IF WE KNEW.

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IF WE KNEW.

IF we knew the woe and heart-ache
Waiting for us down the road,

If our lips could taste the wormwood,
If our backs could feel the load,
Would we waste the day in wishing
For a time that ne'er can be?
Would we wait in such impatience
For our ships to come from sea?

If we knew the baby fingers

Pressed against the window-pane, Would be cold and stiff to-morrow

Never trouble us again

Would the bright eyes of our darling

Catch the frown upon our brow?

Would the print of rosy fingers
Vex us then as they do now?

Ah, these little ice-cold fingers,

How they point our memories back.

To the hasty words and actions

Strewn along our backward track !—

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IF WE KNEW.

How those little hands remind us,

As in snowy grace they lie,
Not to scatter thorns—but roses—

For our reaping by and by.

Strange we never prize the music

Till the sweet-voiced bird has flown;
Strange that we should slight the violets
Till the lovely flowers are gone;
Strange that Summer skies and sunshine
Never seem one-half so fair,

As when Winter's snowy pinions
Shake the white down in the air!

Lips from which the seal of silence
None but God can roll away,
Never blossomed in such beauty

As adorns the mouth to-day;
And sweet words that freight our memory
With their beautiful perfume,

Come to us in sweeter accents

Through the portals of the tomb.

Let us gather up the sunbeams
Lying all around our path;
Let us keep the wheat and roses,
Casting out the thorns and chaff;

THE COMFORTER.

Let us find our sweetest comfort
In the blessings of to-day,
With a patient hand removing
All the briers from our way.

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THE COMFORTER.

THY Sweetness hath betrayed thee, Lord!

Dear Spirit, it is thou!

Deeper and deeper in my heart

I feel thee nestling now.

Oh! that Thou mightest stay with me!

Or else that I might die

While heart and soul are still subdued

Thy home is with the humble, Lord!

The simple are thy rest;

Thy lodging is in childlike hearts,

Thou makest there thy nest!

Dear Comforter! Eternal Love!
If thou wilt stay with me,
Of lowly thoughts and holy ways
I'll build a nest for thee!

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SONG OF THE BROOK.

Who made this beating heart of mine,
But Thou, my heavenly guest!

Let no one have it, then, but Thee,

And let it be Thy rest.

F. W. FABER.

SONG OF THE BROOK.

I COME from haunts of coot and hern;
I make a sudden sally,

And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges;
By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow
To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,
In little sharps and trebles;
I bubble into eddying bays,
I babble on the pebbles.

SONG OF THE BROOK.

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow,

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow

To join the brimming river;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,
And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling.

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel,

With many a silvery waterbreak

Above the golden gravel;

And draw them all along, and flow
To join the brimming river;

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots;
I slide by hazel covers;

I move the sweet Forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

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