Can loving children e'er reprove
With murmurs whom they trust and love?
Creator, I would ever be
A trusting, loving child to thee:
As comes to me or cloud or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!
Oh, ne'er will I at life repine;
Enough that thou hast made it mine;
When falls the shadow cold of death,
I yet will sing with parting breath:
As comes to me or shade or sun,
Father, thy will, not mine, be done!
SARAH FLOWER ADAMS.
VI.
DEATH: IMMORTALITY: HEAVEN.
* * * * *
THE PROSPECT.
Methinks we do as fretful children do,
Leaning their faces on the window-pane
To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain,
And shut the sky and landscape from their view;
And, thus, alas! since God the maker drew
A mystic separation 'twixt those twain,—
The life beyond us and our souls in pain,—
We miss the prospect which we are called unto
By grief we are fools to use. Be still and strong,
O man, my brother! hold thy sobbing breath,
And keep thy soul's large windows pure from wrong;
That so, as life's appointment issueth,
Thy vision may be clear to watch along
The sunset consummation-lights of death.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
* * * * *