The Parents' Review

A Monthly Magazine of Home-Training and Culture

Change of Air.

A face, and all the dreariness
That gathers over wonted ways
Clears, sun-dispelled. A happy heart
Cons quiet thoughts of peace and praise.

It is enough; hope has no more--
A long, sweet, breezy tract, that leads
No whither, draws full-willing feet,
And heart that sings to-day, nor heeds

A morrow in its lay. What call
To plan and ponder further good,
When all the bliss that here may be
This gentle pleasure doth include:--

To look into thy friend's true eyes,
To know him larger than thou art,
And, in that freedom of the soul,
With fetters of the clay to part?

Sweeter than Love, for Love would own,
Would measure, hold, with wreaths confine;
But, my good friend, I choose thee free,
Nor would restrict thy life to mine.

Else, were we one--a narrower joy;
An ampler self, the dubious gain:
More blest, two several lives have I,
Another being do attain.

And, ah, what ease!--to quit the Self
Whose weight doth so oppress our state,
And breathe a changèd mental air,
At large, and, as a child, elate.

To think with other, juster thoughts,
To see with clearer, kinder eyes;
In each day's cross perplexities
To wait an outer judgment's rise:

Of personal issues, cares, annoys,
To 'scape the too contracting round,
Find centre in another's sphere,
In larger, sweeter interests bound:

From jarring of contrary minds,
From sadder scorn of all within,
From rivalries and meannesses,
From questionings that are of sin,--

To rise into the quiet place
Of a serener, holier soul,
And lay the heart to rest therein--
A stage towards the final goal.

Typed by Pamela Hicks, Mar 2013