WHENE'ER thy shining vane arrests my view,
Keeping its solitary watch on high,
Amidst the tempest's wildest revelry,
Or summer skies of deep and boundless blue ;-
In every change, still ready found and true,-
Intent to learn, as with a servant's eye,
Thy Ruler's will, and own His mastery,
As fickle I condemn thee not, tho' few
There are who do not this injustice show,
And turn thy very faithfulness to naught.
May I the truths thou teachest better know,
And void of pride, with as self-wisdom fraught
One Master serve, and tho' misjudged below
By His unerring Will, whate'er it prompts be taught.
FRANCIS LEAR, Dean of Salisbury.
WE read together, reading the same book,
Our heads bent forward in a half embrace,
So that each shade that either spirit took
Was straight reflected in the other's face :
We read, not silent, nor aloud-but each
Followed the eye that past the page along,
With a low murmuring sound that was not speech,
Yet with so much monotony,
In its half slumbering harmony,
You might not call it song:
More like a bee, that in the sun rejoices,
Than any customed mood of human voices.
Then if some wayward or disputed sense
Made cease awhile that music, and brought on
A strife of gracious-worded difference,
Too light to hurt our souls' dear unison,
We had experience of a blissful state,
In which our powers of thought stood separate,
Each in its own high freedom, set apart,
But both close folded in one loving heart ;
So that we seemed, without conceit, to be
Both one and two in our identity.
We prayed together, sharing the same prayer
But each that prayed did seem to be alone,
And saw the other, in a golden air
Poised far away, beneath a vacant throne,
Beck'ning the kneeler to arise and sit
Within the glory which encompassed it:
And when obeyed, the Vision stood beside,
And led the way through the upper hyaline,
Smiling in beauty tenfold glorified,
Which, while on earth, had seemed enough divine,
The beauty of the Spirit Bride,
Who guided the rapt Florentine.
The depth of human reason must become
As deep as is the holy human heart,
Ere aught in written phrases can impart
The might and meaning of that extasy
To those low souls, who hold the mystery
Of the unseen universe for dark and dumb.
But we were mortal still, and when again
We raised our mortal knees, I do not say
That our descending spirits felt no pain
To meet the dimness of an earthly day;
Yet not as those disheartened, and the more
Debased the higher that they rose before,
But from the exaltation of that hour,
Out of God's choicest treasury, bringing down
New virtue to sustain all ill,— -new power
To braid Life's thorns into a regal crown,
We past into the outer world, to prove
The strength miraculous of united Love.
HE is the happiest man, whose eye,
Just glancing nature's majesty,
The sun's impartial light,
The fire, the clouds, the deep,
The twinkling stars of night,
Is straightway closed in sleep;
Whose footsteps to the distant bourn
From whence he came, with speed return.
For though on earth a hundred years he range,
He shall not look on nature's change;
The elements the heavens so fair,
That met his infant gaze,
A more majestic beauty wear,
Than aught beside displays.
Life is a fair where thousands jostle,
Where all is dice, and thieves, and bustle,
All tumults fierce, and wranglings loud :
And we are pilgrims 'mid the crowd.
Who would not long such scene to leave
Ere strife or losses bid him grieve?
To be the first his home to win,
Or rest him in some quiet inn?
The lingerer finds but toils unceasing,
Sorrows, and wants, and foes increasing :
No certain joy, no changeless friend :
A darker life, a bitterer end.
J. ANSTICE, from Menander.
MOUNTAIN ECHOES.
YES, it was the mountain echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to the shouting cuckoo,
Giving to her sound for sound!
Unsolicited reply
To a babbling wanderer sent:
Like her ordinary cry,
Like, but O how different!
Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking creatures !
Slaves of folly, love, or strife—
Voices of two different natures?
Have not we too?-yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence :
Echoes from beyond the grave,
Recognised intelligence.
Such rebounds our inward ear
Catches sometimes from afar-
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;
For of God-of God they are.
BUT what strange art, what magic can dispose
The troubled mind to change its native woes?
Or lead us willing from ourselves, to see
Others more wretched, more undone than we?
This, Books can do ;-nor this alone, they give
New views to life, and teach us how to live ;
They soothe the grieved, the stubborn they chastise,
Fools they admonish, and confirm the wise :
Their aid they yield to all: they never shun
The man of sorrow, nor the wretch undone :
Unlike the hard, the selfish and the proud,
They fly not sullen from the suppliant crowd;
Nor tell to various people various things,
But show to subjects, what they show to kings.
Yet man's best efforts taste of man, and show The poor and troubled source from which they flow:
Where most he triumphs, we his wants perceive, And for his weakness in his wisdom grieve.
Lo! all in silence, all in order stand,
And mighty folios,1 first, a lordly band;
1 A Frenchman was asked if he liked books in folio? "No, said he, "I like them in fructu."
|