to by-roads, thistle-sown,
I had but wandered off and gone astray.

With earth still near enough to hear its sighs,
With heaven afar and hell but just below,
Still on and on my lonely soul must go
Until I earn the right to Paradise.
We cannot force our way into God's skies,
Nor rush into the rest we long to know;
But patiently, with bleeding steps and slow
Toil on to where selfhood in Godhood dies.

"NOW I LAY ME"

When I pass from earth away,
Palsied though I be and grey,
May my spirit keep so young
That my failing, faltering tongue
Frames that prayer so dear to me,
Taught me at my mother's knee:
"_Now I lay me down to sleep_,"
(Passing to Eternal rest
On the loving parent breast)
"_I pray the Lord my soul to keep_;"
(From all danger safe and calm
In the hollow of His palm;)
"_If I should die before I wake_,"
(Drifting with a bated breath
Out of slumber into death,)
"_I pray the Lord my soul to take_."
(From the body's claim set free
Sheltered in the Great to be.)
Simple prayer of trust and truth.
Taught me in my early youth--
Let my soul its beauty keep
When I lay me down to sleep.

THE MESSENGER

She rose up in the early dawn,
And white and silently she moved
About the house. Four men had gone
To battle for the land they loved,
And she, the mother and the wife,
Waited for tidings from the strife.
How still the house seemed! and her tread
Was like the footsteps of the dead.

The long day passed, the dark night came;
She had not seen a human face.
Some voice spoke suddenly her name.
How loud it echoed in that place
Where, day by day, no sound was heard
But her own footsteps! "Bring you word,"
She cried to whom she could not see,
"Word from the battle-plain to me?"

A soldier entered at the door,
And stood within the dim firelight:
"I bring you tidings of the four,"
He said, "who left you for the fight."
"God bless you, friend," she cried; "speak on!
For I can bear it. One is gone?"
"Ay, one is gone!" he said. "Which one?"
"Dear lady, he, your eldest son."

A deathly pallor shot across
Her withered face; she did not weep.
She said: "It is a grievous loss,
But God gives His beloved sleep.
What of the living--of the three?
And when can they come back to me?"
The soldier turned away his head:
"Lady, your husband, too, is dead."

She put her hand upon her brow;
A wild, sharp pain was in her eyes.
"My husband! Oh, God, help m