POETRY.

IMMORTALITY.

0 THINKING brain that lately with us wrought'st,

By death surprised at thine unfinished task, For one, a thousand lives thou shouldest ask ; Learning is endless, infinite as thought.

Go forth, great mind, raised, now a deathless soul!

See, weigh, prove all things, scanned with larger eye, Ere thou that slakeless thirst canst satisfy What mons needed to o'errun the whole !

0 loving heart, unwearied, pare, and high, What love is that which loveth only few ?

As though night's pitying finger, dropping dew, Made moist one leaf and left all others dry ?

Go forth, great heart, and in the vast above Break through the barriers here that held thee bound, Time's narrow task-work, life's mechanic round ; Go forth, embracing all in boundless love !

What, is all done, because one blood-drop, one Too many, choked the highway of the brain ?

Because one heart-link snapped in endless chain ? Can we believe it ? Ended? Scarce begun !

Begun, as after sleep, night's curtain drawn, Refreshed, the toiler wakes to livelier hours, To larger trusts, reanimated powers, When with immortal strength comes in the dawn !

Farewell ! perchance in lesser duties here Found faithful, there shall virtue rule a star ; Here crippled, trammed, there shall travel far On God's great errands, adding sphere to sphere.

Go! we who loved thee follow. Tears may flow, Tears! yet, for weeping, eyes the brighter shine : Life is more earthly sweet, but death divine ; Go! we believe ; belief is easier now.

'Tis easier now; for kneeling, wrapt in prayer, As with a Father's, lo ! our spirits blend, Can we believe it, death the paltry end ? Death closing all, a bubble lost in air !

Lost, in a world where all for use is given !

And he the chiefest wonder, loftiest Man, Can we believe it, in creation's plan No place, no use for him, in all that boundless heaven ?

Then is all waste; and we, who here remain,

Left with illusions ! dreamers, left to be, Even as the dwellers by a darkened sea, Hoping their outward-bound to see again ;

Cheering their grief with tales of greeting warm Beyond the mist, across the waters dim, And all the while they look their last on him,. Lost in the ocean deep, his dirge the storm.

Hence, idle thought ! And thou, 0 voice divine, That spake of old so strongly, whose commands Speak as a King, the Lord of many lands, Speak to us still ! We trust Thee, we are Thine.

Thine even in darkest hour, and fearful ! Still Though trembling, ignorant, oft-times weak and frai.,. Yet with the Christ entering within the veil, Trusting, we whisper, "Father, do Thy will !"

A. G. R