"The mark of rank in Nature

Is capacity for pain,

And the anguish of the singer

Makes the sweetness of the strain !

"There's a purpose in pain,

Else it were devilish !"

"If broken lives may best complete Thy circle, let our fragments fall An offering at Thy feet."

SONGS IN SICKNESS.

God has use for all thy pain.

I TRUST in my soul

That the great master hand which sweeps over the

whole

Of this deep harp of life, if at moments it stretch
To shrill tension some one wailing nerve, means to

fetch

Its response the truest, most stringent and smart,— Its pathos the purest, from out the wrung heart, Whose faculties, flaccid it may be, if less

Sharply strung, sharply smitten, had failed to ex

press

Just the one note, the great harmony needs.

OWEN MERIDITH'S "Lucille."

HIS leaf? this stone? It is thy heart;

Tit must be crushed by pain and smart,

It must be cleansed by sorrow's art

Ere it will yield a fragrance sweet,
Ere it will shine a jewel meet,

To lay before thy dear Lord's feet.

T

HE same old baffling questions! O my friend

I cannot answer them. In vain I send

My soul into the dark, where never burn
The lamps of science, nor the natural light
Of Reason's sun and stars! I cannot learn
Their great and solemn meanings, nor discern
The awful secrets of the eyes which turn
Evermore on us through the day and night,
With silent challenge, and a dumb demand,
Proffering the riddles of the dread unknown
Like the calm sphinxes with their eyes of stone,
Questioning the centuries from their veils of sand.
I have no answer for myself or thee,

Save that I learned at my mother's knee :

"All is of God that is, and is to be,

And God is good!" Let this suffice us still
Resting in child-like trust upon His will,

Who moveth His great ends unthwarted by the ill.

WHITTIER.

I

KNOW Thy wondrous ways will end

In love and blessing, Thou true friend!

Enough if Thou art ever near.

I know whom Thou wilt glorify

And raise o'er sun and stars on high,

Thou lead'st through depths of darkness here

I WAIT,

Till from my veiled brows shall fall

This being's thrall,

Which keeps me now from knowing all.
In stormless mornings yet to be

I'll pluck from Life's full fruited tree,
The joys to-day denied to me.

MARY CLEMMER.

THE

HEY who have learned to pray aright,
From Pain's dark well draw up delight.

HE Border-Lands are calm and still,

TH

And solemn are their silent shades ;
And my heart welcomes them, until
The light of life's long evening fades.

I heard them spoken of with dread,
As fearful and unquiet places ;
Shades where the living and the dead
Looked sadly in each other's faces.

But since Thy hand hath led me here

And I have seen the Border-LandSeen the dark river flowing near, Stood on its brink as now I stand,

There has been nothing to alarm
My trembling soul; how could I fear
While thus encircled with Thine arm?
I never felt Thee half so near.

They say the waves are dark and deep, That faith has perished in the river ; They speak of death with fear, and weep, Shall my soul perish? Never!

never!

I know that Thou wilt never leave
The soul that trembles while it clings
To Thee: I know Thou wilt achieve
Its passage on Thine outspread wings.

And since I first was brought so near

The stream that flows to the Dead Sea, I think that it has grown more clear And shallow than it used to be.

NCE Pain beat upon my heart

ONCE

And well-nigh killed it.

I shuddered at the smart,

But said "God willed it."