In vain we supplicate the Powers above;
There is no resurrection for the Love
That, nurst in tenderest care, yet fades
In the chilled heart by gradual self-decay.
RESEMBLES life what once was deemed of light,
Too ample in itself for human sight?
An absolute self-an element ungrounded-
All that we see, all colours of all shade
By encroach of darkness made ?—
Is very life by consciousness unbounded?
And all the thoughts, pains, joys of mortal breath,
A war-embrace of wrestling life and death?
INSCRIPTION FOR A TIME-PIECE.
Now! it is gone.—Our brief hours travel post,
Each with its thought or deed, its Why or How :-
But know, each parting hour gives up a ghost
To dwell within thee-an eternal Now!
LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION.
O'ER wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;
Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it,-so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks, I see them grouped, in seemly show,
The straightened arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that, touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow embossed in snow.
O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,
Woos back the fleeting spirit and half-supplies ;—
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love.
Yet haply there will come a weary day,
When overtasked at length
Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And both supporting does the work of both.
Beareth all things.-2 COR. xiii., 7.
GENTLY I took that which ungently came,'
And without scorn forgave:-Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's eye spark
Thou wouldst not see, were not thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin,
Fear that the spark self-kindled from within,
Which blown upon will blind thee with its glare,
Or smother'd stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds,
And soon the ventilated spirit finds
Its natural daylight. If a foe have kenn'd,
Or worse than foe, an alienated friend,
A rib of dry rot in thy ship's stout side,
Think it God's message, and in humble pride
With heart of oak replace it ;-thine the gains-
Give him the rotten timber for his pains!
-E cœlo descendit y σtaUTÒY.-JUVENAL.
Γνῶθι σεαυτὸν !—and is this the prime
And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time!—
Say, canst thou make thyself?-Learn first that trade;-
Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.
What hast thou, Man, that thou dar'st call thine own?—
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known ?-
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
A phantom dim of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm,-life, death, soul, clod—
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!
QUA linquam, aut nihil, aut nihili, aut vix sunt measordes
Do morti;-reddo cætera, Christe! tibi.
TO THE YOUNG ARTIST, KAYSER OF
KAYSERWERTH.
KASYER! to whom, as to a second self,
Nature, or Nature's next-of-kin, the Elf,
Hight Genius, hath dispensed the happy skill
To cheer or soothe the parting friend's, alas!
Turning the blank scroll to a magic glass,
That makes the absent present at our will;
And to the shadowing of thy pencil gives
Such seeming substance, that it almost lives.
Well hast thou given the thoughtful Poet's face!
Yet hast thou on the tablet of his mind
A more delightful portrait left behind-
Ev'n thy own youthful beauty, and artless grace,
Thy natural gladness and eyes bright with glee!
Kayser farewell!
Be wise! be happy! and forget not me:
MY BAPTISMAL BIRTH-DAY.
GOD's child in Christ adopted,-Christ my all,— What that earth boasts were not lost cheaply, rather Than forfeit that blest name, by which I call
The Holy One, the Almighty God, my Father ?—
Father! in Christ we live, and Christ in Thee—
Eternal Thou, and everlasting we.
The heir of heaven, henceforth I fear not death :
In Christ I live! in Christ I draw the breath
Of the true life!-Let then earth, sea, and sky
Make war against me! On my front I show
Their mighty master's seal. In vain they try
To end my life, that can but end its woe.—
Is that a death-bed where a Christian lies ?—
Yes! but not his-'tis Death itself there dies.
STOP, Christian Passer-by!-Stop, child of God,
And read with gentle breast. Beneath this sod
A poet lies, or that which once seem'd he.-
O, lift one thought in prayer for S. T. C.;
That he who many a year with toil of breath
Found death in life, may here find life in death!
Mercy for praise-to be forgiven for fame
He ask'd, and hoped, through Christ. Do thou the
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