We overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination, given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels, overshone By God’s clear glory,--down our earth, to rake The dismal snows instead; flake following flake, To cover all the corn. We walk upon The shadow of hills, across a level thrown, And pant like climbers. Near the alder-brake We sigh so loud, the Nightingale within Refuses to sing loud, as else she would. O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin Of taking vainly, in a plaintive mood, The holy name of _Grief_!--holy herein, That by the _grief_ of One, came all our good. _Miss Barrett._ Warm, soft, motionless, As flowers in stillest noon before the sun, They lie three paces from him: such they lie As when he left them sleeping side by side, A mother’s arm round each, a mother’s cheeks Between them, flusht with happiness and love. He was more changed than they were, doomed to show, Thee and the stranger, how defaced and scarr’d _Grief_ hunts us down the precipice of years, And whom the faithless prey upon the last. _W. S. Landor._ GUIDANCE. For this God is our God for ever and ever: he will be our _guide_ even unto death.--Psalm xlviii. 14. The Lord shall _guide_ thee continually.--Isaiah, lviii. 11. Will thou not from this time cry unto me, My father, thou art the _guide_ of my youth?--Jeremiah, iii. 4. That man May safely venture to go on his way, That is so _guided_, that he cannot stray. _Marmyon._ Though in the paths of death I tread, With gloomy horrors overspread, My steadfast heart shall fear no ill, For thou, O Lord, art with me still; Thy friendly crook shall give me aid, And _guide_ me through the dreadful shade. _Addison._ Difference of good and ill for men to know Was needless sure, while, with the fearless eye Of an obedient son, he might look up To the Almighty Father of his race, And claim his _guidance_. _John Hey._ Whither midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue Thy solitary way? Vainly the fowler’s eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along. Thou’rt gone, th’ abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet in my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.