And now how mighty a sum of love No, I'm not what I was yesterday, TO A VIRTUOUS YOUNG LADY.-Milton. LADY, that in the prime of earliest youth Therefore be sure Thou, when the bridegroom with his feastful friends Passes to bliss at the mid hour of night, Hast gained thy entrance, virgin wise and pure. TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.— Keble. "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?"-MATTHEW XViii. 21. WHAT liberty so glad and gay, 216 TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. The dreary sounds of crowded earth, The snow-clad peaks of rosy light The thwarting cliffs that bound his sight, O blessed restraint! more blesséd range! His nook of homely thought will change Too soon his altered day-dreams show While of his narrowing heart each year It must be so; else wherefore falls While from his pardoning cross he calls, By our own niggard rule we try Yes, ransomed sinner! wouldst thou know How often to forgive, How dearly to embrace thy foe, Look where thou hop'st to live: When thou hast told those isles of light, Then in their solemn pageant learn THE BEGGAR.-J. R. Lowell. A BEGGAR through the world am I, Rounded with leafy gracefulness, Old oak, give me, That the world's blasts may round me blow, And I yield gently to and fro, While my stout-hearted trunk below, And firm-set roots, unmovéd be. 218 THE BEGGAR. Some of thy stern, unyielding might, The changeful ÂApril sky of chance, Some of thy mournfulness serene, That grief may fall like snow-flakes light, Ready to be an angel bright, A little of thy merriment, Ye have been very kind and good Of all good things I would have part, Some of thy modesty, That flowers here as well, unseen, O, give, to strengthen me. STERN daughter of the voice of God! From vain temptations dost set free, And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity! There are who ask not if thine eye Be on them; who, in love and truth, Upon the genial sense of youth; Glad hearts! without reproach or blot; Who do thy work and know it not; Long may the kindly impulse last! But thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast! Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light, And joy its own security. And they a blissful course may hold, Even now, who, not unwisely bold, Live in the spirit of this creed; Yet find that other strength, according to their need. I, loving freedom, and untried, No sport of every random gust, Too blindly have reposed my trust ; |