LOVE IS THE GOD-LIKE ATTRIBUTE.

BEATTIE.

But say, in courtly life can craft be learned,
Where knowledge opens and exalts the soul?
Where fortune lavishes her gifts unearned,
Can selfishness the liberal heart control?
Is glory there achieved by arts as foul
As those which felons, fiends, and furies plan?
Spiders ensnare, snakes poison, tigers prowl;
Love is the God-like attribute of man,

O teach a simple youth this mystery to scan.

LOVE OMNIPRESENT.

THOMAS LODGE.

Turn I my looks unto the skies,

Love with its arrows wounds mine eyes;

If so I gaze upon the ground,

Love then in every flower is found;

Search I the shade to fly my pain,

Love meets me in the shade again;
Want I to walk in secret grove,
E'en there I meet with sacred love;
If so I bathe me in the spring,
E'en on the brink I hear it sing;
If so I meditate alone,

It will be partner of my moan;
If so I mourn it weeps with me,
And where I am there it will be

THE HARMONY OF LOVE.

WESLEY.

Lord, subdue our selfish will;

Each to each our tempers suit,

By thy modulating skill,

Heart to heart, as lute to lute.

Sweetly on our spirits move;

Gently touch the trembling strings;

Make the harmony of love

Music for the King of Kings.

WE ARE WISER THAN WE KNOW.

CHARLES MACKAY.

Thou, who in the midnight silence
Lookest to the orbs on high,

Feeling humbled, yet elated,

In the presence of the sky;

Thou who minglest with thy sadness

Pride ecstatic, awe divine,

That ev'n thou canst trace their progress,

And the law by which they shine;

Intuition shall uphold thee,

Even tho' reason drag thee low: Lean on faith, look up rejoicing,

We are wiser than we know.

Thou, who hearest plaintive music,
Or sweet songs of other days;
Heaven-revealing organs pealing,
Or clear voices hymning praise,
And would weep, thou knowst not wherefore,
Though thy soul is steeped in joy;
And the world looks kindly on thee,
And thy bliss hath no alloy;
Weep, nor seek for consolation,
Let the heaven-sent droplets flow;
They are hints of mighty secrets,
We are wiser than we know.

Thou, who in the noon-tide brightness
Seest a shadow undefined;
Hearest a voice, that indistinctly
Whispers caution to thy mind;
Thou who hast a vague foreboding
That a peril may be near,

Even when Nature smiles around thee,
And thy conscience holds thee clear:
Trust the warning, look before thee-
Angels may the mirror show,
Dimly still, but sent to guide thee,
We are wiser than we know.

Countless chords of heavenly music
Struck in earthly time began,
Vibrate in immortal concord,

To the answering soul of man:
Countless rays of heavenly glory,
Shine through spirit pent in clay,
On the wise men at their labors,
On the children at their play.

Man has gazed on heavenly secrets,
Sunned himself in heavenly glow,
Seen the glory, heard the music,
We are wiser than we know.

CHARITY.

TUPPER.

Charity sitteth on a fair hill-top, blessing far and near, But her garments drop ambrosia, chiefly on the violets around her :

She gladdeneth indeed the maplike scene, stretching to the verge of the horizon,

For her angel-face is lustrous and beloved even as the moon in Heaven :

But the light of that beatific vision gloweth in serener concentration,

The nearer to her heart, and nearer to her home,-that hill-top where she sitteth :

Therefore she is kind unto her kin, yearning in affection on her neighbors,

Giving gifts around to those who know and love her well.

CHARITY.

SPENCER.

She was a woman in her freshest age,
Of wondrous beauty, and of bountie rare,
With goodly grace and comely personage,
That was on earth not easy to compare ;
Full of great love, but Cupid's wanton snare,

As hell she hated, chaste in work and will; Her neck and breasts were ever open bare,

That aye thereof her babes might suck their fill ; The rest was all in yellow robes arraied still.

A multitude of babes about her hung, Plying their sports that joy'd her to behold,

Whom still she fed, whilst they were weak and

young,

But thrust them forth still, as they waxed old :

And on her head she wore a tire of gold,

Adorn'd with gemmes and owches wondrous fair, Whose passing price uneath was to be told; And by her side there sat a gentle pair Of turtle doves, she sitting in an ivory chaire.

CHARITY THE LIFE OF FAITH.

KEBLE.

Would'st thou the life of souls discern?
Nor human wisdom nor divine
Helps thee by aught beside to learn,
Love is life's only sign.

The spring of the regenerate heart,
The pulse, the glow of every part,
Is the true love of Christ our Lord,
As man embraced, as God adored.

But he whose heart will bound to mark

The full, bright burst of summer morn, Loves to each little dewy spark,

By leaf or flow'ret worn.