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, In hearts that love is filling. Yet not as in the days Of earthly ties we love them; Another sweetness shines Around their well-known features God with His glory signs His dearly-ransomed creatures. Ah! they are more our own, Has left our heart less lonely. In their dear Lord's caresses. Dear dead! they have become They, whom we loved on earth, O dearest dead! to Heaven With grudging sighs we gave you, Your memories yet more kindly, And trust God, more blindly. F. W. FABER. November 14. I TELL thee, child, the world's so thick with love November 15. LIFE AND DEATH. LIFE is not sweet. One day it will be sweet Nor feel the wild flowers blow, nor birds dart by Nor grass grow long above our heads and feet, Nor know who sits in our accustomed seat. Life is not good. One day it will be good To sleep meanwhile: so not to feel the wane Nor mark the blackened bean-fields, nor where stood Only dead refuse stubble clothe the plain : CHRISTINA ROSSETTI. November 16. LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION. "Ben puð talor col casto." IT must be right sometimes to entertain 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, Their golden sandals they struck on the ground, They left Pieria's fountain, On the leaf-crowned hill they stood, |