Where I have but Him Is my Fatherland, And all gifts and graces come Heritage into my hand; Brothers long deplored I in his disciples find restored. --George Macdonald. Quiet from God! How beautiful to keep This treasure the All-merciful hath given; To feel, when we awake or when we sleep, Its incense round us like a breath from heaven. To sojourn in the world, and yet apart; To dwell with God, and still with man to feel; To bear about forever in the heart The gladness which his spirit doth reveal. --Sarah J. Williams. HIS CHOSEN ONES Some souls there are, beloved of God, Who, following where the saints have trod, Learn such surrender of the will They seem insensible of ill. Yet, finely strung and sensitive, They live far more than others live, And grief's and pain's experience Must be to them far more intense. O mystery--that such can know A life impregnable to woe! O paradox that God alone In secret proveth to his own! It must be that supremest grace So nerves them for the heavenly race Their litanies are turned to psalms, Their crosses, even here, to palms. --Harriet McEwen Kimball. When, courting slumber, The hours I number, And sad cares cumber My weary mind, This thought shall cheer me: That thou art near me, Whose ear to hear me Is still inclined. My soul thou keepest, Who never sleepest; 'Mid gloom the deepest There's light above; Thine eyes behold me, Thine arms enfold me; Thy word has told me That God is love. We are not angels, but we may Down in earth's corners kneel, And multiply sweet acts of love, And murmur what we feel. --Frederick William Faber. Through thee, meseems, the very rose is red, From thee the violet steals its breath in May, From thee draw life all things that grow not gray, And by thy force the happy stars are sped. --James Russell Lowell. COME TO US, LORD Come to us, Lord, as the daylight comes When the darkling night has gone, And the quickened East is tremulous With the thrill of the wakened dawn. Come to us, Lord, as the tide comes on With the waves from the distant sea; Come, till our desert places smile, And our souls are filled with thee. There are in this loud, stunning tide Of human care and crime, With whom the melodies abide Of th' everlasting chime! Who carry music in their heart Through dusky lane and wrangling mart, Plying their daily task with busier feet Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat. --John Keble.