THE VALLEY OF SILENCE.

FATHER RYAN.

WALK down the Valley of Silence

Down the dim, voiceless valley alone; And I hear not the fall of a footstep

Around me -save God's and my own, And the hush of my heart is as holy

As hovers where angels have flown.

Long ago was I weary of voices,

Whose music my heart could not win:
Long ago was I weary of noises,

That fretted my soul with their din;
Long ago was I weary of places,

Where I met but the human and sin.

And still I pined for the perfect,

And still found the false with the true,
I sought mid the human for heaven,

But caught a mere glimpse of the blue;
I wept as the clouds of the world veiled

Even that glimpse from my view.

I toiled on heart-tired of the human,

I moaned mid the mazes of men,

THE VALLEY OF SILENCE.

65

Till I knelt, long ago, at an Altar,

And heard a Voice call me; since then I walk down the Valley of Silence,

That lies far beyond mortal ken.

Do you ask what I found in the Valley ?

'Tis my trysting place with the Divine. When I fell at the feet of the Holy,

And about me the Voice said, “Be Mine," There arose from the depths of my spirit,

An echo, "My heart shall be Thine."

Do you ask how I live in the Valley ?

I weep, and I dream, and I pray:
But my tears are as sweet as the dew drops,

That fall on the roses of May;
And my prayer like a perfume from censer

Ascendeth to God night and day.

In the hush of the Valley of Silence,

I dream all the songs that I sing;
And the music floats down the dim valley,

Till each finds a word for a wing,
That to men, like the doves of the deluge,

The message of Peace they may bring.

But far out on the deep there are billows,

That never shall break on the beach; And I have heard songs in the Silence,

That never shall float into speech; And I have had dreams in the Valley,

Too lofty for language to reach.

And I have seen forms in the Valley,

Ah, me! how my spirit was stirred; And they wear holy veils on their faces,

5

Their footsteps can scarcely be heard
They pass through the Valley like virgins,
Too
pure

for the touch of a word.

Do you ask me the place of the Valley,

Ye hearts that are harrowed by care ? It lieth afar between Mountains,

And God and His angels are there; And one is the dark Mount of Sorrow,

The other the bright Mount of Prayer.

“SOME time,” we say, and turn our eyes
Toward the far hills of Paradise,
Some day, some time, a sweet new rest
Shall blossom, flower-like in each breast.
Some time, some day our eyes shall see
The faces kept in memory;
Some day their hands shall clasp our hands,
Just over in the morning lands.
Some day our ears shall hear the song
Of triumph over sin and wrong.
Some time, some time, but ah! not yet!
Still we will wait and not forget,
That “some time all these things shall be,
And rest be given to you and me.”
So let us wait, though years move slow,
That glad

some time” will come, we know.

H

BEYOND.

HENRY BURTON.

Never a word is said
But it trembles in the air,
And the truant voice is sped,
To vibrate everywhere;
And perhaps far off in eternal years
The echo may ring upon our ears.

Never are kind acts done
To wipe the weeping eyes,
But like the flashes of the sun,
They signal to the skies;
And up above the angels read
How we have helped the sorer need.

Never a day is given,
But it tones the after years,
And it carries up to heaven
Its sunshine or its tears;
While the to-morrows stand and wait,
The silent mutes by the outer gate.

There is no end to the sky,
And the stars are everywhere,
And time is eternity,
And the here is over there;
For the common deeds of the common day
Are ringing bells in the far-away.

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY.

J. W. RILEY.

HE Beautiful City ! Forever

Its rapturous praises resound,
And we fain would behold it—but never

A glimpse of its glory is found.
We slacken our lips at the tender

White breasts of our mothers to hear Of its marvelous beauty and splendor ;We see-

--but the gleam of a tear !

Yet never the story may tire us

First graven in symbols of stoneRewritten on scrolls of papyrus,

And parchment, and scattered and blown By the winds of the tongues of all nations,

Like a litter of leaves wildly whirled Down the rack of a hundred translations,

From the earliest lisp of the world

We compass the earth and the ocean

From the Orient's uttermost light, To where the last ripple in motion

Lips hem of the skirt of the night,-
But The Beautiful City evades us-

No spire of it glints in the sun-
No glad-bannered battlement shades us

When all our long journey is done,