December 8

HOW lovely seems the sun to us,—at night, When his soft light dawns on us from the moon!

'Tis the sun's light and not the moon's, although She is so near, and he has dropped from sight.

Hast thou done some good deed, and therefore now A human face smiles on thee through its tears,—

Then see there, too, the Godhead's mediate face, Soft-beaming as the solar-lunar light.

A Layman's Breviary

OLD AGE