HEART'S ENCOURAGEMENT.

Nor time nor all his minions

Of sorrow or of pain,

Shall dash with vulture pinions

The cup she fills again

Within the dream-dominions

Of life where she doth reign.

Clothed on with bright desire

And hope that makes her strong,

With limbs of frost and fire,

She sits above all wrong,

Her heart, a living lyre,

Her love, its only song.

And in the waking pauses

Of weariness and care,

And when the dark hour draws his

Black weapon of despair,

Above effects and causes

We hear its music there.

The longings life hath near it

Of love we yearn to see;

The dreams it doth inherit

Of immortality;

Are callings of her spirit

To something yet to be.