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So I ask Thee for the daily strength,

To none that ask denied,

And a mind to blend with outward strife
While keeping at Thy side;
Content to fill a little space,
So Thou be glorified.

And if some things I do not ask
In my cup of blessing be,

I would have my spirit filled the more
With grateful love to Thee;
And careful, less to serve Thee much,
Than to please Thee perfectly.

There are briars besetting every path

That call for patient care;

There is a cross in every lot,

And an earnest need for prayer;
But a lowly heart, that leans on Thee,
Is happy anywhere.

In a service which Thy will appoints,
There are no bonds for me;

For my inmost heart is taught the truth
That makes Thy children free:

And a life of self-renouncing love
Is a life of liberty.

I

ANONYMOUS.

THE NIGHTMARE.

I.

COME in gleams from the land of dreams,
Wrapped round in the midnight's pall;
Ye may hear my groan in the night-wind's moan,
When the tapestry flaps on the wall.

I come from my rest in the death-owl's nest,
When she screams in fear and pain,

And my wings gleam bright in the wild moonlight,
As it whirls round the madman's brain;

And down sweeps my car like a falling star,

When the winds have hushed their breath, When ye feel in the air from the cold sepulchre, The damp sad smell of death.

II.

My vigil I keep by the murderer's sleep,
When dreams round his senses spin,
And ride on his breast, and trouble his rest,
In the shape of his deadliest sin;
And hollow and low is his groan of woe,
In the depth of his strangling pain,
And his cold black eye rolls in agony,
And faintly rattles his chain;

The sweat-drops fall on the dark prison wall,
He wakes with a deep-drawn sigh;
He hears my tread as I pass from his bed,
And he calls on the saints on high.

III.

I fly to the bed where the weary head,
Of the poet its rest must seek,

And with false dreams of fame I kindle the flame
Of joy on his pallid cheek.

No thought does he take of the world awake,
And its cold and heartless pleasure,

The holy fire of his own loved lyre,

Is his best and dearest treasure ;
But neglect's foul sting that cheek must bring,
To a darker and deadlier hue ;-

The last dear token his lyre is broken,

And his heart is broken too.

IV.

When the maiden asleep for her lover may weep

Afar on the boundless sea,

And she dreams he is pressed to her welcome breast, Returned from his dangers free ;

I come in the form of a wave of the storm,

And sweep him away from her heart,

And then in her dream she starts with a scream,
To think that in death they part;

And still in the light of her tear-bound sight,
The images whirl and dance,

Till my swift elision dispels the vision,

And she wakes as from a trance.

V.

When the clouds first born of the breezy morn

In the western chambers roam,

I glide away in the twilight gray,

To rest in my shadowy home;

And darkness and sleep to their kingdoms sweep,
And dreams rustle by like a storm,

But where I dwell no man can tell,

Who has seen my hideous form,
Whether it be in the caves of the sea,
When the rolling breakers go,
Or the crystal sphere of the upper air,
Or the Stygian depths below.

A RIPPLE ON THE LAKE.

HERE was a ripple on the water's face,

THE

A ripple on the waters of Loch Fyne.
Bright fell the sunshine, with a sportive grace,
Sweet sang the throstle from her island shrine.
'Save me, God! Save me!' but a moment past
Uprose the shriek of frenzied agony;

From the clear wave a dying youth aghast

Glared round and upwards as he breathed that cry;
Then sank, slow drifting through the unfathomed space,
Down to dark burial 'mid the wild weeds' twine.

So came that ripple on the water's face,
That ripple on the waters of Loch Fyne.

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