"I LAY ME DOWN TO SLEEP"

My half-day's work is done,
And that is all my part;
I give a patient God

My patient heart;

Though all the stars be dim;

For stripes as well as stars

Lead up to Him.

CROSSING THE BAR

SUNSET and evening star,

And one clear call for me!

And may there be no moaning of the bar
When I put out to sea.

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,

Too full for sound or foam,

When that which drew from out the boundless deep

Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,

And after that, the dark!

And may there be no sadness of farewell

When I embark ;

For though from out our bourne of Time and Place

The flood may bear me far,

I hope to see my Pilot face to face,

When I have crossed the bar.

Alfred Tennyson.

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS

WITHIN the maddening maze of things,
And tossed by storm and flood,
To one fixed stake my spirit clings:
I know that God is good.

I long for household voices gone,
For vanished smiles I long;
But God hath led my dear ones on,
And He can do no wrong.

I know not what the future hath
Of marvel or surprise,

Assured alone that life and death

And if my heart and flesh are weak
To bear an untried pain,

The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

THE ETERNAL GOODNESS

And so beside the silent sea

I wait the muffled oar;

No harm from Him can come to me
On ocean or on shore.

I know not where His islands lift
Their fronded palms in air;

I only know I cannot drift
Beyond His love and care.

John G. Whittier.

TO A WATERFOWL

WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of

day,

Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way!

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,-

Lone wandering, but not lost.