To other strains our souls are set:
A giddy whirl of sin

Fills ear and brain, and will not let
Heaven's harmonies come in.

Come Lord, come Wisdom, Love, and Power,
Open our ears to hear;
Let us not miss th' accepted hour;
Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.

MONDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

THE CITY OF CONFUSION.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Genesis xi. 8. [First Morning Lesson.]

[O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort, through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.]

SINCE all that is not heav'n must fade,
Light be the hand of Ruin laid

Upon the home I love:

With lulling spell let soft Decay
Steal on, and spare the giant sway,
The crash of tower and grove.

Far opening down some woodland deep
In their own quiet glade should sleep
The relics dear to thought,

And wild-flower wreaths from side to side
Their waving tracery hang, to hide

What ruthless Time has wrought.
Such are the visions green and sweet
That o'er the wistful fancy fleet
In Asia's sea-like plain,

Where slowly, round his isles of sand,
Euphrates through the lonely land

Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest;
There her forlorn and weary nest

The famish'd hawk has found,
The wild dog howls at fall of night,
The serpent's rustling coils affright
The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high,*
Half seen against the evening sky,
Seems like a ghost to glide,

And watch, from Babel's crumbling heap,
Where in her shadow, fast asleep,
Lies fall'n imperial Pride?

With half-closed eye a lion there
Is basking in his noontide lair,

Or prowls in twilight gloom.
The golden city's king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreamst

Sprang from rough ocean's womb.

* See Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, ii. 387. "In my second visit to Birs Nimrood, my party suddenly halted, having descried several dark objects moving along the summit of its hill, which they construed into dismounted Arabs on the look out: I took out my glass to examine, and soon distinguished that the causes of our alarm were two or three majestic lions, taking the air upon the heights of the pyramid."

† Daniel vii. 4.

But where are now his eagle wings,
That shelter'd erst a thousand kings,
Hiding the glorious sky

From half the nations, till they own
No holier name, no mightier throne?
That vision is gone by.

Quench'd is the golden statue's ray,*
The breath of heaven has blown away
What toiling earth had pil'd,

Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's sand
The fabrics of a child.

Divided thence through every age
Thy rebels, Lord, their warfare wage,
And hoarse and jarring all
Mount up their heaven assailing cries
To thy bright watchmen in the skies
From Babel's shatter'd wall.

Thrice only since, with blended might
The nations on that haughty height
Have met to scale the heaven:
Thrice only might a Seraph's look
A moment's shade of sadness brook-
Such power to guilt was given.

Now the fierce Bear and Leopard keen‡
Are perish'd as they ne'er had been,
Oblivion is their home:

* Daniel ii. and iii.

[The allusions throughout this piece are to the four universal empires predicted in the book of Daniel, and to the establishment of Christ's promised spiritual kingdom on the ruins of them all. The sentiment of the last three lines is truly sublime.]

Daniel vii, 5, 6.

R

*

Ambition's boldest dream and last
Must melt before the clarion blast
That sounds the dirge of Rome.

Heroes and Kings, obey the charm,
Withdraw the proud high-reaching arm,
There is an oath on high,

That ne'er on brow of mortal birth
Shall blend again the crowns of earth,
Nor in according cry

Her many voices mingling own
One tyrant Lord, one idol throne:
But to His triumph soon

He shall descend, who rules above,
And the pure language of His love*
All tongues of men shall tune.
Nor let Ambition heartless mourn;
When Babel's very ruins burn,

Her high desires may breathe;-
O'ercome thyself, and thou may'st share
With Christ his Father's throne,† and wear
The world's imperial wreath.

Zephaniah iii. 9. "Then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve him with one consent.'

"To him that overcometh will I grant

↑ Revelation iii. 21. to sit with me in my throne."

TUESDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK

HOLY ORDERS.

When He putteth forth his own sheep, He goeth before them. ́St. John x. [Gospel for the Day.]

[O God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort, through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.]

(Addressed to Candidates for Ordination.)

66

LORD, in thy field I work all day,
I read, I teach, I warn, I pray,

And yet these wilful wandering sheep
Within thy fold I cannot keep.

I journey, yet no step is won-
Alas! the weary course I run!

Like sailors shipwreck'd in their dreams,
All powerless and benighted seems."

What! wearied out with half a life? |
Scar'd with this smooth unbloody strife?
Think where thy coward hopes had flown
Had Heaven held out the martyr's crown.