Change then, oh sad one, grief to exultation: Worship and fall before Messiah's knee, Strong was His arm, the Bringer of salvation; Strong was the Word of God to succor thee!
Is it to go to church today,
To look devout and seem to pray,
And ere tomorrow's sun goes down
Be dealing slander through the town?
Does every sanctimonious face
Denote the certain reign of grace?
Does not a phiz that scowls at sin
Oft veil hypocrisy within?
Is it to take our daily walk,
And of our own good deeds to talk,
Yet often practice secret crime,
And thus misspend our precious time?
Is it for sect and creed to fight,
To call our zeal the rule of right,
When what we wish is, at the best,
To see our church excel the rest?
Is it to wear the Christian dress,
And love to all mankind profess,
To treat with scorn the humble poor,
And bar against them every door?
Oh, no! religion means not this,
Its fruit more sweet and fairer is,
Its precept's this to others do
As you would have them do to you.
It grieves to hear an ill report,
And scorns with human woes to sport,
Of others' deeds it speaks no ill,
But tells of good, or else keeps still.
And does religion this impart?
Then may its influence fill my heart!
Oh! haste the blissful, joyful day,
When all the world may own its sway.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
Ir is a place where poets crowned
May feel the heart's decaying, -
It is a place where happy saints
May weep amid their praying:
Yet let the grief and humbleness,
As low as silence, languish !
Earth surely now may give her calm
To whom she gave her anguish.
O poets! from a maniac's tongue,
Was poured the deathless singing!
O Christians! at your cross of hope,
A hopeless hand was clinging!
O men! this man, in brotherhood,
Your weary paths beguiling,
Groaned inly while he taught you peace, And died while ye were smiling.
what time ye all may read
Through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell
And darkness on the glory,
And how, when one by one, sweet sounds And wandering lights departed,
He wore no less a loving face
Because so broken-hearted;
He shall be strong to sanctify
The poet's high vocation,
And bow the meekest Christian down
In meeker adoration.
Nor ever shall he be, in praise,
By wise or good forsaken;
Named softly, as the household name
Of one whom God hath taken.
With quiet sadness and no gloom,
I learn to think upon him,
With meekness that is gratefulness
To God whose heaven has won him
Who suffered once the madness-cloud,
To His own love to blind him;
But gently led the blind along
Where breath and bird could find him;
And wrought within his shattered brain,
Such quick poetic senses,
As hills have language for, and stars,
Harmonious influences!
The pulse of dew upon the grass
Kept his within its number;
And silent shadows from the trees
Refreshed him like a slumber.
Wild timid hares were drawn from woods
To share his home-caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes
With sylvan tendernesses :
The very world, by God's constraint,
From falsehood's ways removing,
Its women and its men became
Beside him, true and loving.
But while in blindness he remained
Unconscious of the guiding,
And things provided came without
The sweet sense of providing,
He testified this solemn truth,
Though frenzy desolated-
Nor man, nor nature satisfy,
Whom only God created!
Like a sick child that knoweth not
His mother while she blesses
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