sketched for you, dear friend, was eminently happy. Does it seem to you too much burdened by household toils? No; for they were balanced by social and intellectual pleasures. Truly, as well as beautifully, has Ruskin said, that "it is only by labor, that thought can be made healthful; and only by thought, that labor can be made happy. The two cannot be separated with impunity. The worker ought, therefore, to be often thinking, and the thinker to be working."
I feel as if I had but inadequately expressed my gratitude to that spirit of poesy, which, amid the brightest allurements of life's cloudless morning, vouchsafed a still higher and purer enjoyment.
Even now, though that life from its zenith doth wane,
And its morn-gathered garlands grow scentless and vain,
And many a friend who its pilgrimage blest,
Have fallen from my bosom, and gone to their rest—
Yet still by my side, unforgetful and true,
Is the Being who walk'd with me all the way through;
She doth cling to the High Rock wherein is my trust,
Let her chant to my soul when I go to the dust;
Hand in hand with the Faith that my Saviour hath given,
May we kneel at His feet mid the anthems of heaven.[1]
- ↑ "Western Home and Other Poems," p. 161.
