And had he not high honor, The hillside for his pall; To lie in state while angels wait With stars for tapers tall; And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes, Over his bier to wave; And God's own hand, in that lonely land, In that deep grave, without a name, Shall break again- most wondrous thought!— And stand with glory wrapped around On the hills he never trod, And speak of the strife that won our life With the Incarnate Son of God. O, lonely tomb in Moab's land, God hath His mysteries of Grace- He hides them deep, like the secret sleep Mrs. Cecil Francis Alexander. APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, By the deep sea, and music in its roar. What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze or gale or storm, Dark heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee: thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy Lord Byron. THE LOST CHORD. Seated one day at the organ, I do not know what I was playing, It flooded the crimson twilight, It quieted pain and sorrow, It linked all perplexéd meanings I have sought, but I seek it vainly, That came from the soul of the Organ, It may be that Death's bright angel Adelaide A. Proctor. HYMN TO THE NIGHT. I heard the trailing garments of the Night I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light I felt her presence, by its spell of might, The calm, majestic presence of the Night, I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight, That fill the haunted chambers of the Night, From the cool cisterns of the midnight air The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,— O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! Descend with broad-winged flight, The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. THE BARDS. When the sweet day in silence hath departed, Spirits whose voices pour an endless measure, Until my trembling soul, oppressed with pleasure, Old Homer's song in mighty undulations Comes surging ceaseless up the oblivious main:-I hear the rivers from succeeding nations Go answering down again. Hear Virgil's strain through pleasant pastures strolling, I hear the iron Norseman's numbers ringing In Rhenish halls, still hear the pilgrim lover And hear from Scottish hills the souls unquiet The world-wide Shakspeare-the imperial Spenser: Float the sweet dreams of Keats! |