(As records mouldering in the dell Of nightshade* haply yet may tell) Thee kindred aspirations moved To build, within a vale beloved, For him upon whose high behests All peace depends, all safety rests.

Well may the villagers rejoice!
Nor heat, nor cold, nor weary ways,
Will be a hindrance to the voice
That would unite in prayer and praise;
More duly shall wild-wandering youth
Receive the curb of sacred truth,

Shall tottering age, bent earthward, hear
The promise, with uplifted ear!
And all shall welcome the new ray
Imparted to their Sabbath-day.

May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride,
And still be not unblest-compared
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and Christian hope;
Or, shipwrecked, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.

Alas! that such perverted zeal

Should spread on Britain's favoured ground? That public order, private weal,

Should e'er have felt or feared a wound
From champions of the desperate law
Which from their own blind hearts they
draw;

Who tempt their reason to deny
God, whom their passions dare defy,
And boast that they alone are free

Shall hail this work of pious care,
Lifting its front with modest grace
To make a fair recess more fair;
And to exalt the passing hour;
Or soothe it, with a healing power
Drawn from the sacrifice fulfilled,
Before this rugged soil was tilled,
Or human habitation rose
To interrupt the deep repose!

Not yet the corner stone is laid
With solemn rite; but fancy sees
The tower time-stricken, and in shade
Embosomed of coeval trees;
Hears, o'er the lake, the warning clock
As it shall sound with gentle shock
At evening, when the ground beneath
Is ruffled o'er with cells of death;
Where happy generations lie,
Here tutored for eternity.

Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?
Who never caught a noon-tide dream
From murmur of a running stream;
Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To him, their verdure from the fields;
And take the radiance from the clouds
In which the sun his setting shrouds.

A soul so pitiably forlorn,

If such do on this earth abide,

* Bekangs Ghyll-or the Vale of Nightshade -in which stands St. Mary's Abbey, in Low Furness.

She weeps not for the wedding-day
Which was to be to-morrow :
Her hope was a farther-looking hope,
And hers is a mother's sorrow.

He was a tree that stood alone,
And proudly did its branches wave;
And the root of this delightful tree
Was in her husband's grave!

Long, long in darkness did she sit,
And her first words were, "Let there be
In Bolton, on the field of Wharf,
A stately priory!"

The stately priory was reared;
And Wharf, as he moved along,
To matins joined a mournful voice,
Nor failed at even-song.

And the lady prayed in heaviness
That looked not for relief!
But slowly did her succour come,
And a patience to her grief.

Oh! there is never sorrow of heart
That shall lack a timely end,
If but to God we turn, and ask
Of Him to be our Friend!

| And Canute (truth more worthy to be known)
From that time forth did for his brows disown
The ostentatious symbol of a crown;
Esteeming earthly royalty
Contemptible and vain.

Now hear what one of elder days, Rich theme of England's fondest praise, Her darling Alfred, might have spoken; To cheer the remnant of his host

When he was driven from coast to coast, Distressed and harassed, but with mind unbroken :

"My faithful followers, lo! the tide is spent ; That rose, and steadily advanced to fill The shores and channels, working nature's will

Among the nazy streams that backward

At the green base of many an inland hill, In placid beauty and sublime content! Such the repose that sage and hero find; Such measured rest the sedulous and good Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood

Of ocean, press right on; or gently wind, Neither to be diverted nor withstood,

OR, CANUTE AND ALFred.

THE Danish conqueror, on his royal chair, Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty, To aid a covert purpose, cried-"Oh, ye Approaching waters of the deep, that share With this green isle my fortunes, come not where

Your master's throne is set!"-Absurd decree!

A mandate uttered to the foaming sea
Is to its motion less than wanton air.
Then Canute, rising from the invaded throne,
Said to his servile courtiers, "Poor the reach,
The undisguised extent, of mortal sway!
He only is a king, and he alone
Deserves the name (this truth the billows
preach)

Whose everlasting law, sea, earth, and heaven obey.'

This just reproof the prosperous Dane
Drew, from the influx of the main,

For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain

At oriental flattery;

signed."

"A little onward lend thy guiding hand To these dark steps, a little further on!" What trick of memory to my voice hath brought

This mournful iteration? For though Time, The conqueror, crowns the conquered, on this brow

Planting his favourite silver diadem,
Nor he, nor minister of his-intent
To run before him, hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who
lean

Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight.
O my Antigone, beloved child!
Should that day come-but hark! the birds
salute

The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;

For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to
curb

ΤΟ

Thy nymph-like step swift-bounding o'er the lawn,

Along, the loose rocks, or the slippery verge Of foaming torrent.-From thy orisons Come forth; and, while the morning air is yet

Transparent as the soul of innocent youth, Let me, thy happy guide, now point thy way,

And now precede thee, winding to and fro, Till we by perseverance gain the top

Of some smooth ridge, whose brink precipitous

Kindles intense desire for powers withheld From this corporeal frame; whereon who stands,

Is seized with strong incitement to push forth

His arms, as swimmers use, and plungedread thought!

For pastime plunge into the "abrupt abyss,"

Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at

ease!

And yet more gladly thee would I conduct

Through woods and spacious forests, -to behold

There, how the original of human art," Heaven-prompted nature, measures and

erects

Her temples, fearless for the stately work, Though waves in every breeze its higharched roof,

And storms the pillars rock. But we such schools

Of reverential awe will chiefly seek

In the still summer noon, while beams of light,

Reposing here, and in the aisles beyond
Traceably gliding through the dusk, recall
To mind the living presences of nuns ;
A gentle, pensive, white-robed sisterhood,
Whose saintly radiance mitigates the gloom
Of those terrestrial fabrics, where they

serve,

To Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, espoused.

Now also shall the page of classic lore, To these glad eyes from bondage freed, again

Lie open; and the book of Holy Writ, Again unfolded, passage clear shall yield To heights more glorious still, and into shades