The world was husht, the moon above
Sailed thro' ether slowly,
When near the casement of my love,
Thus I whispered lowly,—
“Awake, awake, how canst thou sleep?
“The field I seek to-morrow
“Is one where man hath fame to reap,
“And woman gleans but sorrow.”

“Let battle's field be what it may.”
Thus spoke a voice replying,
“Think not thy love, while thou'rt away,
“Will siThere idly sighing.
“No—woman's soul, if not for fame,
“For love can brave all danger!”
Then forth from out the casement came
A plumed and armed stranger.

Into the mystery of life,
Dear Lord, I cannot see;
I only know that I exist,
Made and upheld by Thee.

The brooding presence of Thy love
Encircles me about,
Nor leaves me room for any fear,
Nor place for any doubt.

I know Thee in the cloud by day
As in the fire by night;
Both lead me to my promised home,
The land of my delight.

The future cannot yield me proof
More tender or divine,
Than has the past, that all Thy thoughts
To meward are benign.

And backward if I look, I own
The leadings of Thy love;

I pray you if you love me, bear my joy
A little while, or let me weep your tears;
I, too, have seen the quavering Fate destroy
Your destiny's bright spinning—the dull shears
Meeting not neatly, chewing at the thread,—
Nor can you well be less aware how fine,
How staunch as wire, and how unwarranted
Endures the golden fortune that is mine.
I pray you for this day at least, my dear,
Fare by my side, that journey in the sun;
Else must I turn me from the blossoming year
And walk in grief the way that you have gone.
Let us go forth together to the spring:

O Lord, when Thou didst call me, didst Thou know
My heart disheartened thro' and thro',
Still hankering after Egypt full in view
Where cucumbers and melons grow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

But, Lord, when Thou didst choose me, didst Thou know
How marred I was and withered too,
Nor rose for sweetness nor for virtue rue,
Timid and rash, hasty and slow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

My Lord, when Thou didst love me, didst Thou know
How weak my efforts were, how few,
Tepid to love and impotent to do,
Envious to reap while slack to sow?
—“Yea, I knew.”—

Once a rose ever a rose, we say,
One we loved and who loved us
Remains beloved though gone from day;
To human hearts it must be thus,
The past is sweetly laid away.

Sere and sealed for a day and year,
Smell them, dear Christina, pray;
So nature treats its children dear,
So memory deals with yesterday,
The past is sweetly laid away.

If only I could creep
into each corner
of the heart of the one
who says she loves me
and keep watch.

It is our blessing that her lot was fair—
The precious birthright of the dew and air,
The green and shade of woods, the song of birds,
And dreams too bright for words—
All that makes moonlight for the innocent heart,
And love, that, in its bud, is still its crowning part.

The sadness of the spring-time in the shade
Of dusk—the shadows of the night array'd,
By stars in the great forests, as they look,
Glistening, as from a brook;
And stillness in the gloom, that seems a sound,
Breathed up, unconscious, out from nature's great profound.

When o'er my dark and wayward soul
The clouds of nameless Sorrow roll;
When Hope no more her wreath will twine
And Memory sits at Sorrow's shrine;
Nor aught to joy my soul can move
I muse upon a Sister's Love.

When tired with study's graver toil
I pant for sweet Affection's smile,
And rich with restless hopes of fame,
Would half forgo the panting aim
I drop the book,—and thought will rove,
To greet a Sister's priceless Love.

When all the world seems cold and stern,
And bids the bosom vainly yearn;
When Woman's heart is lightly changed,

Jesus never will forget me,
When I'm young, or when I'm old.
With His precious blood He bought me;
So, you see, to Him I'm sold.

He could not forget His loved ones,
Who to Him are very dear;
Resting in His loving bosom
I have not a single fear.

In His hands my name is written,
In His heart He thinks of me;
And He'll soon come back to take me
Where with Him I'll always be.

He, Himself, appears as bail
when I am taken before the court,
and He teaches me to be obedient
and to live in His light.
Art merely puffs up, love constructs,
all comes to naught unless God's Bride
rules in a royal way. O Love! O love!
Lead us with thee by thy hand,
by thy bands of love, for false
love misguides! Amen!
Alexander Mack.