All else is mystery. Why evil lives
Within His universe I may not know.
I know it lives, and taints the vital air;
And that in ways inscrutable to me-
Yet compromising not his soundless love
And boundless power—it lives against His will."
J. G. HOLLAND, in "Bitter-Sweet."

'HE clouds may rest on the present,

THE

And sorrow on days that are gone,
But no night is so utterly cheerless
That we may not look for the dawn;
And there is no human being

With so wholly dark a lot,

But the heart by turning the picture
May find a sunny spot.

PHOEBE CARY.

"HE stars are in the sky all day :
But when the sun has gone away

And hovering shadows cool the west
And call the sleepy birds to rest,
And heaven grows softly dim and dun,
Into its darkness one by one

Steal forth those starry shapes all fair-
We say steal forth, but they were there!

There all day long, unseen, unguessed,
Climbing the sky from east to west.
The angels saw them where they hid,
And so, perhaps, the eagles did,
For they can face the sharp sun-ray,
Nor wink, nor need to look away;
But we, blind mortals, gazed from far,
And did not see a single star.

I wonder if the world is full

Of other secrets beautiful.

As little guessed, as hard to see,
As this sweet starry mystery!
Do angels veil themselves in space,
And make the sun their hiding place?
Do heavenly wings flash as spirits go
On heavenly errands to and fro-
While we, down-looking, never guess
How near our lives they crowd and press ?
If so, at life's set we may see

Into the dusk steal noiselessly,

Sweet faces that we used to know,

Dear eyes like stars that softly glow,
Dear hands stretched out to point the way,
And deem the night more fair than day.

SUSAN COOLIDGE.

II.

SONGS IN HEAVINESS.

"Down, thou climbing sorrow! thy element is below!"

"Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts, and all without and within is dismal, cold and dark."

"Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate,

Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours
Weeping upon his bed hath sate,

He knows ye not, ye Heavenly Powers!"

"Grief within our hearts grows strong
With passionate meaning, till thou come
And turn it to a song."

SONGS IN HEAVINESS.

"Strike! Thou the anthem, we, Thy keys!"

I

THINK we are too ready with complaint

In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed, beyond the zenith and the slope

Of yon gray blank sky, we might grow faint
To muse upon Eternity's constraint

Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop

For a few days consumed in loss and taint ?
O pusillanimous heart, be comforted,

And, like a cheerful traveler, take the road
Singing, beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod
To meet the flints? At least it may be said,
"Because the way is short, I thank thee, God!"
E. B. BROWNING.