WHY MUST MAN DIE?

WHY must man die? It is not just
That he should crumble into dust!
Our hopes that link us with the sky,
Mere rings of smoke! Why must we die?
The blossom, touched with blighting frost,
Shrivels and falls and ends in death;
And must man's radiant dreams be lost,
Frail as the morning's misty breath?

No longer with vain doubts contend,
Nor let grim death thy soul affright;
We have an ever-living Friend

In Him who dwells above all height.
Hope is the spirit's azure sky;

Sublime, star-filled, it springs above; Joy, my soul! thou canst not die!

Thou hast a God-and God is love.

The sun that sinks in western skies
Uplifts the radiant rim of morn

WHY MUST MAN DIE?

The while, elsewhere, to other eyes;
So we in other worlds are born.

Man shall not die! Thought shall not die!
'Tis not the type alone survives;
Beyond the utmost azure sky
The spirit lives the life of lives!

John S. Van Cleve.

LIFE OUT OF DEATH

LIFE out of death is heaven's unwritten law;
Nay, it is written in a myriad forms;

The victor's palm grows on the fields of war,
And strength and beauty are the fruit of

storms.

Come, then, my soul, be brave to do and bear; Thy life is bruised that it may be more sweet; The cross will soon be left, the crown we'll

wear,

Nay, we will cast it at the Master's feet.

And up among the glories never told,

Sweeter than music of the marriage-bell, Our hands will strike the vibrant harp of gold To the glad song, He doeth all things well.

Henry Burton.

SWEET IS THE THOUGHT

SWEET is the thought that some day
I shall rest.

Some day the good, glad sun will rise
Above the crest

Of billowed hill in ocean skies
The world to bless,

But it will greet my tired eyes
At rest-sweet rest.

Sweet is the thought that some night
I shall sleep.

Some night the sorrowing stars will rise

And peep

From out the mother-skirt of nightly skies; But I shall weep

Not back within their answering eyes,

For I shall sleep.

John Moore.

"FOR LIFE TO ME IS AS A STATION"

FOR life to me is as a station

Wherein, apart, a traveller stands— One absent long from home and nation, In other lands

And I, as he who stands and listens,
Amid the twilight's chill and gloom,
To hear, approaching in the distance,
The train for home.

O. M. Conover.