ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?

I steal away from my husband,

Asleep in his easy chair,

And watch from the open doorway
Their faces fresh and fair.

Alone in the dear old homestead
That was once so full of life,
Ringing with girlish laughter,
Echoing boyish strife,

We two are waiting together;

And oft, as the shadows come, With tremulous voice he calls me, "It is night! are the children home?"

"Yes, love!" I answer him, gently,
"They're all home long ago;"-
And I sing, in my quivering treble,
A song so soft and low,

Till the old man drops to slumber,
With his head upon his hand,
And I tell to myself the number
Home in a better land.

Home, where never a sorrow

Shall dim their eyes with tears!
Where the smile of God is on them

Through all the summer years!

115

116

ARE THE CHILDREN AT HOME?

I know!—yet my arms are empty,
That fondly folded seven,

And the mother heart within me
Is almost starved for heaven.

Sometimes in the dusk of evening,
I only shut my eyes,

And the children are all about me,
A vision from the skies;
The babes whose dimpled fingers
Lost the way to my breast,
And the beautiful ones, the angels,
Passed to the world of the blessed.

A breath, and the vision is lifted

Away on wings of light,
And again we two are together,
All alone in the night.

They tell me his mind is failing,
But I smile at idle fears;

He is only back with the children,
In the dear and peaceful years.

And still as the summer sunset
Fades away in the west,

And the wee ones, tired of playing,

Go trooping home to rest,

My husband calls from his corner,

"Say, love! have the children come?” And I answer, with eyes uplifted,

"Yes, dear! they are all at home!"

A LESSON.

LAST night I weighed, quite wearied out,
The question that perplexes still;
And that sad spirit we call doubt

Made the good nought beside the ill.

This morning, when with rested mind
I try again the self same theme,
The whole is altered, and I find

The balance turned, the good supreme.

A little sleep, a brief night's rest,

Has changed the look of all that is!

Sure any

creed I hold at best

Needs humble holding after this.

118

CENTENNIAL HYMN.

CENTENNIAL HYMN,

Prepared for the opening of the United States International
Exposition of 1876.

OUR fathers' God, from out whose hand
The centuries fall like grains of sand,
We meet to-day, united, free,

And loyal to our land and Thee!
To thank Thee for the era done,
And trust Thee for the opening one.

Here, where of old, by Thy design
The fathers spake that word of Thine
Whose echo is the glad refrain
Of rended bolt and falling chain,
To grace our festal time, from all
The zones of earth our guests we call.

Be with us while the New World greets
The Old World thronging all its streets,
Unveiling all the triumphs won
By art or toil beneath the sun;
And unto common good ordain
This rivalship of hand and brain.

CENTENNIAL HYMN.

119

Thou who hast here in concord furled
The war flags of a gathered world,

Beneath our Western skies fulfill
The Orient's mission of good will,
And, freighted with Love's golden fleece,
Send back the Argonauts of peace.

For art and labor met in truce,

For beauty made the bride of use,

We thank Thee, while withal we crave

The austere virtues strong to save,
The honor proof to place or gold,

The manhood never bought or sold!

O! make thou us, through centuries long
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw

The safeguards of Thy righteous law,
And, cast in some diviner mould,

Let the new cycle shame the old!

J. G. WHITTIER,