ORNITHOLOGY. 



IOI 



A VESPER SONG 



BY EDMUND J. SAWYER, SCHENECTADY, n. Y. 



One hour remains of storm-racked day 

 For expiation; will it pay? 

 A blaze of gold grows in the west 

 Where clouds, adrift, and yet at rest, 

 In burnished seas of flaming sky, 

 Haloed in silver sunset lie. 



Now, tilted on a lowly spray, 

 A little bird pours out his lay : 

 Faith and ecstasy in one form, 

 And music of the union born. 

 Happy the lordlier, grander hymn, 

 Where censers swing and aisles are dim, 

 Which shall so surely rise to God 

 As this strain from the pasture sod. 

 It is not loud; what need to be? — 

 'Tis heard by God (of chance by me) — 

 Not the mate in the field around: 

 What of the nest on rain-swept ground? 



O when it is God's high behest 

 To call my own or me to rest, 

 Command to end life's wind and rain, — 

 The wreckage and the efforts vain, — 

 From my soul shall a vesper rise, 

 Of faith and rapture, to the skies? 



