SONS of our Mother!-such the indignant strain
Might haply strike, this hour, a pastor's ear,
Purged to discern, for once, the aërial train
Of heavenly Centinels yet lingering here;
And what if, blending with the chaunt austere,
A soft inviting note attune the close?
"We go;-but faithful hearts will find us near,
Who cling beside their Mother in her woes,
Who love the rites that erst their fathers loved,
Nor tire of David's Hymn, nor JESUS' Prayer:-
Their quiet Altars, wheresoe'er removed,
Shall clear with incense sweet the unholy air;
In persecution safe, in scorn approved,
Angels, and He who rules them, will be there."
WHERE'ER I roam in this fair English land,
The vision of a Temple meets my eyes;
Modest without; within, all-glorious rise
Its love-enclustered columns, and expand
Their slender arms. Like olive-plants they stand,
Each answering each, in home's soft sympathies,
Sisters and brothers. At the Altar sighs
Parental fondness, and with anxious hand
Tenders its offering of young vows and prayers.
The same and not the same, go where I will,
The vision beams!-ten thousand shrines, all one.
Dear fertile soil! what foreign culture bears
Such fruit? And I through distant climes may run
My weary round, yet miss thy likeness still.
ARE these the tracks of some unearthly Friend,
His foot-prints, and his vesture-skirts of light,
Who, as I talk with men, conforms aright
Their sympathetic words, or deeds that blend
With my
hid thought;-
—or stoops him to attend
My doubtful-pleading grief; or blunts the might
Of ill I see not;—or in dreams of night
Figures the scope in which what is will end?
Were I Christ's own, then fitly might I call
That vision real; for to me the thoughtful mind
That walks with Him, He half unveils His face;
But when on common men such shadows fall,
These dare not make their own the gifts they find,
Yet, not all hopeless, eye His boundless grace.
WHEN I look back upon my former race,
Seasons I see, at which the Inward Ray
More brightly burned, or guided some new way;
Truth, in its wealthier scene and nobler space
Given for my eye to range, and feet to trace;
And next I mark, 'twas trial did convey,
Or grief, or pain, or strange eventful day,
To my tormented soul such larger grace.
whene'er, in journeying on, I feel
The shadow of the Providential Hand,
Deep breathless stirrings shoot across my breast, Searching to know what He will now reveal, What sin uncloak, what stricter rule command, And girding me to work His full behest.
INTO God's word as in a palace fair
Thou leadest on and on, while still beyond
Each chamber, touched by holy Wisdom's wand,
Another opes more beautiful and rare,
And thou in each art kneeling down in prayer,
From link to link of that mysterious bond
Seeking for Christ; but oh! I fear thy fond
And beautiful torch that with so bright a glare
Lighteth up all things, lest the heaven-lit brand
Of thy serene Philosophy divine
Should take the colourings of earthly thought,
And I, by their sweet images o'erwrought,
Led by weak Fancy should let go Truth's hand,
And miss the way into the inner shrine.
BEAUTIFUL flowers round Wisdom's secret well,
Deep holy thoughts of penitential lore,
But dressed with images from Nature's store,
Handmaid of Piety. Like thine own cell
By Pontic mountain wilds and shaggy fell,
Great Basil! there, within thy lonely door,
Watching and Fast and Prayer and Penance dwell,
And sternly-nursed Affections heavenward soar.
Without are setting suns and summer skies,
Ravine, rock, wood and fountain melodies;
And Earth and Heaven, holding communion sweet,
Teem with wild beauty. Such thy calm retreat,
Blest Saint! and of thyself an emblem meet,
All fair without, within all stern and wise.
METHOUGHT I Saw a face divinely fair,
With nought of earthly passion; the mild beam Of whose bright eye did in mute converse seem With other countenances, and they were
Gazing on her made beautiful. Their theme
Was One that had gone up the heavenly stair,
And left a fragrance on this lower air,
The contemplation of His Love Supreme.
And that high form held forth to me a hand;
It was celestial Wisdom, whose calm brow
Did of those early Sciences inquire,
If they had of His glory aught retained; —
Yes! I would be admitted to your choir,
That I may nothing love on earth below.
I SAT beneath an olive's branches grey,
And gazed upon the site of a lost town,
By saint and poet chosen for renown;
Where dwelt a Race that on the sea held sway,
And, restless as its waters, forced a way
For civil strife a thousand states to drown.
That multitudinous stream we now note down,
As though one life, in birth and in decay.
Yet is their being's history spent and run,
Whose spirits live in awful singleness,
Each in his self-formed sphere of light or gloom?
Henceforth, while pondering the fierce deeds then done,
Such reverence on me shall its seal impress
As though I corses saw, and walked the tomb.
WHY, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart
Upon these scenes of ancient heathen fame?
Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came,
Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art,
And shades of power, and those who bore their part
In the mad deeds that set the world in flame,
So fret my memory here,-Ah! is it blame?-
That from my eyes the tear is fain to start?
Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise.
'Tis but the sympathy with Adam's race,
Which in each brother's history reads its own.
So, let the cliffs and seas of this fair place
Be named man's tomb and splendid record-stone,
High hope pride-stained, the course without the prize.
THRICE blest are they who feel their loneliness;
To whom nor voice of friend nor pleasant scene
Brings that on which the saddened heart can lean;
Yea, the rich earth, garbed in its daintiest dress,
Of light and joy, doth but the more oppress,
Claiming responsive smiles and rapture high :
Till sick at heart, beyond the veil they fly,
Seeking His presence, who alone can bless.
Such in strange days, the weapons of Heaven's grace;
When passing o'er the highborn Hebrew line
He forms the vessel of his vast design;
Fatherless, homeless, reft of age and place,
Severed from earth, and careless of its wreck,
Born through long woe His rare Melchizedek.
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