440 
THE STAKE. 
Oh | a dower, a gift unblest, 
Lies within the human breast ; 
Gulfs, whose depths no line may know 
Echo to its throbbings low ; 
And the bosom of the deep 
Knoweth more of rest and sleep. 
Who the measure hath ever taken 
Of the emptied* heart’s extent ? 
Who the echo shall awaken 
That can scale its firmament ? 
Ever, as light words fall there, 
Hollow its abysses ring ; 
And the very summer air 
Enters like a fearful thing, 
Bidding at its presence rise 
Hosts of buried memories. 
Lost delights and tones departed, 
Music loved when lighter hearted, 
Footsteps that shall come back never, 
Gladness that is gone for ever. 
Oh! our life was quietness : 
Never shadow of distress 
From the cold world’s pageants flung, 
O’er our roof its darkness hung, 
Or our glad hearth’s lamp of pleasance 
Dimm’d by its defiling presence. 
For to him, whose clear gaze bended 
Toward the far from mortal view, 
And whose every purpose tended 
To the enduring and the true, 
What were ought that owed its birth 
Unto time and unto earth, 
Saving as life’s changeful thread 
On to the unchanging led? 
And my soul, a still lake lying, 
In his shadow silently, 
To his every look replying 
With the wave’s fidelity ; 
Echoing back his thoughts unspoken, 
* Nahum, chap. ii, verse 2. 
