MISCELLANEOUS EXTRACTS. Trust.-Dean Alford. "I know not, if dark or bright If that wherein my hopes delight "It may be mine to drag for years Or day or night my meat be tears, "Dear faces may surround my hearth. Or I may dwell alone, and mirth "My bark is wafted from the strand By breath Divine, And on the helm there rests a hand Other than mine. "One who has known in storms to sail Above the raging of the gale "He holds me when the billows smite- If sharp, 'tis short-if long, 'tis light- "Safe to the land! Safe to the land! And then with Him go hand in hand Night.-James Montgomery. "Night is the time for rest: How sweet, when labors close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose, Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Down on our own delightful bed ! "Night is the time for dreams: The gay romance of life, When truth that is and truth that seems, Mix in fantastic strife; Ah! visions less beguiling far Than waking dreams by daylight are! "Night is the time for toil : To plow the classic field, That poets sang, and heroes wrought. "Night is the time to weep: To wet with unseen tears Those graves of Memory, where sleep The joy of other years; Hopes that were angels at their birth "Night is the time to watch: O'er ocean's dark expanse "Night is the time for care: Brooding on hours misspent, Like Brutus, midst his slumbering host, "Night is the time to think: When from the eye the soul Takes flight; and on the utmost brink Discerns beyond the abyss of night The dawning of uncreated light. "Night is the time to pray : Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away; So will his followers do Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, "Night is the time for Death: When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease, Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends-such death be mine." 66 To a Waterfowl.-Bryant. Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, "There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast- 66 Lone wandering, but not lost. "Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart "He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, Milton.-Prof. Reed. "To return to Milton. He whose delight it had once been to roam through woods, and over the green fields, was now chained by blindness to the sunny porch of a suburban dwelling. He whose heart's pulse was a love of independence was now a helpless dependent for every motion, for all communion with books; every step of him who had walked through all the ways of life so firmly was at the mercy of another. His spirit was darkened, too, with disappointment in his countrymen, and with bitter memories of domestic discords. As the 'Comus' was a beautiful reflection of happy youth, the 'Samson Agonistes' shadows forth the gloomy grandeur of the poet's old age. In some passages there is the breaking out of a bitter agony; but a stern magnanimity pervades the poem-a high-souled pathos befitting the sorrows of a vanquished, captive giant. With our thoughts of the hero of the tragedy mingle thoughts of the poet himself, for what was John Milton in the degenerate days of Charles the Second but a blind Samson in the citadel of the Philistines? In the words the hero speaks, we seem to hear the voice of Milton's own spirit, subdued to a gentle melancholy : My race of glory run, and race of shame; Despised and Rejected.-C. G. Rosetti. "My sun has set, I dwell In darkness as a dead man out of sight; This bitter night. I will make fast my door, That hollow friends may trouble me no more. "Friend, open to Me.'-Who is this that calls? Cease crying, for I will not hear Thy cry of hope or fear. Others were dear, Others forsook me what art thou indeed That I should heed Thy lamentable need? Hungry should feed, Or stranger lodge thee here? "Friend, My Feet bleed; Open thy door to Me and comfort Me.' |