An hour, did I say? Nay, loveliest, nay, Not thus shall I part with thee, But with subtle skill I shall keep thee still, Fadeless and fresh with me:-- Through toil and duty, "A thing of beauty Forever" my own to be'

As with drooping head Amid thorns I tread, I shall see thee unfold anew, In the desert's dust, Where journey I must, Why beautiful form shall view, And visions of Home O'er my spirit will come, As thro' tear-drops I gaze on you'

LIVING AND DYING.

Living for Christ, I die;--how strange, that I, Thus dying, live,--and yet, thus living, die! Living for Christ, I die;-yet wondrous thought, In that same death a deathless life is wrought;-- Living, I die to Earth, to self, to sin;-- Oh, blessed death, in which such life I win!

Dying for Christ, I live!--death cannot be A terror, then, to one from death set free' Living for Christ, rich blessings I attain, Yet, dying for Him, mine is greater gain Life for my Lord, is death to sin and strife, Yet death for Him is everlas'ing life!

Dying for Christ, I live!--and yet, not I, But He lives in me, who did for me die. I die to live,--He lives to die no more, Who, in His death my own death-sentence bore "To live is Christ," if Christ within me reign, To die more blessed, since "to die is gain!"

UP THE NEPIGON.

How beautiful, how beautiful, Beneath the morning sky, In bridal veil of snowy mist, These dreamy headlands lie! How beautiful, in soft repose, Upon the water's breast, Steeped in the sunlight's golden calm, These fairy islets rest!

A Sabbath hush enfolds the hills, And broods upon the deep Whose music every hollow fills, And climbs each rocky steep, Now low and soft like love's own sigh, Now faint and far away, Now plaining to the answering pines, With melancholy lay.

Like white-winged birds, through azure depths, Above the restless tide, With snowy plume and golden crest, The fleecy cloudlets glide; Their dancing shadows fleck the deep, Or flit above the green Of emerald islands fast asleep 'Neath tranquil skies serene.

I watch the sunshine and the shade, The sparkle and the gleam, Till past and present seem to fade, And life becomes a dream-- A fairy, fancy-tinted dream, A sun-bright; summer rest, In which I glide through shade and gleam Past islands of the blest

How beautiful! "How beautiful!" The quiet hills reply, And each responsive cliff gives back Its answer to the sky;-- "How beautiful!" the waves repeat, And every cloudlet smiles, And writes its answer on the green Of countless summer isles.

'Tis past--this first, last, only look!-- And now, away, away, To bear alone in Memory's book The sunshine of to-day; Yet oft, 'neath other skies than these, With other scenes in view, O isles of beauty, sunny seas, I shall remember you!

LOOK UP

Christian, lookup? thy feet may slide; This is a slippery way! Yet One is walking by thy side Whose arm should be thy stay, Thou canst not see that blessed form, Nor view that loving smile With eager eyes thus earthward bent-- Christian, look up a while!

Christian, look up!--what seest thou here To court thy anxious eyes? Earth is beneath thee, lone and drear, Above, thy native skies! Beneath, the wreck of faded bloom, The shadow, and the clod, The broken reed, the open tomb,-- Above thee, is THY GOD!

Look up! thy head too long has been Bowed darkly toward the earth, Thou son of a most Royal Sire, Creature of kingly birth! What! dragging like a very slave Earth's heavy galling chain,-- And struggling onward to the grave In weariness and pain?

What wouldst thou with this world?--thy home, Thy country is not here, 'Mid faded flowers, and perished bloom, And shadows dense and drear!-- Thy home is where the tree of Life Waves high its fruitage blest, 'Mid bowers with fadeless beauties rife,-- Look up, and claim thy rest!

FROST-FLOWERS.

Over my window in pencillings white, Stealthily traced in the silence of night-- Traced with a pencil as viewless as air, By an artist unseen, when the star-beams were fair, Came wonderful pictures, so life-like and true That I'm filled with amaze as the marvel I view.

Like, and yet unlike the things I have seen,-- Feathery ferns in the forest-depths green, Delicate mosses that hide from the light, Snow-drops, and lilies, and hyacinths white, Fringes, and feathers, and half-opened flowers, Closely-twined branches of dim, cedar bowers-- Strange, that one hand should so deftly combine Such numberless charms in so quaint a design!

O wondrous creations of silence and night! I watch as ye fade in the clear morning light,-- As ye melt into tear-drops and trickle away From the keen, searching eyes of inquisitive Day. While I gaze ye are gone, and I see you depart With a wistful regret lying deep in my heart,-- A longing for something that will not decay, Or melt like these frost-flowers in tear-drops away,-- A passionate yearning of heart for that shore Where beauty unfading shall last evermore; Nor, e'en as we gaze, from our vision be lost Like the beautiful things that are pencilled in frost!

THE BEECH-NUT GATHERER.

All over the earth like a mantle, Golden, and green, and grey, Crimson, and scarlet, and yellow, The Autumn foliage lay;-- The sun of the Indian Summer Laughed at the bare old trees As they shook their leafless branches In the soft October breeze.