so perchance that fear
May save us, ere the summer hath gone by
And harvest come indeed. And why again
Doth nature thus around us and within,
Upon our body—friends—all cherish'd things—
Household and home-bred creatures—all we love
And value—set her signs of sure decay—
Upon the year—the day—on all we prize?
Surely these are the unnumber'd tongues Divine
Calling to preparation:—lest we wake
Suddenly—on the gulf that yawns below
Worse than annihilation, at the sight
Grow dizzy in despair; as one that comes
In some Norwegian pass upon a cliff,—
Nor fixing his firm eye on things above
To stablish and direct his tottering feet,—
Looks on a fathomless abyss below,
And gazing is bewilder'd and self-lost
Falls—oh, that we in better hopes may stand!

Therefore upon the landscape varied now
With lights and shades, serene and beautiful
As footsteps of retiring deity
In Homer's gods departing;—therefore now
Upon the riches of the fading year,
And all the beauties of its going hence,
With swallows gathering round in the fresh morn
In council and debate, and still anon
Trying the wheeling of the joyous wing,
In prelude of their flight, with their adieu
Cheerful and blithe to summer hours gone by;—
On scenes that once were summer, in their wane
All animate and beauteous, I will look,
And thence will gather faith in the Unseen
Not to despair; and while the year yet waits,
Lest I despair at last, unto the last
Always to fear; yea, from despair itself
To gain sweet hope, as in a dungeon dark
Men turn to faintest glimmering of the light,
Seen by degrees, and cherish it the more.
And what if breath of winter passes now
Upon the spring and summer of my days,—
Thence will I gain my hope; when in the dark
I sit, the Lord Himself shall be my Light.

Wilt Thou not give me, Lord, far more than these?
Wilt Thou not give Thyself? Are these Thine all?
For what else would I seek but Thee on earth,
And what in Heaven but Thee? Alas! so great
Thy goodness, so unwilling to deny
Whate'er the secret soul of Thee may ask,
The unexpress'd desire, the harbour'd thought,
Wishing to give the greater, yet the less
Not willing to withhold; and to the prayer
Too weak in faith to pierce the distant skies,
Thou leanest down, to hear the feebler wish
Which hath too much of earth. And now, O Lord,
As retrospective to the past I turn
And summer suns that shined, Thy very gifts
Confound me, and bow down my face with shame;
For well I know there is no ill on earth
But Thee to lose, no good but only Thee.

Wilt Thou not give me, Lord, far more then these?
Thou that hast given me choicest things of earth,
Things that an early fancy dared to wish,
Too wedded to the world—Thou that from High
Letst Thyself down to my poor low desires,
And listenedst to my whisper'd cravings mean;
Children and friends, and honour, and a home,
And sacred ease, and books both new and old,
And thoughts that from the well-spring of the heart
Flow forth in learned leisure,—wilt Thou not
Bestow far more than these things? Ah, alas!
That I should such have prized, content with these,
E'en o'er Thy mercies could I sigh and mourn;—
“My Father, Thou hast given me Southern lands,
Wilt Thou not give me also water springs,”
That o'er Thy very mercies I may weep?

I cannot grieve unless Thou give me tears:
My life is as the valley of dead bones,
Which cannot of themselves, unless Thou call,
Which cannot of themselves arise and live,
Unless on the dead bones Thy Spirit breathe
And clothe with flesh and sinews of new life,
New life—lest I should die the second death,
New life in the New Man, ere yet my feet
Be slipperiness and darkness, and the mists
Of age mine eyelids close to things of Heaven,
Unnerve my hands, enfeeble my stiff knees,
And the inner darkness compass me around,
Which knows no morning, has no morning star.

“Knock, and it shall be open'd.” O blest words!
To Thee I knock in prayer that Thou mine eyes
Wilt open, that I may behold my sin,
And in beholding mourn, still mourn until
The winter of my sorrow brings a spring
Of Resurrection; welcome, wintry rain,
And cold, to my dry heart, welcome awhile,
That I in desolation may work on,
Till haply gradual change e'en yet may come.
Behold the trees, they are as winter dead,
Naked and leafless; look again awhile,
And they are all of verdant summer full,
Embowering many branches,—many leaves;
And so within the soul a little while
And there may be a change. O blessed change,
More blessed when unknown! O healthful need,
Which hungers after righteousness, and pines,
And feeling its own want is fill'd the more;—
The want of an undying, exiled soul
For its own home—its rest—its food—its life
Which is in God; which wakes to know itself
Feeding on husks, and weeps—weeps to behold
Its own forgetfulness that could so long
Have laugh'd and play'd, and with such empty things
Been satisfied, and gloried; on itself
Gazing in kingly robes upon the stage
Within the glass of vanity, nor knew
Itself a beggar poor, a captive mean.

But Thou wilt “bring me to the wilderness,
And there wilt speak of comfort to my soul;
Till Achor's valley be the door of hope,
And she may sing as in the days of youth.”

Lo, all things now around me speak of rest,
The Christian's heritage, rest amid scenes
Of sadness and decay, a rest in God—
Sweet prelibation of eternal peace.
Therefore not childhood only, and new youth,
But old age and decay, declining day,
And Autumn in it hath of power divine,
Cognate unto a Christian's better life,
The peace which passeth knowledge; as a ship
That on a tranquil eve, as storms have ceased,
Drops its worn sail, and glides unto the shore
In some calm shelter'd bay, and hides itself
From winds and waves that harass'd it so long,
In haven and in quiet anchorage.
Such scenes disposing to eternal peace
Woo all my thoughts abroad, which I to God
Would consecrate, and listen, till the heart,
By their deep influences soothed and still'd,
Rightly interpret to the eye and ear
The parable of the Autumnal Eve.

So may I walk awhile, if it be given,
In fear, while it may be “nor clear nor dark,”
If only “in the evening it be light.”

Then daily with my children may I read
Morn after morn Thy Gospel, and from thence
Bedew my wither'd spirit with fresh dews
Of the Everlasting Morning which attends
Thy doings; from Thy healing hands gain hope,
Fear from Thy sacred lips; and so may I
With little ones around on Wisdom tend
Instructing Childhood and of Childhood taught,
That their sweet innocence may Conscience wake,
Slumbering o'er the remembrance of the past,
To trim her lamp and knock at Mercy's door
That opens:—so may I at evening time
Gain light, and watch with hope the lengthening shades.