But when 'tis gone,

She lifts her sail,

So calm and pale,

And from out the vapours riven,

Lifting up her filmy veil,

She issues forth, a holy Nun,

And walks upon her azure way,—

It is a Hand unseen that doth her going stay.

IV.

What if for home and social mood
I have to talk with Solitude-
What if for brook and rock and vale
The stars but light a cloister pale-
And for dew-loving Philomel
The distant bell;

That chain should surely dearest be

Which binds the will-if bound to Thee,

O God, when bound the most we are most free.

V.

Beside my window seen

There is a solitary tree,

And beneath a spot of green-
And on that tree there is a bird-

At morn and eve it comes to me,

And is in stillness heard;

Dweller of mountain, wood, and sea,
Lover of airy liberty-

What charms hath ivied wall for thee?
For thou hast wings away to flee;

Hast thou found out that calm so sweet In olden walls for hermit meetShadows of ancient sanctity,

Can they be aught, meek bird, to thee? Or is it choral voice thou lovest to hear? Or distant chime,

With dying fall
Most musical,

Sounds which still hold good spirits near In evil time.

On us is gathering, year by year,
The winter of our course below,-

And busily Time on our brow
Lays his becalming hand. Those dear
To us, they are not what they were,
Yet in the light this day is born

We seem to walk in endless morn;

My

sure we cannot mourn

Forgetting thy sustaining hand,

And at each interval again

Feel for that stay—yet feel in vain
'Tis good that we should walk alone,
That we may so the readier own
The surer strength-our only stay,
Along that shadowy way,

Which each alone must tread;

And o'er our path while sober Even

Brings down the skies above our head,

May build the nobler hope that we may meet in Heaven.

A. Strange deadness, friend, thus dull and cold, Thy enchain'd spirit seems to hold,

So blithe of eye in solitude!

For what if sickness should intrude,
With palsying hand put from the cloud,

Thy voice, I ween, might well be loud,

Whose echoes would return in thy heart's caves to brood.

B. The world's wild glare is on thine eyelid thrown, Nor seest thou I am not alone ;

And thou wilt wonder more, when told

I have a warrant to be bold,—

A Friend hard by ne'er fails to hear,

But list, what now hath caught thine ear?

The bird that sings to night and solitude so cold.

A. That bird-his life is on the wind,
Thee sterner ties of duty bind,

For what if sickness veil thy face,
Thy place-it is an empty space,
And the world's eyes are busy there;

I hear the footsteps of dark care,

With sickness in the cloud that draweth on

apace.

B. If our great Taskmaster so will,

That place may absence better fill;
In marshallings of this our night,
While we obey, we walk in light;
'Tis trouble all and toil beside;

And nought therein that shall abide,

As storms or sunny gleams that range the mountain

height.

A. 'Tis sad to sit in weakness bound,

While all without is vernal sound;

Ere thou canst make the sky thine own,
The sunshine is with summer gone,

Nor cheer'd thee as it bore along,

To be the silent dead among,

While thou sitt'st in the house of sickness all alone.

Y