ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD.
* * * * *
VI. CONSOLATION.
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.
A FREE PARAPHRASE OF THE GERMAN.
To weary hearts, to mourning homes,
God's meekest Angel gently comes:
No power has he to banish pain,
Or give us back our lost again;
And yet in tenderest love our dear
And heavenly Father sends him here.
There's quiet in that Angel's glance,
There's rest in his still countenance!
He mocks no grief with idle cheer,
Nor wounds with words the mourner's ear;
But ills and woes he may not cure
He kindly trains us to endure.
Angel of Patience! sent to calm
Our feverish brows with cooling palm;
To lay the storms of hope and fear,
And reconcile life's smile and tear;
The throbs of wounded pride to still,
And make our own our Father's will!
O thou who mournest on thy way,
With longings for the close of day;
He walks with thee, that Angel kind,
And gently whispers, "Be resigned:
Bear up, bear on, the end shall tell
The dear Lord ordereth all things well!"
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.
THEY ARE ALL GONE.
They are all gone into the world of light,
And I alone sit lingering here!
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear;
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast,
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,--
Or those faint beams in which this hill is drest
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days,--
My days which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
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