A thousand joys may foam

On the billows of all the years;

But never the foam brings the lone back home,

He reaches the haven through tears.

Abram J. Ryan [1839-1888]

ENDURANCE

How much the heart may bear, and yet not break!

How much the flesh may suffer, and not die!

I question much if any pain or ache

Of soul or body brings our end more nigh: Death chooses his own time; till that is sworn, All evils may be borne.

We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's knife,

Each nerve recoiling from the cruel steel
Whose edge seems searching for the quivering life;
Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal,
That still, although the trembling flesh be torn,
This also can be borne.

We see a sorrow rising in our way,

And try to flee from the approaching ill;

We seek some small escape: we weep and pray;
But when the blow falls, then our hearts are still;
Not that the pain is of its sharpness shorn,

But that it can be borne.

We wind our life about another life;

We hold it closer, dearer than our own: Anon it faints and fails in deathly strife,

Leaving us stunned and stricken and alone;
But ah! we do not die with those we mourn,-
This also can be borne.

Behold, we live through all things,-famine, thirst,
Bereavement, pain; all grief and misery,

All woe and sorrow; life inflicts its worst

On soul and body,-but we can not die.

Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and worn,

Lo, all things can be borne!

Elizabeth Akers [1832–1911]

Where birds are chirping in summer shine, And I hear, though I cannot look, and she, Though she cannot hear, can the singers see,And the little soft fingers flutter in mine. Hath not the dear little hand a tongue,

When it stirs on my palm for the love of me? Do I not know she is pretty and young? Hath not my soul an eye to see? 'Tis pleasure to make one's bosom stir, To wonder how things appear to her,

That I only hear as they pass around; And as long as we sit in the music and light, She is happy to keep God's sight,

And I am happy to keep God's sound.

Why, I know her face, though I am blind-
I made it of music long ago:

Strange large eyes and dark hair twined
Round the pensive light of a brow of snow;
And when I sit by my little one,

And hold her hand and talk in the sun,

And hear the music that haunts the place,
I know she is raising her eyes to me,
And guessing how gentle my voice must be,
And seeing the music upon my face.

Though, if ever the Lord should grant me a prayer (I know the fancy is only vain),

I should pray: Just once, when the weather is fair,
To see little Fanny and Langley Lane;
Though Fanny, perhaps, would pray to hear
The voice of the friend she holds so dear,

The song of the birds, the hum of the street,—

It is better to be as we have been,

Each keeping up something, unheard, unseen,
To make God's heaven more strange and sweet!

Ah, life is pleasant in Langley Lane!

There is always something sweet to hear! Chirping of birds or patter of rain;

And Fanny, my little one, always near;

SONG

We only ask for sunshine,

We did not want the rain;

But see the flowers that spring from showers
All up and down the plain.

We beg the gods for laughter,

We shrink, we dread the tears;
But grief's redress is happiness,

Alternate through the years.

Helen Hay Whitney [18

THE HOUSE OF PAIN

UNTO the Prison House of Pain none willingly repairThe bravest who an entrance gain

Reluctant linger there

For Pleasure, passing by that door, stays not to cheer the sight,

And Sympathy but muffles sound and banishes the light.

Yet in the Prison House of Pain things full of beauty blow— Like Christmas roses, which attain

Perfection 'mid the snow

Love, entering in his mild warmth the darkest shadows

melt,

And often, where the hush is deep, the waft of wings is felt.

Ah, me! the Prison House of Pain!-what lessons there are

bought!

Lessons of a sublimer strain

Than any elsewhere taught—

Amid its loneliness and gloom, grave meanings grow more

clear,

For to no earthly dwelling-place seems God so

near!

strangely

Florence Earle Coates [1850