University of Virginia Library

PENSEES.

THE SUFFERINGS OF THE GOOD.

The good mourn not in vain, for every tear,
Shed in their hours of pain and suffering here,
Is crystallized into a shining gem,
To deck, when life is past, their heavenly diadem.

FAIRY GRATITUDE.

Dew-drops are fairy coin,—Dost see, my child,
Yon drooping hare-bell with its slender stem
Glittering so brightly? Yester-eve be sure
A fairy slept within its folded leaves,
And left, for payment of its night's repose,
Yon sparkling fret-work on the purple dome
That shelter'd it.

ETERNITY DEFINED

Eternity—Time, risen from the tomb,
Heir, like ourselves to immortality.

A SIMILE.

The stars are like man's nobler attributes,
That lie conceal'd and dormant in the heart,
While life is bright with sunshine, but when care,
And pain, and danger, and temptation throw
Their shadows o'er its path, then like the bright
Eternal watchers of night's radiant skies,
They shine forth from the darkness, and become
The awe and admiration of the world.

PARALLELS.

Night, with its retinue of glittering stars—
Youth, with its bright array of sparkling hopes—
Day, the dispeller of night's baseless dreams—
Manhood, the time of stern realities.

[The infinite sands upon the ocean shore—]

The infinite sands upon the ocean shore—
The countless multitudes of human kind—
The ocean waves, that now cast forth those sands,
Now sweep them back into their viewless depths,
And the swift hours, that as they come and go,
At once bestow and take, create and kill.

THE TWO THRONES.

God sitteth on two thrones—the one on high,
Amid the splendours of the immaculate heaven,
The other, in the lowliest human heart.

HOPE AND TRUTH.

Hope is the Proteus vapour that doth flit
In thousand shapes across a summer sky,
But truth is as the stedfast heaven beyond,
That changeth not.

LIGHT THE REVELATION OF DEITY.

“Let there be light!”—At that divine command,
The Invisible, in all His attributes,
Wise, glorious, merciful, omnipotent,
Stood forth reveal'd. Those solemn words proclaim'd
Sublimely to the awakening universe,
“Behold—earth, sea, and heaven, behold your God.”

THE RARE MIRROR.

Thou art a most rare mirror, pretty one,
Of the sun's radiance, for upon thy brow
Rests ever the reflection of his smile,
Even though his face be veil'd.

TIME.

Time is a ladder, and its years, the steps,
The multitudinous steps, by which we climb
Higher and higher to Eternity.

ANGELS' TEARS.

Dew-drops, the poets say, are angels' tears,
Shed thro' the long and silent hours of night
Over a fallen world.