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THE FAVOURITISMS OF HEAVEN.

In the evening we can longest tarry by the twilight shore, For at even dreams float on for ever and for evermore :

In the evening stars that glimmer one by one from out the

sky

Tell in tones that touch us nearly how in silence time fleets by: And a voice like none beside them have the winds of falling

night,

Hurrying on our spirits with them up to Memory's cloudy

height.

In the evening, too, ariseth Hope with all her faëry train, Turning from the roseate Past to tell us such shall come again.

And at chiming of the vespers, as it chanced, my thoughts

I cast,

Half awake and half in dreamings, over my far-crowded

Past.

And is 't mine then?-Some one answers, "How or what is it to thee?

Nothing but a train of memories like a silver mist at

sea:

Here and there a glory scatter'd from the starlight or the

moon,

Rising like all things of time,-enthusiast! vanishing as

soon.

Thine the present is-go, grasp it; thine the future may be

said;

But the Past is nothing, nothing but the shadow of a shade."

Ceased the voice, and much I wonder'd, but I scarcely dared

to doubt.

When another spirit answer'd from the silence speaking

out,

Brother, nay-the Past seems vanish'd save to Memory's

listless eye:

No-no-no-the Past is deathless and its record is on

List! it rose a heaving landscape, scarce defined yet won

drous strange,

Gloom and glory like a moon-trance flitting o'er in cease

less change.

There were springs of crystal rapture, rivulets of sorrow too, Passion with her storm-tost surges, Peace a lake of softest

blue.

Long my musings like a wanderer wandering o'er the haunts

of youth,

Slow retraced each bygone feeling in their lucid depths of

truth,

Till upon love's fount they centred, purest of all waves that

flow,

Fed itself of heaven, yet feeding all the myriad flowers

below.

Lean thy heart on mine, beloved,- listen-I have heard

men say

That the fondnesses of earth will pass with earthly things

away;

All the silent eloquence of clasped hands and falling tears, All the musical low whispers like the music of the spheres,

All the thrilling strange entrancement fluttering over cheek

and eye,

Like the purple lightning playing with the stars in yon blue

sky;

Things we love, because they tell us of the loving heart

within,

Feelings of the inmost fountain far beyond the touch of

sin;

These, they say, are human frailties, frailties born of sense

and time,

But will be no more remember'd when we reach our native

clime.

There, they say, we all are one, and none can love thee least

or best,

But as brethren all are equal thro' the myriads of the blest.

It may be an idle question-be my wayward heart forgivenHow earth's love shall wear the gorgeous bright apparelling of heaven.

It may be we are too venturous, for the light is faint and

dim,

And but little knows the pilgrim of the life of seraphim.

Yet I love to think, mine own one, I shall love thee there

as here,

Best of all created beings, best of all that angel sphere.

Read we not of earth the seed-time for the glorious world to

come?

Faith receiving there her guerdon, sin her saddest dreariest

doom?

Have not all the things of life-time issues infinite above? And shall love reap there no harvest of the scatter'd seeds

of love?

What if now we steep affection oft in weeping, oft in sighs,— They who sow in tears, beloved, reap the rapture of the skies.

True that we can tell but little how the full flood-tide of

love

Swells from out a thousand rivulets in a thousand hearts

above;

True we know not now the rapture, nor a thousandth thou

sandth part,

Seeing Him we loved unseen, and face to face and heart to

heart,