And lo! my mortal sight
Could reach to heaven,
My faith dispelled the night,

And light was given.

ELLA WHEeler.

I

HAVE some songs I do not sing

To any human ear;

None can discern the precious thing

Which is to me so dear.

No sympathy goes far enough;

No soul comes into mine;

No critic's voice but sounds too rough,

For me to lend a line.

They are my songs, my precious songs,
That come to me by night;
Their very rhythmic pulse belongs
To fancy's farthest flight.

In them my spirit moved at will
Between the earth and sky;

I cannot catch again the thrill
I felt when stars passed by.

So blame me not; I cannot sing,

To any human ear,

Those anthems of my suffering

Which are to me so dear.

REV. SAMUEL DUFFIELD.

WHA

HAT though the web our hands shall leave. undone

Be tangled, and its pattern feebly wrought?

If it be finished by some stronger one,

The stronger soul may win the goal we sought.

Some soul shall reap what we have sown in tears.

LAURA B. BOYCE.

F I must win my way to perfectness
In the sad

The over-flowing river of whose life

Touches the flood-mark of humanity

On the white pillars of the heavenly throne,

Sorrow and pain, the fear and fact of death!
DR. J. G. HOLLAND.

WHAT profit to lay on God's altar

Oblations of pain ?—

Can He in the infinite gladness
That floods all His being with light
Complacently look on the sadness

That dares to intrude on His sight?
Can He, in His rhythmic creation

Attuned to the chant of the spheres, Bear the discord of moans, the vibration Of down-dropping tears?

Be quiet, poor heart! Are the lessons
Life sets thee so hard to attain

That thou know'st not their potentest essence
Lies wrapped in the problem of pain ?
Even Nature such rudiments teaches ;-
The birth-throe presages the breath;
The soul so high destined, reaches
Its highest through death.

No beaker is brimmed without bruising
The clusters that gladden the vine;
No gem, glitters star-like, refusing
The rasp that uncovers its shine;
The diver must dare the commotion
Of billows above him that swirl,
Ere he from the depths of the ocean
Can bring up the pearl.

And He, who is molding the spirit,

Through disciplines changeful and sore, That so it be fit to inherit

The marvelous heirship in storeHe measures the weight He is piling, He tempers the surge with a touch, There'll not be a graze of His filing Too little, too much.

O heart, canst thou trust Him? For sake of
Attainment the noblest, the best,

Content thee awhile to partake of
These trials so wisely impressed;
Nor question God's goodness, nor falter,
Nor say that Thy service is vain,
If He bids thee bring to His altar
Oblations of pain.

MARGARET J. PRESTON.

A

LITTLE bird flew my window by,

'Twixt the level street and the level sky,

The level rows of houses tall,

The long low sun on the level wall;

And all that the little bird did say
Was, "Over the hills and far away."

A little bird sings above my bed,
And I know if I could but lift my head