r that which is more than nigh;
Though the sky is lofty o'er us,
We are always in the sky.

And the fog, o'er the roses that creepeth,
Steams from the unknown sea,
In the dark of the soul that sleepeth,
And sigheth constantly,
Because o'er the face of its waters
The breathing hath not gone;
And instead of glad sons and daughters,
Wild things are moaning on.

When the heart knows well the Father,
The eyes will be always day;
But now they grow dim the rather
That the light is more than they.
Believe, amidst thy sorrows,
That the blight that swathes the earth
Is only a shade that borrows
Life from thy spirit's dearth.

God's heart is the fount of beauty;
Thy heart is its visible well;
If it vanish, do thou thy duty,
That necromantic spell;
And thy heart to the Father crying
Will fill with waters deep;
Thine eyes may say, _Beauty is dying;_
But thy spirit, _She goes to sleep._

And I fear not, thy fair soul ever
Will smile as thy image smiled;
It had fled with a sudden shiver,
And thy body lay beguiled.
Let the flowers and thy beauty perish;
Let them go to the ancient dust.
But the hopes that the children cherish,
They are the Father's trust.

3.

A great church in an empty square,
A place of echoing tones;
Feet pass not oft enough to wear
The grass between the stones.

The jarring sounds that haunt its gates,
Like distant thunders boom;
The boding heart half-listening waits,
As for a coming doom.

The door stands wide, the church is bare,
Oh, horror, ghastly, sore!
A gulf of death, with hideous stare,
Yawns in the earthen floor;

As if the ground had sunk away
Into a void below:
Its shapeless sides of dark-hued clay
Hang ready aye to go.

I am myself a horrid grave,
My very heart turns grey;
This charnel-hole,--will no one save
And force my feet away?

The changing dead are there, I know,
In terror ever new;
Yet down the frightful slope I go,
That downward goeth too.

Beneath the caverned floor I hie,
And seem, with anguish dull,
To enter by the empty eye
Into a monstrous skull.

Stumbling on what I dare not guess,
And wading through the gloom,
Less deep the shades my eyes oppress,
I see the awful tomb.

My steps have led me to a door,
With iron clenched and barred;
Grim Death hides there a ghastlier store,
Great spider in his ward.

The portals shake, the bars are bowed,
As if an earthy wind
That n