How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!

I think how I should view the earth and skies And sea, when once again my brow was bared

After thy healing, with such different eyes, O world, as God has made it! All is beauty: And knowing this, is love, and love is duty. What further may be sought for or declared?

R. BROWNING.

November 13.

THE BLESSED DEAD.

O IT is sweet to think

Of those that are departed,
While murmured Aves sink
To silence tender-hearted;
While tears that have no pain
Are tranquilly distilling,
And the dead live again

In hearts that love is filling.

Yet not as in the days

Of earthly ties we love them;
For they are touched with rays
From light that is above them:

Another sweetness shines

Around their well-known features

God with His glory signs

His dearly-ransomed creatures.

Ah! they are more our own,
Since now they are God's only ;
And each one that has gone

Has left our heart less lonely.
He mourns not seasons fled,
Who now in Him possesses
Treasures of many dead

In their dear Lord's caresses.

Dear dead! they have become
Like guardian angels to us;
And distant heaven like home,
Through them begins to woo us.
Love that was earthly wings
Its flight to holier places;
The dead are sacred things
That multiply our graces.

They, whom we loved on earth,
Attract us now to Heaven;
Who shared our grief and mirth
Back to us now are given.
They move with noiseless foot
Gravely and sweetly round us,
And their soft touch hath cut
Full many a chain that bound us.

O dearest dead! to Heaven

With grudging sighs we gave you,
To Him-be doubts forgiven !
Who took you there to save you :-
Now get us grace to love

Your memories yet more kindly,
Pine for our homes above

And trust God, more blindly.

F. W. FABER.

November 14.

I TELL thee, child, the world's so thick with love
Blazoned in beautifulness, that if two pure hearts
Turn to one sunset, drink one molten gold,
Read there together secrets of this world
Leaning from life towards a larger shore,
And, clasping Nature's breast, find Truth and Love
One divine essence, thereupon some chain
Of luminous fire encircles; each to each
Infixed awakens; angel-woven ties
Of infinite, life-deep sympathy enthral,
And far into the splendours of the west
Flashes the new-born glory of their love,
And the world's ocean-billows clap their hands,
And the light throbs again from star to Sun
Exultant for two souls that soar to one.

November 15.

LIFE AND DEATH.

LIFE is not sweet. One day it will be sweet
To shut our eyes and die :

Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by
With flitting butterfly,

Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet,
Nor hear the happy lark that soars sky high,
Nor sigh that spring is fleet and summer fleet,
Nor mark the waxing wheat,

Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat.

Life is not good. One day it will be good
To die, then live again ;

To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane
Of shrunk leaves dropping in the wood,
Nor hear the foamy lashing of the main,

Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood
Rich ranks of golden grain

Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain :
Asleep from risk, asleep from pain.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.

November 16.

LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION.

"Ben puð talor col casto."

IT must be right sometimes to entertain
Chaste love with hope not over-credulous;
Since if all human loves were impious,
Unto what end did God the world ordain ?

If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign, 'Tis for the sake of beauty glorious

Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us, And drives all evil thought from its domain. That is not love whose tyranny we own

In loveliness that every moment dies: Which like the face it worships, fades away : True love is that which the pure heart hath known, Which alters not with time or death's decay, Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.

MICHAEL ANGELO (J. A. SYMONDS).

November 17.

THETIS AND IPHIGENIA.

MERRILY rose the bridal strain,

With the pipe of reed, and the wild harp ringing, With the Libyan flute, and the dancer's train, And the bright-haired muses singing.

On the turf elastic treading,
Up Pelion's steep with an airy bound

Their golden sandals they struck on the ground,
While the mighty gods were feasting round,
As they sped to Peleus' wedding,

They left Pieria's fountain,

On the leaf-crowned hill they stood,
They breathed their softest, sweetest lays
In the bride and bridegroom's praise.
Re-echoed the Centaur's mountain,
Re-echoed Pelion's wood.