254

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause

From care and want and toil,
When dewy eve her curtain draws
Over the day's turmoil,

In the low chant of wakeful birds,
In the deep weltering flood,

In whispering leaves, these solemn words,–
"God made us all for good."

All true, all faultless, all in tune,

Creation's wondrous choir

Opened in mystic unison,
To last till time expire.

And still it lasts: by day and night,
With one consenting voice,
All hymn thy glory, Lord, aright,
All worship and rejoice!

Man only mars the sweet accord,
O'erpowering with "harsh din"
The music of thy works and word,
Ill matched with grief and sin.

Sin is with man at morning break,
And through the livelong day
Deafens the ear that fain would wake
To Nature's simple lay.

But when eve's silent footfall steals

Along the eastern sky,

And one by one to earth reveals

Those purer fires on high,

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

When one by one each human sound
Dies on the awful ear,

Then Nature's voice no more is drowned,
She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours she on the Christian heart
That warning still and deep,

At which high spirits of old would start
E'en from their pagan sleep,

Just guessing, through their murky blind,
Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind
A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
Through many a dreary age,
Upbore whate'er of good and wise
Yet lived in bard or sage :

They marked what agonizing throes
Shook the great mother's womb;
But Reason's spells might not disclose
The gracious birth to come;

Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast
God's secret love and power;

The travail-pangs of Earth must last
Till her appointed hour;

The hour that saw from opening heaven

Redeemning glory stream,

Beyond the summer hues of even,

Beyond the mid-day beam.

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256

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITI.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,
The meanest things below,
As with a seraph's robe of fire
Invested, burn and glow :

The rod of heaven has touched them all,
The word from heaven is spoken :
"Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thral !
Are not thy fetters broken?

"The God who hallowed thee, and blest,
Pronouncing thee all good,-

Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,
And all thy bliss renewed?

66

Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft,
Now that th' eternal Son

His blessed home in heaven hath left
To make thee all his own? "

Thou mourn'st because sin lingers still
In Christ's new heaven and earth;
Because our rebel works and will
Stain our immortal birth;

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,
The Saviour hides his face,

And worldlings blot the temple's gold
With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail-pains,
Hence, till thy God return,

In Wisdom's ear thy blithest strains,
O Nature, seem to mourn!

IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY.

IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY. — Burns

Is there, for honest poverty,

That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Our toil 's obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man 's the gowd for a' that!

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man, for a' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that,

The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!

Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that !

For a' that, and a' that,

His riband, star, and a' that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that!

A king can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that;
But an honest man 's aboon his might,
Guid faith he mauna fa' that'

THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT.

For a' that, and a' that,

Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher ranks than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it

As come it will for a' that,

may,

That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that!

For a' that, and a' that,

It 's comin' yet, for a' that,
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that!

THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT.

Blackwood's Magarine

Outstretched beneath the leafy shade
Of Windsor Forest's deepest glade
A dying woman lay;

Three little children round her stood,
And there went up from the greenwood
A woful wail that day.

"O mother!" was the mingled cry,
"O mother! mother! do not die

And leave us all alone."

My blessed babes!" she tried to say,
But the faint accents died away

In a low sobbing moan.

And then life struggled hard with death,
And fast and strong she drew her breath,
And up she raised her head;