THE LILY OF THE LAKE.

Never, never since that hour

Has the lake brought forth a flower,

Ever harshly do the sedges

Some sad secret from its edges

Whisper to the shore.

Some sad secret I forget.

The lily though will blossom yet:

And when it blooms I shall have met

My love for evermore.

II

97

FROM FLEETING PLEASURES.

A REQUIEM FOR ONE ALIVE.

ROM fleeting pleasures and abiding cares,

From sin's seductions and from Satan's

snares,

From woes and wrath to penitence and prayers,

Veni in pace!

Sweet absolution thy sad spirit heal;

To godly cares that end in endless weal,

To joys man cannot think or speak or feel,

Vade in pace!

From this world's ways and being led by them,
From floods of evil thy youth could not stem,

From tents of Kedar to Jerusalem,

Veni in pace!

Blest be thy worldly loss to thy soul's gain,

Blest be the blow that freed thee from thy chain,

Blest be the tears that wash thy spirit's stain,

Vade in pace!

A REQUIEM FOR ONE ALIVE.

Oh, dead, and yet alive! Oh, lost and found!
Salvation's wall now compass thee around,
Thy weary feet are set on holy ground,

Veni in pace!

Death gently garner thee with all the blest,

In heavenly habitations be thou guest;

To light perpetual, and eternal rest

Vade in pace!

99

THE RUNAWAY'S RETURN.

T was on such a night as this,

Some long unreal years ago,

When all within were wrapp'd in sleep,
And all without was wrapp'd in snow,
The full moon rising in the east,

The old church standing like a ghost,
That, shivering in the wintry mist,

And breathless with the silent frost,

A little lad, I ran to seek my fortune on the main;
I marvel now with how much hope, and with how

little pain!

It is of such a night as this,

In all the lands where I have been,

That memory too faithfully

Has painted the familiar scene.

By all the shores, on every sea,

In luck or loss, by night or day,

My highest hope has been to see
That home from which I ran away

THE RUNAWAY'S RETURN.

ΙΟΙ

For this I toil'd, to this I look'd through many a

weary year,

I marvel now with how much hope, and with how little fear.

On such a night at last I came,

But they were dead I loved of yore.

Ah, mother, then my heart felt all

The pain it should have felt before!

I came away, though loth to come,

I clung, and yet why should I cling?
When all have gone who made it home,

It is the shadow not the thing.

A homeless man, once more I seek my fortune on

the main :

I marvel with how little hope, and with what bitter