So in this vision I would go
Still onward through the gliding years,
Reaping great Noontide’s joyous glow,
Still Eve’s refreshing tears.

One afternoon sit pondering
In that old chair, in that old room,
Where passing pigeon’s sudden wing
Flashed lightning through the gloom.

There, try once more with effort vain,
To mould in one perplexed things;
And find the solace yet again
Faith in the Father brings.

Or on my horse go wandering round,
Mid desert moors and mountains high;
While storm-clouds, darkly brooding, found
In me another sky.

For so thy Visible grew mine,
Though half its power I could not know;
And in me wrought a work divine,
Which Thou hadst ordered so;

Filling my brain with form and word
From thy full utterance unto men;
Shapes that might ancient Truth afford,
And find it words again.

Till Spring, in after years of youth,
Wove its dear form with every form;
Now a glad bursting into Truth,
Now a low sighing storm.

But in this vision of the Past,
Spring-world to summer leading in,
Whose joys but not whose sorrows last,
I have left out the sin.

I picture but development,
Green leaves unfolding to their fruits,
Expanding flowers, aspiring scent,
But not the writhing roots.

Then follow English sunsets, o’er
A warm rich land outspread below;
A green sea from a level shore,
Bright boats that come and go.

And one beside me in whose eyes
Old Nature found a welcome home,
A treasury of changeful skies
Beneath a changeless dome.

But will it still be thus, O God? 
And shall I always wish to see
And trace again the hilly road
By which I went to Thee?

We bend above a joy new given,
That gives new feelings gladsome birth;
A living gift from one in heaven
To two upon the earth.

Are no days creeping softly on
Which I should tremble to renew? 
I thank thee, Lord, for what is gone—­
Thine is the future too.

And are we not at home in Thee,
And all this world a visioned show;
That knowing what Abroad is, we
What Home is, too, may know?

FAR AND NEAR.

[The fact to which the following verses refer, is related by Dr. Edward Clarke in his Travels.]

Blue sunny skies above; below,
  A blue and sunny sea;
A world of blue, wherein did blow
  One soft wind steadily.

In great and solemn heaves, the mass
  Of pulsing ocean beat,
Unwrinkled as the sea of glass
  Beneath the holy feet.

With forward leaning of desire,
  The ship sped calmly on,
A pilgrim strong that would not tire,
  Nor hasten to be gone.

The mouth of the mysterious Nile,
  Full thirty leagues away,
Breathed in his ear old tales to wile
  Old Ocean as he lay.