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A transient day,
A troubled night,
The swift decay,
The certain blight,
And death and dust; -

And are these all? -
Nay: those are past;
And she who sleeps
Shall wake at last...

Brethren, go! the day is bright'ning
As the sultry noon steals on,
And the fields, already whit'ning,
Tell of labor to be done.

There are toilsome days before you,
Burdens that you may not shun,...

Alien blossoms! tell me why
Seek ye such a lonely place,
Thus to bloom, and droop, and die
Far away from all your race?

Wherefore, from the sunny bowers
Where your beauteous kindred bloom,...

Go, dream no more of a sun-bright sky
With never a cloud to dim! -
Thou hast seen the storm in its robes of night,
Them hast felt the rush of the whirlwind's might,...

"For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield."


Like the dew-drops that fall
Through the chill, midnight hours,
Unheeded by all,...

Upon the plain of Dura stood an image great and high,
With golden forehead broad and bright beneath the morning sky;
All regal in its majesty and kingly in its mien,...

(IN MEMORY OF A PUPIL)


Thou art but gone before -
Gone to that unknown shore
Toward which my feet are journeying swiftly on
Thou hast but laid thy head
First with the dreamless dead,...

Good night, good night! - the day
Slowly has borne away,
Music and light;
Once more the starry train
Sweeps over vale and plain,
Soft falls the dews again -
Good night-good night!
...

Written for the Alumni of Albion College, Michigan; and sung at their last re-union, June, 1881.


The gliding years have rolled along,
And once again we come,
With greeting hand and choral song,...

"I am doing no good!" said a little rill,
As it rippled along at the foot of a hill,
"I am doing no good with my babbling here,
No one is listening, - no one is near!"
...

Nay, I will not let thee go,
Though the midnight glideth slow, -
Though the darkness deep and long
Dim the sight and hush the song,
On thy tender, faithful breast,
Find I still my perfect rest -...

He sleeps where the billow
Lifts high its white crest
O'er his lone, sea-weed pillow
On Ocean's dark breast;
No shroud is around him,
No flowers bloom above,
No mourners surround him...

All over the earth like a mantle,
Golden, and green, and grey,
Crimson, and scarlet, and yellow,
The Autumn foliage lay; -
The sun of the Indian Summer
Laughed at the bare old trees...

"They need not go away!" the Master said,
"Give ye to them." Ah, Lord, behold our store -
These loaves, these fishes, - see, we have no more!
How shall this fainting throng with these be fed?...

We had finished our pitiful morsel,
And both sat in silence a while;
At length we looked up at each other.
And I said, with the ghost of a smile, -
"Only two little potatoes...