And formless matter took the harmonious soul. The seeds, thy wars, thy pomp, and thy profusion, | Life, in thy life, suffused the conscious whole; And the long glare of thy funereal glories IS IT ALL VANITY? Life answers, "No! If ended here be life, Seize what the sense can give; it is thine all; Disarm thee, Virtue! barren is thy strife; Knowledge, thy torch let fall! “Seek thy lost Psyche, yearning Love, no more! But if the soul, that slow artificer, For ends its instinct rears from life hath striven, Feeling beneath its patient web-work stir Wings only freed in Heaven,— Then, and but then, to toil is to be wise; And must perforce aspire. Rise then, my soul, take comfort from thy sorrow; Life without thought, the day without the morrow, Longings obscure as for a native clime, INVOCATION TO LOVE. FROM "KING ARTHUR." Hail thou, the ever young, albeit of night And of primeval chaos eldest born; Hail, Love! the Death-de fier! age to age Glory and mystery since the world began. Ghost-like amid the unfamiliar Past, Dim shadows flit along the streams of Time; Vainly our learning trifles with the vast Unknown of ages! Like the wizard's rhyme We call the dead, and from the Tartarus "Tis but the dead that rise to answer us! Voiceless and wan, we question them in vain; The link is found!—as we love, so loved they! Arch power, of every power most dread, most sweet, And, with the Graces, glide unseen the Fates; EPIGRAMS FROM THE GERMAN. TO THE MYSTICS. Life has its mystery;-True, it is that one THE KEY. To know thyself-in others self discern; MY BELIEF. What my religion? those thou namest-none? FRIEND AND FOE. Dear is my friend-yet from my foe, as from my friend, comes good; Thou, at whose birth broke forth the Founts of Light, My friend shows what I can do, and my foe shows And o'er Creation flushed the earliest morn! what I should. FORUM OF WOMEN. Woman to judge man rightly-do not scan Each separate act;-pass judgment on the Man! SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS. Give me that which thou know'st-I'll receive and attend; But thou giv'st me thyself-prithee,-spare me my friend! THE PROSELYTE MAKER. "A little earth from out the Earth-and I The Earth will move;" so spake the Sage divine. Out of myself one little moment-try Myself to take :-succeed, and I am thine! THE CONNECTING MEDIUM. What to cement the lofty and the mean CORRECTNESS. The calm correctness, where no fault we see, THE MASTER. The herd of scribes, by what they tell us, Show all in which their wits excel us; But the True Master we behold, In what his art leaves-just untold. SCIENCE. To some she is the Goddess great, to some the milchcow of the field; Their care is but to calculate-what butter she will yield. KANT AND HIS COMMENTATORS. How many starvelings one rich man can nourish! When monarchs build, the rubbish-carriers flourish. Sarah Flower Adams. Miss Flower (1805–1849), a native of London, was a younger daughter of Benjamin Flower, editor of the Cambridge Intelligencer, and a well-known politician of the Liberal school. Sarah was married to William B. Adams, eminent as a civil engineer. Her celebrated hymn, "Nearer, my God, to Thee," founded on Jacob's dream, recorded in Genesis, was contributed in 1841 to a Unitarian collection of "Hymns and Anthems," edited by William J. Fox, preacher and member of Parliament. Few hymns have been so widely popular. It has been adopted by all Christian sects, and translated into various languages, adapted to the tune of "Bethany." Professor Hitchcock relates that as he and his travelling companions rounded their way down the foot-hills of Mount Lebanon in 1870, they came in sight of a group of fifty Syrian students, who were singing in Arabic this beautiful hymn to this familiar tune. Mrs. Adams was also the author of a drama in five acts, founded on the martyrdom of Vivia Perpetua, and published in 1841; and of “The Flock at the Fountain," designed for children. NEARER, MY GOD, TO THEE. That raiseth me; Still all my song shall be, Though like a wanderer, The sun gone down, Darkness comes over me, My rest a stone; Yet in my dreams I'd be Nearer, my God, to thee!Nearer to thee! There let the way appear Then with my waking thoughts, Bright with thy praise, Bethel I'll raise; Or if, on joyful wing, Cleaving the sky, Sun, moon, and stars forgot, Upward I'll fly— Still all my song shall be, Nearer, my God, to theeNearer to thee! Henry Glassford Bell. Bell (1805-1874) was a native of Glasgow, and educated at the University of Edinburgh. After leaving college he wrote a "Memoir of Mary Queen of Scots," which passed through several editions. He edited the Edinburgh Literary Journal for three years. In 1832 he was admitted to the Bar, became quite eminent as a lawyer, and in 1867 succeeded Sir Archibald Alison as Sheriff of Lanarkshire. His first volume of poems appeared in 1831; his last in 1865, with the title of "Romances, and other Minor Poems." Highly esteemed by all who knew him, "he had," says one of his biographers, "almost the innocence of a child with the fortitude of a sage." FROM "THE END." Dear friend, is all we see a dream? Does this brief glimpse of time and space Exhaust the aims, fulfil the scheme Intended for the human race? Shall even the star-exploring mind, Which thrills with spiritual desire, Be, like a breath of summer wind, Absorbed in sunshine and expire? Or will what men call death restore The living myriads of the past? Is dying but to go before The myriads who will come at last? If not, whence sprang the thought, and whence Perception of a Power divine, Who symbols forth Omnipotence In flowers that bloom, in suns that shine? 'Tis not these fleshly limbs that think, "Tis not these filmy eyes that see; Though mind and matter break the link, Mind does not therefore cease to be. Such end is but an end in part, Such death is but the body's goal; Blood makes the pulses of the heart, But not the emotions of the soul. CADZOW. The birds are singing by Avon Bridge, And trust them, gentle reader, to thy grace; Nor hope that in my pages thou wilt trace Clothing with beauty even the desert place; John Edmund Reade. Reade (1805-1870) was a native of England. His first volume, "The Broken Heart, and other Poems," appeared in 1825. A diligent, if not a distinguished, writer, he published four collective editions of his poetical works (1851-1865). He also wrote several novels. His description of the Colosseum, though suggestive of Byron's "Childe Harold," is graphic and vigorous, showing no inconsiderable degree of original power. THE COLOSSEUM. FROM ITALY: A POEM." Hark! the night's slumberous air is musical How do their notes and nature's flowers redeem beast, If, Cain-like, brethren gloated o'er the steam Ages have cleansed the guilt, the unnatural strife hath ceased. Along its shattered edges on a sky Where human foot shall nevermore be based: Lighting as if with life those sockets of the dead! So stretches that Titanic skeleton: |