THE EYE THAT NEVER SLEEPS
When the heavy, midnight shadows
Gather o'er a slumbering world,
And the banner folds of darkness
Are in gloomy pomp unfurled,--
Think, lone watcher, pale and tearful,
In thy sad, unpitied lot,
By the death couch waking, weeping,
There is One who slumbers not!--
One who, though no mourning brother
Share thy vigils lone and drear,
Loving, pitying, as no other
Loves or pities, watches near!
When the waves, o'erwrought by tempest,
Lift their strong arms to the skies,
And amid the inky darkness
Shrieks of winds and waters rise,--
Mariner, 'mid doubt and danger,
Wildly tossed upon the deep,
Think, o'er all in power presiding
There is One who does not sleep--
One who holds the risen tempest
In obedience to His will,
Who, to still its wildest fury,
Need but whisper--"Peace, be still"
When, weighed down by heavy anguish,
Waking, sad, at midnight lone,
Sorrowing mourner, thou dost languish
For affection's missing tone,--
When thy heart o'er buried treasures
In its uncheered misery weeps,
Think, that gently watching o'er thee,
Is an eye that never sleeps!
And, above the mournful shadows,
Lift thy heart so lone and riven,
Up to Him who 'mid thy sorrows
Wooes thee still to hope and Heaven
BY AND BY
_God will not let His bright gifts die
If I may not sing my songs just now
I shall sing them by and by_
A young man with a Poet's soul,
And a Poet's kindling eye--
Dark, dreamy, full of unvoiced thought--
And forehead calm and high,
Toiled wearily at his heavy task
Till his soul grew sick with pain,
And the pent up fires that burned within
Seemed withering heart and brain
"Work, work, work!" he murmured low,
Glancing up at the golden west--
Work, with the sunset heavens aglow
By the hands of angels dressed,
Work for this perishing, human clay,
While the soul, like a prisoned bird,
Flutters its helpless wings always
By passionate longings stirred
"I hear in the wandering zephyr's song
Tones that no others hear,
And alien melodies all day long
Are murmuring in my ear,--
Phantoms of beauty in cloud and flower
Haunt me where'er I stray,
And flit thro' the green of the summer bower,
At the close of each toil spent day
"There are voices that sigh in the wind's low sigh,
Or wail in the tempest's roar,--
That sing in the brooklets that wander by,
Or sob along ocean's shore;--
I hear them ever, yet may not stay,
To list to the rhythmic strain;
And the unvoiced melodies die away,
Never to come again.
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