"Woe unto us! for the day goeth away, and the shadows of evening are stretched out."

W

OE unto us for the day is going, Clouds are gathering one by one, Night-winds up from the river are blowing, Shaking the shadow-curtains down.

Flowers lifting their faces sunward

Glow in the flush of the dying light: We, like the river, are drifting onward,— Onward onward, into the night.

Our faces turned from the happy morning,

Our hearts restrained from the joys o'erflown; The path wherein there is no returning

Into the darkness leads us on.

We remember the day-break golden,

Jubilant hours of childhood's story,

When from the future our eyes were holden,
Seeing only a haze of glory.

Hand in hand we listened and wondered

Wondered that others should shrink in fear: Little we dreamt of affections sundered, We were together, our sky was clear.

We remember a shadow falling
Darkly, silently, over our track;
One to another distantly calling,
Vainly we sought our belovéd back:

Vainly wept with a passionate yearning,
Wept that the dewy morn was past;
Afterwards drooped in the noon-tide burning-
Drooped and mourned in the desert waste.

We remember the Miserere,

Upward borne from our fainting band; Then the rest when our hearts were weary, Under the rock in the desert land.

We remember the deepened longing,

Breathed in songs of a far-off home;

Oft, when doubts o'er the soul came thronging, Angel-whispers of joys to come;

Secret treasures of promise proven,

Hours lit up with a light sublime; Silver threads in life's tissue woven,

Golden grains in the sands of time.

Joy and Sorrow with smiles and showers,
Wove above us their rainbow arch;
Hope and Fear in the waning hours
Whispered concerning the onward march:

Whispered low as the mists crept o'er us—
Earth's soft screen round a dying sun;
Whisper still as the path before us

Into the darkness leads us on.

Into the darkness: and then-ah! whither?
Whither? cry we with failing breath:

Our lost kindred return not hither;
All is still with the hush of death.

Into the darkness:—and who shall guide us?

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Father," we cry from the lonely path,

"Send thine Angel to stand beside us

Father, our Father, now give us faith!"

In that hour of spirit travail

He, the Angel of Life, draws near;
All the past doth His clue unravel
Making life's tangled mysteries clear.

And through the shadows a glory loometh-
Help us, Lord, for our sight grows dim!
"Hush!" He whispers: "the morning cometh-
And with the morning the angel's hymn."

THE CHIMES.

HERE is in souls a sympathy with sounds,
And as the mind is pitched the ear is pleased
With melting airs or martial, brisk or grave.
Some cord in unison with what we hear

Is touch'd within us, and the heart replies.
How soft the music of those village bells,
Falling at intervals upon the ear
In cadence sweet, now dying all away,
Now pealing loud again, and louder still,
Clear and sonorous, as the gale comes on!

With easy force it opens all the ceils

Where Mem'ry slept. Wherever I have heard
A kindred melody, the scene recurs,
And with it all its pleasures and its pains.
Such comprehensive views the spirit takes,
That in a few short moments I retrace
(As in a map the voyager his course)
The windings of my way through many years.
Short as in retrospect the journey seems,
It seem'd not always short: the rugged path,
And prospect oft, so dreary and forlorn,
Moved many a sigh at its disheart'ning length.
Yet feeling present evils, while the past
Faintly impress the mind, or not at all,
How readily we wish time spent revoked,
That we might try the ground again where once
(Through inexperience, as we now perceive)
We miss'd that happiness we might have found!
Some friend is gone, perhaps his son's best friend,
A father, whose authority, in show

When most severe, and mustering all its force,
Was but the graver countenance of love;

Whose favour, like the clouds of spring, might lower
And utter now and then an awful voice,
But had a blessing in its darkest frown,

L