234 TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. "The heart knoweth his own bitterness; and a stranger doth no intermeddle with his joy."— PROVERBS XIV. 10. WHY should we faint and fear to live alone, Since all alone - so Heaven has willed—we die, Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own, Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh? Each in its hidden sphere of joy or woe, Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart ; Our eyes see all around, in gloom or glow, Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart And well it is for us our God should feel For if one heart in perfect sympathy Beat with another, answering love for love, Weak mortals all entranced on earth would lie, Nor listen for those purer strains above. Or what if Heaven for once its searching light Who would not shun the dreary, uncouth place? A SONNET. EXPERIENCE. 235 Then keep the softening veil in mercy drawn, true! As on the bosom of the aerial dawn Melts in dim haze each coarse, ungentle hue. A SONNET.- Wordsworth. SCORN not the Sonnet; critic, you have frowned, Mindless of its just honors; with this key Shakspeare unlocked his heart; the melody Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound; A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound; Camoens soothed with it an exile's grief; The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle-leaf Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned His visionary brow; a glow-worm lamp, It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land To struggle through dark ways; and, when a damp EXPERIENCE.-Jane Taylor. How false is found, as on in life we go, 236 EXPERIENCE. There all our hopes of happiness are placed; Ne'er but as needful chastisement is given The wish thus forced, and torn, and stormed from Heaven. But if withheld, in pity, from our prayer, We rave a while of torment and despair, Meantime Heaven bears the grievous wrong, and waits, Applies with gentlest hand the healing balm, Our blasted hopes, our aims and wishes crost, Perceives the high-wrought bliss it aimed to share, That 't is not fitted, and would strangely grace And all we need in this terrestrial spot Is calm contentment with "the common lot." SAY HENRY, SHOULD A MAN OF MIND. 237 SAY, HENRY, SHOULD A MAN OF MIND. SAY, Henry, should a man of mind Or grieve because he is not joined Look round, with philosophic ken, That much of all we finest hold, Admire with one acclaim, Is of a delicater mould, And of a feebler frame. Look at bent lilies as you walk, Yet well the fragrance from that stalk Look at the bird with glossiest wings, Look at the rose his bill invades On what a slender stalk it fades Look at the sex, whose form may vaunt More grace than bird or rose Great minds with energetic thought Then, Henry, let no man of mind SONNET.-J. R. Lowell, THROUGII suffering and sorrow thou hast past, Whose strength gives warrant of good fruit at last |