_A Winter Prayer._

Come through the gloom of clouded skies, The slow dim rain and fog athwart; Through east winds keen with wrong and lies Come and lift up my hopeless heart.

Come through the sickness and the pain, The sore unrest that tosses still; Through aching dark that hides the gain Come and arouse my fainting will.

Come through the prate of foolish words, The science with no God behind; Through all the pangs of untuned chords Speak wisdom to my shaken mind.

Through all the fears that spirits bow Of what hath been, or may befall, Come down and talk with me, for thou Canst tell me all about them all.

Hear, hear my sad lone heart entreat, Heart of all joy, below, above! Come near and let me kiss thy feet, And name the names of those I love!

SONG OF A POOR PILGRIM.

Roses all the rosy way! Roses to the rosier west Where the roses of the day Cling to night's unrosy breast!

Thou who mak'st the roses, why Give to every leaf a thorn? On thy rosy highway I Still am by thy roses torn!

Pardon! I will not mistake These good thorns that make me fret! Goads to urge me, stings to wake, For my freedom they are set.

Yea, on one steep mountain-side, Climbing to a fancied fold, Roses grasped had let me slide But the thorns did keep their hold.

Out of darkness light is born, Out of weakness make me strong: One glad day will every thorn Break into a rose of song.

Though like sparrow sit thy bird Lonely on the house-top dark, By the rosy dawning stirred Up will soar thy praising lark;

Roses, roses all his song! Roses in a gorgeous feast! Roses in a royal throng, Surging, rosing from the east!

AN EVENING PRAYER.

I am a bubble Upon thy ever-moving, resting sea: Oh, rest me now from tossing, trespass, trouble! Take me down into thee.

Give me thy peace. My heart is aching with unquietness: Oh, make its inharmonious beating cease! Thy hand upon it press.

My Night! my Day! Swift night and day betwixt, my world doth reel: Potter, take not thy hand from off the clay That whirls upon thy wheel.

O Heart, I cry For love and life, pardon and hope and strength! O Father, I am thine; I shall not die, But I shall sleep at length!

SONG-SERMON.

Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man. From us, not thee, come all our wrongs; Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs: With small-cord whips and scorpion thongs Thou lay'st on every ill thy ban. Mercy to thee, O Lord, belongs, For as his work thou giv'st the man.

A DREAM-SONG.

The stars are spinning their threads, And the clouds are the dust that flies, And the suns are weaving them up For the day when the sleepers arise.

The ocean in music rolls, The gems are turning to eyes, And the trees are gathering souls For the day when the sleepers arise.

The weepers are learning to smile, And laughter to glean the sighs, And hearts to bury their care and guile For the day when the sleepers arise.

Oh, the dews and the moths and the daisy-red, The larks and the glimmers and flows! The lilies and sparrows and daily bread, And the something that nobody knows!