The Shuttle went flying With sympathy sighing, While it shot all the gold weft with threadings of woe. There was murmured complaining, The Shuttle arraigning— That grief, with the joy, was unwound in the throw. A whispered regretting:— “No blessing forgetting, God knoweth thy needs—it is His to bestow:— From LOVE I’m receiving The woof I am weaving.” The Shuttle’s reproof was subduing and low, And, blent with Time’s beating, I heard it repeating The lesson it taught in love’s tenderest flow. Aye, softly it chanted this simple refrain— “’Tis wisdom that mingles the sorrow and pain. The sunlight, that gilds, with its glory the earth, Would blight with its blaze, but for clouds and the rain, And lives would be arid and smitten with dearth If beamed on forever with joy and mirth— _In blessing I weave in the sorrow and pain_.” Springtime. When meadows are strewn with the buttercup’s gold, There’s gladness for childhood that song never told; The laugh of a child, bubbling up from the heart, Is linked with the spring, a most beautiful part. A bevy of children—sweet far away dream!— They trip o’er the sward, lit with dandelion gleam— We’ll join in their sports with a heartiness true; Our own vanished springtime, with them, we’ll renew. The woods, (that are reached by a romp thro’ the lane Where the grass is made velvet by sunshine and rain) Have infinite beauty, in blossom outspread— Delights for the gods in the fragrance they shed. Come, drink in the perfume of blossoming trees— Take lessons of patience from murmuring bees, And listen to brooklets—they’ll sing you a song As, wild in their glee, they go leaping along. Come, watch the wild birds as they cheerily dart— Their music, with sunshine, take into your heart— Let the gladness of childhood thrill you, and be gay, Thus keeping your soul in perpetual May. When Nature is robing her forests anew, And heaven spreads over her loveliest blue— When earth is aglow with spring’s ravishing bloom, Ingratitude only sits shrouded in gloom. For Insomnia. When Somnus is giddy and flies from my pillow, And care’s elfin throngs come to vex me— When mem’ry, perverse, all the sweet things forgetting, Will mention but those that perplex me, I ask that monotony’s rigid insistence Shall drive out the gibberous crew; They flee from his presence—will hie back to elfland, Where their Night shade and astrofell grew— Ask thought for a theme that’s subduing in power— The sea, with its billows all hushed to a calm— Not mantled with darkness, but lit with the sunset, When Day, unto Evening, is chanting her psalm. All life’s petty griefs in the grandeur evanish, The spirit is freed from its thrall, And unto the faint heart a trustfulnesss whispers, “Be brave—there’s a God over all.” * * * * *