rning in their time, but, oh!
The golden light of long ago
Returns no more.

This little Pearl,
Of water born, shall year by year
Imprison in its tiny sphere
Those fleeting tints whose mystic strife
And shadowy whirl
Of colour seem a form of life;
Nor ever shall their sea-born home
Dissolve in foam;
But this frail build of love and trust
Will sink to dust."

The magnitude of his calamity had dulled the sharpness of each stroke,
and thus it was not of loss of love, faith and fortune that he spoke,
but of the frailty of life. This is our habit. A ship too richly
freighted goes down, and straightway the owner laments, not his own
deprivation, but that "all flesh is grass." "Vanity of vanities," he
cries, "all is vanity," and we but guess at his hurt. A mysterious
consciousness is wiser than his reason, and connects the broken current
of his life with a mighty movement which he knows afar, but cannot tell
whether it be of Time or Eternity. He who designed all, "did not He make
one?"

Our days are empty, how should they be otherwise in a world whose very
vanity is infinite?

"Imperial Sorrow loves her sway, or I had sooner broken your vigil, my
brother," said Bertram. "I perceive that the falsity of life appals your
spirit. It is true that the faint lustre of that tiny orb will long
survive these poor frames of ours; it is a fitting emblem of the
deathless tenant within."

But to Atma it was the symbol of a lost love. He looked on it
listlessly. It seemed a long while since Moti died, for in his heart
joy, and hope, and youth had died since. The immortal destiny of man, a
belief dear to the Sikh, seemed a thing indifferent. Death might not be
final, but it was yesterday he mourned, and of it he said: "it is past."

He knew of the soul's Immortality, but of the Continuity of Life he had
not heard,

* * * * *

Dear Life, cling close, true friend, thro' well or ill,
Mine aye, we cannot part our company.
Though breathing cease and busy heart be still,
Together will we wake eternally.

Strange Life, in whose immeasurable clasp,
The past, the present and the vast to be
Mingle,--O Time, the world is for thy grasp,
I and my life for immortality.

Those bygone hours that were too bright to stay,
And vanished from my sight like morning mist,