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The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord.
Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword;
Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue,
Gentleness in his heart, - can Earth afford
Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free,
As when, array'd in Christ's authority,
He from the pulpit lifts his awful hand;
Conjures, implores, and labours all he can
For re-subjecting to divine command
The stubborn spirit of rebellious man?

SPONSORS.

FATHER! to God himself we cannot give
A holier name! then lightly do not bear
Both names conjoin'd, but of thy spiritual care
Be duly mindful: still more sensitive

Do Thou, in truth a second Mother, strive
Against disheartening custom, that by Thee
Watch'd, and with love and pious industry
Tended at need, th' adopted Plant may thrive
For everlasting bloom. Benign and pure
This Ordinance, whether loss it would supply,
Prevent omission, help deficiency,

Or seek to make assurance doubly sure.
Shame if the consecrated Vow be found
An idle form, the Word an empty sound!

CATECHISING.

FROM Little down to Least, in due degree,
Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest,
Each with a vernal posy at his breast,
We stood, a trembling, earnest Company!
With low soft murmur, like a distant bee,

Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betray'd;
And some a bold unerring answer made:
How flutter'd then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved Mother! thou whose happy hand
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tic;
Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear:
O, lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!

CONFIRMATION.

I SAW a mother's eye intensely bent
Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;
In and for whom the pious Mother felt
Things that we judge of by a light too faint:
Tell, if ye may, some star-crown'd Muse, or Saint!
Tell what rush'd in, from what she was relieved,
Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,
And such vibration through the Mother went
That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear?
Open'd a vision of that blissful place

Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given
Part of her lost One's glory back to trace

Even to this Rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere
The summer-leaf had faded, pass'd to Heaven.

REGRETS.

WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;

Giving to Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope!-I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,

Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in same gay church
Green with fresh holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud and safe from prying search,
Strains offer'd only to the genial Spring.

MUTABILITY.

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sink from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whiten'd hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear

His crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or th' unimaginable touch of Time.

OLD ABBEYS

MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way,
Untouch'd by due regret I mark'd your fall!
Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all
Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay
On our past selves in life's declining day:
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate th' infirmities

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And faults of others, gently as he may,
So with our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive.
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill,
Why should we break Time's charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!

CATHEDRALS, ETC.

OPEN your gates, ye everlasting Piles!
Types of the spiritual Church which God hath rear'd:
Not loth we quit the newly-hallow'd sward
And humble altar, 'mid your sumptuous aisles
To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles,
Or down the nave to pace in motion slow;
Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow
And mount, at every step, with living wiles
Instinct, to rouse the heart and lead the will
By a bright ladder to the world above.

Open your gates, ye Monuments of love
Divine! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill!

Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer
Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear!

INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE. TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-match'd aims the Architect who plann'd Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only. - this immense
And glorious Work of fine intelligence!

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more:

So deem'd the man who fashion'd for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scoop'd into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering, and wandering on as loth to die;

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality.

THE SAME.

WHAT awful perspective! while from our sight
With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide
Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed
In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light.
Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite,

Whoe'er ye be, that thus, yourselves unseen,
Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen,
Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!-
But, from the arms of silence - list! O list!.
The music bursteth into second life;

The notes luxuriate, every stone is kiss'd
By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;
Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye
Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!

CONTINUED.

THEY dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here;
Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam;
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts if it cross the threshold; where the wreath.
Of awe-struck wisdom droops: or let my path
Lead to that younger Pile, whose sky-like dome
Hath typified by reach of daring art
Infinity's embrace; whose guardian crest,
The silent Cross, among the stars shall spread
As now, when she hath also seen her breast
Fill'd with mementos, satiate with its part
Of grateful England's overflowing Dead.

ON THE POWER OF SOUND.

ARGUMENT.

The Ear addressed, as occupied by a spiritual functionary, in communion with sounds, individual, or combined in studied harmony. - Sources and effects of those sounds. The power of music, whence proceeding, exemplified in the idiot. — Origin of music, and its effect in early ages. The mind recalled to sounds acting casually and severally. - Wish uttered that these could be united into a scheme or system for moral interests and intellectual contemplation.-The Pythagorean theory of numbers and music, with their supposed power over the motions of the universe imaginations consonant with such a theory. - Wish expressed, realised in some degree, by the representation of all sounds under the form of thanksgiving to the Creator. The destruction of earth and the planetary system -the survival of audible harmony, and its support in the Divine Nature, as revealed in Holy Writ.

THY functions are ethereal,

As if within thee dwelt a glancing mind,
Organ of vision! And a Spirit aërial
Informs the cell of Hearing, dark and blind;
Intricate labyrinth, more dread for thought
To enter than oracular cave;

Strict passage, through which sighs are brought,
And whispers for the heart, their slave;

And shrieks, that revel in abuse

Of shivering flesh; and warbled air,
Whose piercing sweetness can unloose

The chains of frenzy, or entice a smile
Into the ambush of despair;

Hosannas pealing down the long-drawn aisle,
And requiems answer'd by the pulse that beats
Devoutly, in life's last retreats!1

The headlong streams and fountains

Serve Thee, invisible Spirit, with untirèd powers;
Cheering the wakeful tent on Syrian mountains,
They lull perchance ten thousand thousand flowers.
That roar, the prowling lion's Here I am,
How fearful to the desert wide!

That bleat, how tender! of the dam

Calling a straggler to her side.

Shout, cuckoo!-let the vernal soul

Go with thee to the frozen zone;

Toll from thy loftiest perch, lone bell-bird, toll!
At the still hour to Mercy dear,

1 I am not quite clear as to the meaning of this. "The pulse that beats devoutly, in life's last retreats," may mean the innermost feelings of the heart, feelings seated there where life is supposed to hold out longest; or it may mean the devout feelings of a "good and faithful servant" in his dying moments. If the latter, then "requiems answer'd by the pulse, &c., must be taken in the sense of "requiems speaking in accordance with the pulse," &c.

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