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HOME SICKNESS.

Do we not feel you near? does not your breath
O'ercome our cheek in many a lonely hour-
Does not your living shadow gently fall

O'er the sad heart like dew upon a flower?

Together have we talked of life and death,
Together pondered of the dread unknown.
Ye know it now!-with your last parting breath
The glorious mystery became your own.

All things are yours-the world of life and death;
And ye are Christ's, and His also are we—
We wail!-we burn !-fade, fade, thou wavering
veil !

Come! come! the glory and the victory!

HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

For one lone soul another lonely soul, Each chasing each through all the weary hours, And meeting strangely at one sudden goal.

Then blend they, like green leaves with golden flowers

Into one beautiful and perfect whole;

And life's long night is ended, and the way

Lies open onward to eternal day.

EDWIN ARNOLD.

NEGLECTING THE PATTERN.

A

WEAVER sat one day at his loom,

Among the colours bright,

With the pattern for his copying

Hung fair and plain in sight.

But the weaver's thoughts were wandering

Away on a distant track,

As he threw the shuttle in his hand

Wearily forward and back.

And he turned his dim eyes to the ground,

And tears fell on the woof,

For his thoughts, alas! were not with his home,

Nor the wife beneath its roof;

NEGLECTING THE PATTERN.

When her voice recalled him suddenly

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To himself, as she sadly said:

Ah, woe is me! for your work is spoiled,

And what will we do for bread ?"

And then the weaver looked, and saw

His work must be undone ;

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For the threads were wrong, and the colours dimmed,

Where the bitter tears had run.

"Alack, alack!" said the weaver,
"And this had all been right

If I had not looked at my work, but kept
The pattern in my sight!"

Ah! sad it was for the weaver,
And sad for his luckless wife;
And sad it will be for us if we say,
At the end of our task of life-

"The colours that we had to weave
Were bright in our early years;

But we wove the tissue wrong, and stained
The woof with bitter tears.

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NEGLECTING THE PATTERN.

"We wove a web of doubt and fear

Not faith, and hope, and love,-
Because we looked at our work, and not

At our Pattern up above!"

PHOEBE CAREY.