I saw one, who had been in wanderings drear
From Reason's light, which hid her chastening glow
Behind a cloud; but she, returning now,
up an aspect as the noon-day clear, E'en such as holy Ken or Herbert dear; One scarce could see, but secretly to bless, So was he bowed in lowly placidness: "Sweet," said he, "to the weary mariner "To see the shore; and haply battle o'er
"Sweet to the soldier: sweet when all doth seem
Saddening, I know, to find it but a dream.
"But sweeter must it be, when all is o'er,
"As first the soul awakens to the gleam,
"Which tells her she is safe, and on the happy "shore."
THE PASTOR'S DIFFICULTY.
Love cannot reach him, arrows of Despair,
And Hope, and Fear, fall from him, hedged in scale
Of wild obduracy, like iron mail;
But, Pastor, hast thou left no weapon there,
In thy Heav'n-furnish'd quiver? It is Prayer;
Wing'd by Faith's pure resolve-Prayer shall
prevail;
It hath the promise. Into Life's dim vale,
Prayer doth of help the golden gates unbar;
To good of purpose stern that rugged brow
May turn; Love o'er the rock his tendrils throw:
As when upon the world's first wakening morn
The Spirit came descending, on the thorn,
Woke by that sacred touch, the Flower was born,
And bird new-made sung on the new-made bough.
On looks he used to love gazing he stood
With eyes all strangeness; but a walking dream,
E'en like a fabled shade at Lethe's stream.
While in her temple's ruin fancies brood,
The out-worn spirit sleeps in solitude,
Knowing nought earthly; save the fitful gleam
Of twilight images, whose broken beam
Peering amid the wreck, more darkly shew'd,
The desolation and his bosom's night.
Yet haply forms of peace may there alight,
As 'mid stern Winter's icy citadels,
Deep 'neath the mirror of dark Ocean s cells,
The Moon, with all her flock, celestial bright,
Shines darkling, where no earthly image dwells.
And see in that strange twilight of the mind,
How link'd associations yet live on,
And waken! talk of Prayer, and he anon
Recounts his beads; thrice happy, should'st thou find
A chord that doth the better soul unwind
Of thankful sufferance, and love begun
On earth. For thus sweet intercourses, won
From the great Spirit, secretly behind
This screen of things abide, and dearly bought,
Have grown at length into the inner man,
Tho' power be not, and will hath lost controul
Of action. Thus betimes within us wrought
Fill with Thyself, and form th' undying soul,
Our Saviour, ere be run this mortal span.
So momentous our work, for every hour
May characters engrave, which long unseen
Come forth again and live; thoughts which have been,
Returning whence they rose in a soft shower
Of unmark'd influence, renew a power
Which slumber'd: and on each new page of life,
Associations pour with feelings rife,
(Like long-forgotten gales on vernal flower,)
And work for good or evil. Sounds again
Which waken all that old melodious chain
That held the spirit; habit thus imbues
The soul with more than with ethereal hues,
Weaving that bridal robe, which to attain
From Heav'n she Heav'n-ward bound and Heav'n
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