With many tears-and closed without a cloud. Pollok. VENI CREATOR.2 CREATOR Spirit! by whose aid Come pour thy joys on human kind; Plenteous of grace descend from high, Rich in thy sevenfold energy! Thou strength of his almighty hand, Whose power does heaven and earth command! 5 Who dost the gift of tongues dispense, (1) The comparison of the eye, whose brightness melted, as it were, into the light of an eternal day, to the morning star, is very beautiful, and it is clothed in most felicitous language. A similar thought occurs in Montgomery's poem entitled "Friends;" speaking of friends as stars that pass away as the morning advances, he says (see p. 215) :— "Nor sink those stars in empty night, They hide themselves in heaven's own light." Hide themselves in light!—a very striking and picturesque expression. (2) Veni Creator-" Come, Creator," the first two words of a Latin hymn used in the Roman Catholic church. (3) Temples " Know ye not that ye are the temples of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you.?" 1 Cor. iii. 16. (4) Paraclete the Greek word for "Comforter." (5) "The Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father." John xv. 26. Refine and purge our earthly parts; Chase from our minds the infernal foe, Make us eternal1 truths receive, Immortal' honour, endless' fame, Dryden. THE POPLARS. THE poplars are felled ;-farewell to the shade, (1) Eternal, immortal, endless, everlasting, all convey the idea of perpetual existence-they differ in the modification of that idea. That is eternal which always is, and cannot cease to be; immortal, which always lives, which can never die; endless, which has no termination; everlasting, which has neither interruption nor termination. These words are very appropriately employed in the phrases "eternal truths," "immortal honour" (a figurative expression, since honour is not a living being), "endless fame," i. e. glory without end, “everlasting happiness." (2) Colonnade-an architectural term designating a range of columns; here ngeniously applied to trees regularly disposed like pillars. (3) Ouse-the Great Ouse in Buckinghamshire. Twelve years have elapsed since I last took a view And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade. The blackbird has fled to another retreat, Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat; Cowper. TO THE WEATHERCOCK.1 THE dawn has broke, the morn is up, And there thy poised and gilded spear Upon that steep and lofty tower Where thou thy watch2 hast kept, A true and faithful sentinel, While all around thee slept. For years upon thee there has poured And through the long, dark, starless night, The winter storms have beat; (1) The good sense of these lines, and the originality with which a trite subject is treated, are more conspicuous than their strictly poetical merits. The style in some parts is almost prosaic, and the rhymes are occasionally incorrect, but the poem is nevertheless on the whole well worthy of preservation. It is the production of an American poet. (2) Watch-originally identical with wake, as ditch with dike or dyke. In Wycliffe's Testament we have "Wake ye and preie," &c., for "Watch ye and pray," &c. Mark xiv. 38. To watch, therefore, is to keep awake-to observe; hence the meaning of the noun is obvious. But yet thy duty has been done, Still thou hast watched and met the storm, No chilling blast in wrath has swept Along the distant heaven, But thou hast watch upon it kept, And instant warning given; And when Midsummer's sultry beams Oppress all living things, Thou dost announce each breeze that comes How oft I've seen at early dawn, Till, after twittering round thy head, In many a mazy track, The whole delighted company Have settled on thy back. Then, if perchance amid their mirth A gentle breeze has sprung, And, prompt to mark its first approach, I've thought I almost heard thee say, "Now all away!-here ends our play, Men slander thee, my honest friend, An emblem of their fickleness, (1) Twilight-from the Anglo-Saxon tweonliht, doubtful light. Each weak, unstable human mind They have no right to make thy name They change their friends, their principles, Their fashions and their creeds; While thou hast ne'er, like them, been known But when thou changest sides, canst give Thou, like some lofty soul, whose course Which they can never know, Who, round their earth-bound circles, plod Through one more dark and cheerless night And now in glory o'er thy head And unto earth's true watcher' thus, Will come the "day-spring2 from on high," Bright symbol of fidelity, Still may I think of thee; And may the lesson thou dost teach Be never lost on me : But still in sunshine or in storm, Whatever task is mine, May I be faithful to my trust, As thou hast been to thine. A. G. Greene. (1) Earth's true watcher-one who faithfully watches on earth; an allusion probably to the precept of our Saviour, "Watch ye, therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh." Mark xiii. 35. (2) Day-spring-the springing or rising of day-the dawn; figuratively employed here to denote the dawn of a heavenly day, which, after the dark hours of his life, will burst on the view of the faithful watcher, i. e. the true Christian. |