And from this care, where dreams and sorrows reign,
Lead me above, Where light, joy, leisure, and true comforts move
Without all pain: There, hid in thee, show me his life again
At whose dumb urn Thus all the year I mourn.
HENRY VAUGHAN.
THE GREEN GRASS UNDER THE SNOW.
The work of the sun is slow,
But as sure as heaven, we know;
So we'll not forget, When the skies are wet, There's green grass under the snow.
When the winds of winter blow,
Wailing like voices of woe,
There are April showers, And buds and flowers, And green grass under the snow.
We find that it's ever so
In this life's uneven flow;
We've only to wait, In the face of fate, For the green grass under the snow.
ANNIE A. PRESTON.
Within this lowly grave a Conqueror lies,
And yet the monument proclaims it not, Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought
The emblems of a fame that never dies, Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf,
Twined with the laurel's fair, imperial leaf.
A simple name alone, To the great world unknown, Is graven here, and wild flowers, rising round,
Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground,
Lean lovingly against the humble stone.
Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart
No man of iron mould and bloody hands, Who sought to wreck upon the cowering lands
The passions that consumed his restless heart: But one of tender spirit and delicate frame,
Gentlest in mien and mind, Of gentle womankind, Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame;
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made
Its haunt, like flowers by sunny brooks in May, Yet, at the thought of others' pain, a shade
Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.