Let them feel, that this cold metallic motion Is not all the life God fashions or reveals; Grinding life down from its mark; And the children's souls, which God is calling sunward, Spin on blindly in the dark. Now tell the poor young children, O my brothers, So the blessed One who blesseth all the others, They answer, 'Who is God that He should hear us, Is it likely God, with angels singing round Him, 'Two words, indeed, of praying we remember, "Our Father," looking upward in the chamber, We know no other words except "Our Father," (For they call Him good and mild) Answer, smiling down the steep world very purely, "Come and rest with me, my child!" 'But no,' say the children, weeping faster, And they tell us, of His image is the master Go to!' say the children,-'up in Heaven, Dark, wheel-like, turning clouds are all we find. For God's possible is taught by His world's loving, And well may the children weep before you! They have never seen the sunshine, nor the glory They know the grief of man, without its wisdom, They look up with their pale and sunken faces, For they mind you of their angels in high places, 'How long,' they say, 'how long, O cruel nation, Will you stand, to move the world, on a child's heart,- Stifle down, with a mailed heel its palpitation, And tread onward, to your throne amid the mart? Our blood splashes upward, O gold-heaper, And your purple shows your path! But the child's sob in the silence curses deeper, ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. Born 1819. Died 1861. COME BACK! OME back, come back, behold with straining mast, COME And swelling sail, behold her steaming fast; With one new sun to see her voyage o'er, With morning light to touch her native shore. Come back, come back, while westward labouring by, Come back, come back! Come back, come back, across the flying foam, Come back, come back; and whither back or why? Come back; come back, and whither and for what? To finger idly some old Gordian knot, Unskilled to sunder, and too weak to cleave, Come back, come back; yea back, indeed, do go Come back, come back! Come back, come back; more eager than the breeze, And lighter far than ocean's flying foam, Come back, come back! Back flies the foam; the hoisted flag streams back; The long smoke wavers on the homeward track, Back fly with winds things which the winds obey, The strong ship follows its appointed way. 'WITH WHOM IS NO VARIABLENESS, NEITHER SHADOW OF TURNING.' T fortifies my soul to know IT That, though I perish, Truth is so: That, howsoe'er I stray and range, I steadier step when I recall That, if I slip, Thou dost not fall. SAY NOT, THE STRUGGLE NOUGHT AVAILETH. AY not, the struggle nought availeth, SAY The labour and the wounds are vain, And as things have been they remain. If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars; For while the tired waves, vainly breaking, And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, C COME HOME, COME HOME. OME home, come home, and where is home for me, To the frail bark here plunging on its way, To the wild waters, shall I turn and say Fields once I walked in, faces once I knew, The dark clouds mutter, and the deep seas roar, |