A HEATHEN HYMN.

O LORD, the Giver of my days,
My heart is ready, my heart is ready;
I dare not hold my peace, nor pause,
For I am fain to sing Thy praise.

I praise Thee not, with impious pride, For that Thy partial hand has given Bounties of wealth or form or brain,

Good gifts to other men denied.

Nor weary Thee with blind

request,

For fancied goods Thy hand withholds;

I know not what to wish or fear,
Nor aught but that Thy will is best.

Not whence I come, nor whither I go,

Nor wherefore I am here, I know;
Nor if my life's tale ends on earth,
Or mounts to bliss, or sinks to woe.

Nor know I aught of Thee, O Lord; Behind the veil Thy face is hidden : We faint, and yet Thy face is hidden; We cry,--Thou answerest not a word.

But this I know, O Lord, Thou art,
And by Thee I too live and am;
We stand together, face to face,
Thou the great whole, and I the part.

We stand together, soul to soul,
Alone amidst Thy waste of worlds;
Unchanged, though all creation fade,
And Thy swift suns forget to roll.

Wherefore, because my life is Thine,
Because, without Thee I were not;
Because, as doth the sea, the sun,
My nature gives back the Divine.

Because my being with ceaseless flow Sets to Thee as the brook to the sea; Turns to Thee, as the flower to the sun, And seeks what it may never know.

Because, without me Thou hadst been
For ever, seated midst Thy suns;
Marking the soulless cycles turn,
Yet wert Thyself unknown, unseen.

I praise Thee, everlasting Lord,

In life and death, in heaven and hell:
What care I, since indeed Thou art,
And I the creature of Thy word.

Only if such a thing may be :

When all Thy infinite will is done,

Take back the soul Thy breath has given,

And let me lose myself in Thee.

IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.

UNDER the picture gallery wall,

As a sea-leaf clings to a wave-worn rock,

Nor shrinks from the surging impetuous shock

Of the breakers which gather and whiten and fall,

A child's form crouches, nor seems to heed
The ceaseless eddy and whirl of men :

Men and women with hearts that bleed,
Men and women of wealth and fame,
High in honour, or sunk in shame,
Pass on like phantoms, and pass again,
And he lies there like a weed.

A child's form, said I; but looking again
It is only the form that is childish now,
For age has furrowed the low dull brow,

And marked the pale face with its lines of pain.
Yet but few years have fled, since I first passed by,
For a dwarf's life is short if you go by the sun,

And marked in worn features and lustreless eye

Some trace of youth's radiance, though faint and thin;

But now, oh, strange jest! there's a beard to his chin. And he lies there, grown old ere his youth is done, With his poor limbs bent awry.

What a passer-by sees, is a monstrous head,
With a look in the eyes as of those who gaze
On some far-off sight with a dumb amaze ;
A face as pale as the sheeted dead,
A frail body propped on a padded crutch,
And lean long fingers, which flutter the keys
Of an old accordion, returning their touch
With some poor faint echoes of popular song,
Trivial at all times and obsolete long,
Psalm-tunes, and African melodies,

Not differing very much.

And there he sits nightly in heat and cold,

When the fountains fall soft on the stillness of June, Or when the sharp East sings its own shrill tune,

Patiently playing and growing old.

The long year waxes and wanes, the great
Flash by in splendour from rout or ball,

Statesmen grown weary with long debate,