For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,

Tho' a battle's to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.

I was ever a fighter, so one more fight,

The best and the last!

I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.

No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,

Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life's arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.

For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute's at end,

And the elements' rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,

Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,

O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!

ROBERT BROWNING.

A CREED

THERE is a destiny that makes us brothers:

None goes his way alone:

All that we send into the lives of others
Comes back into our own.

I care not what his temples or his creeds,
One thing holds firm and fast

That into his fateful heap of days and deeds
The soul of man is cast.

- EDWIN MARKHAM.

A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD

INFINITE DEPTHS

141

THE little pool, in street or field apart,
Glasses the deep heavens and the rushing storm;
And into the silent depths of every heart,
The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form.
- EDWIN MARKHAM.

A CHILD'S THOUGHT OF GOD

THEY say that God lives very high!
But if you look above the pines
And why?

You cannot see our God.

And if you dig down in the mines
You never see Him in the gold,
Though from Him all that's glory shines.

God is so good, He wears a fold

Of heaven and earth across His faceLike secrets kept, for love, untold.

But still I feel that His embrace

Slides down by thrills, through all things made, Through sight and sound of every place:

As if my tender mother laid

On my shut lids, her kisses' pressure, Half-waking me at night; and said

"Who kissed you through the dark, dear guesser?"

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

"THOU ART, O GOD"

143

"THOU ART, O GOD"

THOU art, O God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;

Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee..
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,
And all things bright and fair are Thine!

When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of even

And we can almost think we gaze
Thro' golden vistas into Heaven -
Those hues, that make the sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine.

When night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies

Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes—
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.

The youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy spirit warms her fragrant sigh;

And every flower the summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn Thy glories shine,

And all things fair and bright are Thine.

The lilies of the field, whose bloom is brief

We are as they;

Like them we fade away,

As doth a leaf.

Consider

The sparrows of the air, of small account:

The birds, that have no barn nor harvest-weeks;

God gives them food

Much more our Father seeks

To do us good.

- CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

"O YET WE TRUST!"

O YET We trust that somehow, good
Will be the final goal of ill;

To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt and taints of blood.