O God of boundless purity,
How strange that thou should'st give to me
⁠This young and tender heart,
To train to walk in thine own ways,
That he may end his mortal days
⁠In glory where thou art!

Alas! how slow, how helpless too
Am I, this sacred work to do!
⁠My utmost strength must fail.
Yet, Holy Spirit, if thy power
Be given to me from hour to hour
⁠I surely shall prevail.

O Gracious Influence, to his heart
Give will to choose the "better part,"
⁠Which none can take away.
By him, O helping God, be found;
To him in gifts of love abound;
⁠Be with him every day.

And, God of grace, his mother bless
With prayer, and faith, and watchfulness,
⁠Now that she has a child.
Let not her weak indulgence spoil,
Nor yet her stern, harsh manner foil,
⁠This heart, so soft and mild.

Help her in every act and word
To follow close her lowly Lord;
⁠Be this her only pride —
That she may holy influence shed
Around this dear immortal's head,
⁠And keep him on thy side.

Then, when the last great trump shall soundd,
And all before their Judge be found
⁠To hear their sentence pass'd,
May he in glory then appear,
Receive thy prize, thy "Well done" hear —
⁠A conqueror at last.

Yes, may this soul, of rarer worth
To me than all the souls of earth,
⁠But wear thy diadem;
Then, through eternity I'll raise
A mother's song of unmixed praise,
⁠To Thee, redeeming Lamb.

A black and glassy float, opaque and still,
⁠The loch, at farthest ebb supine in sleep,
⁠Reversing, mirrored in its luminous deep,
The quiet skies; the solemn spurs of hill,

Brown heather, yellow corn, gray wisps of haze;
⁠The white low cots, black-windowed, plumed with smoke;
⁠The trees beyond. And when the ripple awoke,
They wavered with the jarred and wavering glaze.

The air was dim and dreamy. Evermore
⁠A sound of hidden waters whispered near.
⁠A straggler crow cawed high and thin. A bird

Chirped from the birch-leaves. Round the shingled shore,
⁠Yellow with weed, came wandering, vague and clear,
⁠Mysterious vowels and gutturals, idly heard.

O ye who dwell beneath the temperate sun,
And till the happy fields of every day,
Know ye what lands are lying far away,
Where never birds rejoice, nor waters run,
But all the seasons wear the robes of one, —
Too white, too fair for aught but death's array?
Know ye that human hearts like yours are there,
That human life breathes in that icy air?
Great dawns are there, of stainless pearl and rose, —
There the white splendors of still greater nights
Stream up the sky. But heavenly lights are cold!
And the earth moans under her weight of snows,
Keeping a thousand uses and delights
Hid in her breast, that never may unfold.

Edges of stormy dawn and murky night
⁠Trespassing harshly on his mellow hours,
⁠October plucks the present while it flowers,
And revels as a splendid Sybarite.
What tho' his noontide wear the yellow light
⁠Of sunset, hinting of the doom that lowers, —
⁠He recks not; now astride the west wind scours
Blue steppes of air; now, languid with delight,
⁠Reclines in violet haze; flings silver rime
To the gossamer, bead-coral to the thorns,
⁠And showers on tree and fern his ruddy gold.
But as pards couch until the herded horns
⁠Slant valewards, winter lets him pass his prime,
⁠Then springs, and hales him to the caves of cold.