My daily life goes 'round and 'round, And rest for me is never found; The sobbing dirges of distress Are more than songs of happiness; The shadows of despairing doom Condemn to-day and curse to-morrow, And muffled terrors fill the gloom Which offers anguish to my sorrow. But hope, O, heart, for future weal! The waters rest beyond the wheel; So life may sing when toil is done And all its battles lost or won. There lives a sweeter music there, Of gentle and melodious measure, Where weeping never comes and where The ages perish into pleasure. SHADOW AND SHINE. They will find in this life who are grieved with its gladness No songs for the heart and no hopes for the soul, But will faint in the glooms where the dirges of sadness In tremulous murmurs of wretchedness roll; For the sweets of this earth never lavish their kisses Where lives in the valleys of rapture repine; In the tortures they mourn who denounce all the blisses,-- They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine. In the fields that are fair with the blooms of the clover, No garlands are grown for the arbors of shade Where the woes of the wood in their darkness hang over The grasses that wave with the winds of the glade; From the chimes of the breezes there echo no measures That gladden the gale with a music divine; In the troubles they languish who shrink from the pleasures, They weep in the shadow that rail at the shine. Ah, the world is abounding with wonderful glories And wild are the warbles that sweeten its ways While the songs of the land sing their beautiful stories, And scatter their melodies over the days! There are smiles, there are joys, never mingled with sorrow, O, man, in return for the tears that are thine, And the soul never sobs that has hopes for the morrow, Nor weeps in the shadow nor rails at the shine! THE GROWTH OF SONG. A tender song in shadows grew, And humble hearts were homes it knew. But through its wondrous music stole The longings of the human soul; The hopes of hosts unsatisfied Within its numbers wandered wide; And strangely wet with toilsome tears It held the yearnings of the years; Till millions with their woes oppressed, Proclaimed the song of peace and rest; Till nations in their troubled ways Found comfort in the joyous lays, And all the halting race of wrong Exalts the loving might of song! Ah, song that soothes our many cries With fondness of thy lullabies, We love, we bless, we scepter thee Proud empress of the hearts that be! SPRING AND MUSIC. Spring, among her sylvan shades, And the gladness of her glades, Once in dreamy hours was straying, Where sweet Music with her throngs Of glad melodies and songs In the happy vales was playing.