DEATH IN ARABIA.

HE who died at Azan sends
This to comfort all his friends.

"Faithful friends! It lies, I know,
Pale and cold, and white as snow,
And ye say, 'Abdullah 's dead,'
Weeping at the foot and head.
I can see your falling tears,
I can hear your sighs and prayers,
Yet I smile, and whisper this:
I am not the thing you kiss;
Cease your tears, and let it lie,
It was mine, it is not I.

"Faithful friends! be wise, and dry Straightway every weeping eye. What ye lift upon the bier Is not worth a single tear. 'Tis an empty seashell one Out of which the pearl has gone;

The shell is broken it lies there;

The pearl, the all, the soul is here. 'Tis an earthen jar, whose lid

Allah sealed, the while it hid

DEATH IN ARABIA.

The treasure of his treasury.

A mind that loved him- let it lie!
Let the shard be earth's once more,
Since the gold is in his store!

"Sweet friends! what the women lave
For the last sleep of the grave,
Is a hut which I am quitting,
Is a garment no more fitting,
Is a cage from which at last
Like a bird my soul has passed.
Love the inmate, not the room;
The wearer, not the garb; the plume
Of the eagle, not the bars

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That kept him from those splendid stars.

"Allah glorious! Allah good!
Now thy world is understood!
Now the long, long wonder ends.
Yet ye weep, my erring friends,
While the man whom you call dead,
In unspoken bliss instead

Lives, and loves you- lost, 't is true,
To the light that shines for you,

But in a light ye cannot see
Of undisturbed felicity,

In a perfect Paradise,

And a love that never dies.

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66

DEATH IN ARABIA.

Weep awhile, if ye are fain-
Sunshine still must follow rain
Only not at death for death,

Now I know, is that first breath
Which our souls draw when they enter
Life that is of all life centre.

66 am gone before your face

A moment's worth, a little space.
When you come where I have stepped
You will wonder why you wept,

You will learn, by true love taught,
That here is all, and there is naught.

"Be ye stout of heart, and come
Bravely onward to your home.
La il Allah Allah là!

O love divine! O love alway!"

He who died at Azan gave

This to them who made his grave.

EDWIN ARNOLD.

THE SEED GROWING SECRETLY.

DEAR, secret greenness ! nurst below Tempests and winds and winter nights! Vex not, that but One sees thee grow; That One made all these lesser lights.

What needs a conscience calm and bright
Within itself, an outward test?
Who breaks his glass, to take more light,
Makes way for storms into his rest.

Then bless thy secret growth, nor catch
At noise, but thrive unseen and dumb;
Keep clean, bear fruit, earn life, and watch
Till the white-wingèd reapers come!

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HENRY VAUGHAN.

THE FLOWER.

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! e'en as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Grief melts away

Like snow in May,

As if there were no such cold thing.

Who could have thought my shriveled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart

To see their mother - root when they have blown ;

Where they together

All the hard weather,

Dead to the world, keep house unknown.

And now in age I bud again,

After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O my only light,
It cannot be

That I am he

On whom thy tempests fell at night.

HERBERT.