TWO SONNETS.
'DIE child from rest of heart shouts out its song, And smiles the grateful smile of summer flowers ; Our rest is marred by toil, our right by wrong, Our hearts are joyless in the sunniest hours. Why do we smile, but that we fear to weep, Why toil for wealth since wealth enhances pain ?
'Why garner knowledge from the wise who sleep, Since in brief life 'tis but a bootless gain ? Gone is the wholesome gladness of old days, Gone is the faith on which our fathers fed ; We have no heart for prayer, no voice for praise ; Creeds are outworn, they say, and Christ is dead ; Darkly we struggle, vainly strive to live;
This Life is death ;—has Death no life to give?
0 coward hearts ! despondent and afraid, Who read Life's riddle backward to your loss And wist not 'tis God's sunshine makes the shade, And that His noblest triumph is the Cross, 0 men ! o'erwearied with the daily fight
With struggles, doubts, and questions manifold,— Blind with the mist, yet craving for the light,—
Joy shall be yours, and rest and peace untold, Only keep open heart and ear and eye.
Truth creeps with gradual footstep like the dawn.
'Twas while the darkness lingered in the sky That Christ arose, the herald of the morn ; For that great moment Life with Death had striven, For us the strife—then what remains but Heaven?
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