Thou that didst bow the billows' pride,
Thy mandates to fulfil-

Speak, speak to passion's raging tide,
Speak and say " Peace, be still!"

CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

He knelt the Saviour knelt and pray'd,
When but His Father's eye

Look'd through the lonely garden's shade,
On that dread agony !

The Lord of all, above, beneath,

Was bow'd with sorrow unto death.

The sun set in a fearful hour,
The skies might well grow dim,
When this mortality had power

So to o'ershadow Him!

That He who gave man's breath might know
The very depth of human wo.

He knew them all-the doubt, the strife,
The faint, perplexing dread,
The mists that hang o'er parting life,

All darken'd round his head!
And the Deliverer knelt to pray-,
Yet pass'd it not, that cup away.

It pass'd not-though the stormy wave
Had sunk beneath his tread;

It pass'd not-though to Him the grave
Had yielded up its dead.

But there was sent him from on high

A gift of strength, for man to die.*

And was His mortal hour beset
With anguish and dismay?

-How may we meet our conflict yet,

In the dark, narrow way?

How, but through Him, that path who trod?
Save, or we perish, Son of God!

*" And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."-St. Luke, xxii. 43.

THE SUNBEAM.

THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall,
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope upon land and sea-
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and Ocean smiles-
Thou hast touch'd with glory his thousand isles-
Thou hast lit up the ships, and the feathery foam,
And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest-shades,
Thou art streaming on through their green arcades,
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow,
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look'd on the mountains-a vapor lay
Folding their heights in its dark array;
Thou breakest forth-and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.
I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its casement fell,
And it laugh'd into beauty at that bright spell.
To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not, from thy pomp to shed
A tender light on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st through the dim church-aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bath'd in a flood as of burning gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;
Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest;
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer, oh! what is joy like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!

-One thing is like thee, to mortals given,

The faith, touching all things with the hues of Heaven.

IN sunset's light o'er Afric thrown,
A wanderer proudly stood
Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,
Of Egypt's awful flood;

The cradle of that mighty birth,

So long a hidden thing to earth.

He heard its life's first murmuring sound,
A low mysterious tone;

A music sought, but never found,

By kings and warriors gone;

He listen'd-and his heart beat high

That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood
Rash'd burning through his frame,
The depths of that green solitude
Its torrents could not tame,

Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile,
Round those calm fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars :-across his soul
There swept a sudden change,
Ev'n at the pilgrim's glorious goal,
A shadow dark and strange,
Breathed from the thought, so swift to fall
O'er triumph's hour-And is this all?

No more than this!-what seem'd it now
First by that spring to stand?

A thousand streams of lovelier flow

Bathed his own mountain land!

Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track,
Their wild sweet voices call'd him back.

They call'd him back to many a glade,
His childhood's haunt of play,

Where brightly through the beechen shade
Their waters glanc'd away;

They call'd him, with their sounding waves,
Back to his fathers' hills and graves.

But darkly mingling with the thought
Of each familiar scene,
Rose up a fearful vision, fraught
With all that lay between;

The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom,
The whirling sands, the red simoon!

Where was the glow of power and pride?
The spirit born to roam?

His weary heart within him died
With yearnings for his home;
All vainly struggling to repress
That gush of painful tenderness.

He wept-the stars of Afric's heaven
Beheld his bursting tears,

Ev'n on that spot where fate had given
The meed of toiling years.

-Oh happiness! how far we flee

Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!*

THE VAUDOIS VALLEYS.

YES, thou hast met the sun's last smile,
From the haunted hills of Rome;

By many a bright Egean isle,

Thou hast seen the billows foam:

*The arrival of Bruce at what he considered to be the source of the Nile was followed almost immediately by feelings thus suddenly fluctuating from triumph to despons dence. See his Travels in Abyssinia,

From the silence of the Pyramid

Thou hast watch'd the solemn flow
Of the Nile, that with its waters hid
The ancient realm below:

Thy heart hath burn'd as shepherds sung
Some wild and warlike strain,
Where the Moorish horn once proudly rung
Through the pealing hills of Spaiu:

And o'er the lonely Grecian streams
Thou hast heard the laurels moan,
With a sound yet murmuring in thy dreams
Of the glory that is gone.

But go thou to the pastoral vales
Of the Alpine mountains old,
If thou wouldst hear immortal tales
By the wind's deep whispers told!
Go, if thou lov'st the soil to tread,
Where man hath nobly striven,
And life, like incense, hath been shed,
An offering unto heaven.

For o'er the snows and round the pines,
Hath swept a noble flood;

The nurture of the peasant's vines
Hath been the martyr's blood!

A spirit, stronger than the sword,
And loftier than despair,
Through all the heroic region pour'd,
Breathes in the generous air.

A memory clings to every steep

Of long-enduring faith,

And the sounding streams glad record ke Of courage unto death.

Ask of the peasant where his sires

For truth and freedom bled,

Ask, where were lit the torturing fires,

Where lay the holy dead;

And he will tell thee, all around,

On fount, and turf, and stone,

Far as the chamois' foot can bound,

Their ashes have been sown!