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Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude

Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe-
"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"

In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;

His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeletons at the feast,
That warning time-piece never ceased-
"For ever-never!

Never for ever!"

There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
Oh precious hours! Oh golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,

Those hours the ancient time-piece told—

"For ever-never!

Never-for ever!"

From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,

The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair-
"For ever-never!

Never for ever!"

All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
"Ah! when shall they all meet again!"
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient time-piece makes reply-
"For ever never!

Never-for ever!"

Never here for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,-
For ever there, but never here!

The horologe of Eternity

Sayeth this incessantly

"For ever-never!
Never for ever!"

Longfellow.

RESIGNATION.

There is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient!

These severe afflictions

Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions

Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapours

Amid these earthly damps;

What seem to us but sad, funereal tapers,

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death! What seems so is trans

ition;

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,
Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead,—the child of our affection,But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection,

And Christ Himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Not as a child shall we again behold her,
For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,
She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times, impetuous with emotion And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,

That cannot be at rest,―

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

Longfellow.

THE OPEN WINDOW.

The old house by the lindens*
Stood silent in the shade,
And on the gravell'd pathway
The light and shadow played.

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