152

THE LAST TEAR.

"I come to Thee--my pilgrimage is o'er;
Beside the blissful Cross I lay me down,
In hope with Him to rise who died for me.
And, though a tear-drop dim my closing eye,
(Meet parting-sign from such a world as this,
Where tears have met us at the gates of life,
Nor in our after-steps have left us free),

"Tis all of joy, a joy so exquisite

As if I felt Thine own benignant hand

Wiping that tear away!"

He said and now the darkness slips aside
Before the beckonings of angelic wings;

The tear-drop brightens like an opening heaven,
And shows the mirrored glories of the sky,
(For in the sad thus often lurks the true),
And, rising silently on viewless wings,
His spirit soared to immortality.

REV. A. L. SIMPSON.

154

THE FOUNTAIN AND THE STREAMLET.

Flowers on its grassy margin sprang,
Flies o'er its eddying surface played,
Birds 'midst the waving branches sang,
Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed;

The weary there lay down to rest,

And there the halcyon built her nest.

'Twas beautiful to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems,
And such resplendent colours catch,
As though 'twere raining diadems;
Yet all was cold and curious art,

That charmed the eye but missed the heart.

Dearer to me the little stream,

Whose unimprisoned waters run,

Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun;
Its lovely links have power to bind,

And whirl away my willing mind.

So thought I, when I saw the face,

By happy portraiture revealed,
Of one, adorned with every grace;
Her name and date from me concealed,

But not her story ;-she had been

The pride of many a splendid scene.

She cast her glory round a court,
And frolicked in the gayest ring,