To a Young Lady

Hope, strewing with a liberal hand
     Thy pathway with her choicest flowers,
Making the Earth an Eden-land,
     And gilding time’s departing hours;
Lifting the clouds from Life’s blue sky,
     And pointing to that sphere divine
Where Joy’s immortal blossoms lie
     In the rich light of Heaven—be thine!

Love, with its voice of silvery tone,
     Whose music melts upon the heart
Like whispers from the world unknown,
     When shadows from the soul depart—
Love, with its sunlight melting through
     The mists that over earth are driven,
And giving earth itself the hue
     And brightness of the upper heaven—

Peace, hymning with her seraph-tones
     Amid the stillness of thy soul,
Till every human passion owns
     Her mighty but her mild control—
Devotion, with her lifted eye,
     All radiant with the tears of bliss,
Looking beyond the bending sky
     To worlds more glorious than this—

Duty, untiring in her toil
     Earth’s parched and sterile wastes among—
Zeal, delving in the rocky soil,
     With words of cheer upon her tongue—
Faith, with a strong and daring hand
     Rending aside the veil of heaven,
And claiming as her own the land
     Whose glories to her view are given—

These, with the many lights that shine
     Brightly Life’s pilgrim-path upon,—
These, with the bliss they bring, be thine,
     Till purer bliss in Heaven be won—
Till, gathered with the loved of Time,
     Whose feet the “narrow way” have trod,
Thy soul shall drink of joys sublime,
     And linger in the smile of God!