’Tis labor’s ebb; a hush of gentle joy,
    For man, and beast, and bird;
  The quavering songster ceases its employ;
    The aspen is not stirred.

  But Nature hath no pause; she toileth still;
    Above the last-year leaves
  Thrusts the lithe germ, and o’er the terraced hill
    A fresher carpet weaves.

  From many veins she sends her gathered streams
   To the huge-billowed main,
  Then through the air, impalpable as dreams,
    She calls them back again.

  She shakes the dew from her ambrosial locks,
    She pours adown the steep
  The thundering waters; in her palm, she rocks
    The flower-throned bee to sleep.

  Smile in the tempest, faint and fragile man,
    And tremble in the calm! 
  God plainest shows what great.  Jehovah can,
    In these fair days of balm.

[Footnote 94:  A native of Connecticut, but has lived for many years in the West, and latterly in Minnesota.]

* * * * *

=_Elijah E. Edwards,[95] 1831-._=

=_419._= “LET ME REST.”

      “Let me rest!”
      It was the voice of one
  Whose life-long journey was but just begun. 
  With genial radiance shone his morning sun;
  The lark sprang up rejoicing from her nest,
    To warble praises in her Maker’s ear;
  The fields were clad in flower-enamelled vest,
    And air of balm, and sunshine clear,
      Failed not to cheer
  That yet unweary pilgrim; but his breast
  Was harrowed with a strange, foreboding fear;
  Deeming the life to come, at best,
  But weariness, he murmured, “Let me rest.”

* * * * *

      “Let me rest!”
      But not at morning’s hour,
  Nor yet when clouds above my pathway lower;
  Let me bear up against affliction’s power,
  Till life’s red sun has sought its quiet west,
    Till o’er me spreads the solemn, silent night,
  When, having passed the portals of the blessed,
    I may repose upon the Infinite,
      And learn aright
  Why He, the wise, the ever-loving, traced
  The path to heaven through a desert waste. 
  Courage, ye fainting ones! at His behest
  Ye pass through labor unto endless rest.

[Footnote 95:  Born in Ohio; of late professor of ancient languages in Minnesota; a contributor in prose and verse to various magazines.]

* * * * *

=_Paul Hamilton Hayne,[96] 1831-._=

=_420._= “OCTOBER.”

  The passionate summer’s dead! the sky’s aglow
    With roseate flushes of matured desire;
  The winds at eve are musical and low
    As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
    Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
  Whose pomp in grand procession upward grows,
  With gorgeous blazonry of funereal shows,
    To celebrate the summer’s