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TO A WATERFOWL

All day thy wings have fanned,
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere,
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.

He who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

William Cullen Bryant.

HE LEADS US ON

He leads us on

By paths we did not know;

Upward He leads us, though our steps be slow, Though oft we faint and falter on the way, Though storms and darkness oft obscure the day, Yet when the clouds are gone

We know He leads us on.

He leads us on

Through all the unquiet years;

Past all our dreamland hopes, and doubts, and fears

He guides our steps. Through all the tangled

maze

Of sin, of sorrow, and o'erclouded days

We know His will is done;

And still He leads us on.

And He, at last,

After the weary strife

After the restless fever we call life

HE LEADS US ON

After the dreariness, the aching pain,

The wayward struggles which have proved in

vain,

After our toils are past—

Will give us rest at last.

Unknown.

16

"SPEAK THOU, AVAILING CHRIST "

WHEN Some beloved voice that was to you
Both sound and sweetness, faileth suddenly,
And silence against which you dare not cry,
Aches round
you like a strong disease and new-
What hope? what help? what music will undo
That silence to your sense? Not friendship's
sigh-

Nor reason's subtle count! Not melody
Of viols, nor of pipes that Faunus blew-
Not songs of poets, nor of nightingales,
Whose hearts leap upward through the cypress

trees

To the clear moon: nor yet the spheric laws Self-chanted, nor the angels' sweet All hails, Met in the smile of God. Nay, none of these. Speak THOU, availing Christ! and fill this pause. Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

"OUR COURSE IS ONWARD"

OUR course is onward, onward into light:
What though the darkness gathereth amain,
Yet to return or tarry, both are vain.

How tarry, when around us is thick night?
Whither return? what flower yet ever might,
In days of gloom, and cold, and stormy rain,
Enclose itself in its green bud again,
Hiding from wrath of tempest out of sight?
Courage?—we travel through a darksome cave;
But still, as nearer to the light we draw,
Fresh gales will reach us from the upper air,

And wholesome dews of heaven our foreheads

lave,

The darkness lighten more, till full of awe

We stand in the open

sunshine-unaware.

Richard Chenevix Trench.

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