His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields
Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals; The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys; and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime-
The image of Eternity-the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.

LORD BYRON.

194. CHRIST WEEPING OVER JERUSALEM.

And when He was come near, He beheld the city, and wept over it-St. Luke xix. 41.

WHY doth

my Saviour weep

At sight of Sion's bowers?

Shows it not fair from yonder steep,
Her gorgeous crown of towers?
Mark well His holy pains:

'Tis not in pride or scorn,

That Israel's King with sorrow stains

His own triumphal morn.

It is not that His soul

Is wandering sadly on,

In thought how soon at death's dark goal
Their course will all be run,
Who now are shouting round

Hosanna to their chief;

No thought like this in Him is found;
This were a conqueror's grief.*

Or doth He feel the cross

Already in His heart,

The pain, the shame, the scorn, the loss?
Feel e'en his God depart?

No:

: though He knew full well

The grief that then should be—
The grief that angels cannot tell—
Our God in agony !

It is not thus He mourns:

Such might be martyr's tears,
When his last lingering look he turns

On human hopes and fears.

But hero ne'er nor saint

That secret load might know,

With whigh His spirit waxeth faint:
His is a Saviour's woe!

"If thou hadst known, e'en thou,
At least in this thy day,

The message of thy peace!-but now

'Tis past for aye away :

* So Xerxes wept over the mighty host which he led into Greece.

"Now foes shall trench thee round,
And lay thee e'en with earth,
And dash thy children to the ground,
Thy glory and thy mirth."

And doth the Saviour weep

Over His people's sin,

Because we will not let Him keep
The souls He died to win?
Ye hearts that love the Lord!
If at this sight ye burn,

See that in thought, in deed, in word,
Ye hate what made Him mourn!

KEBLE.

195. THE SUNBEAM.

THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall :
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!

A bearer of hope unto land and sea-
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?
Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles;
Thou hast touch'd with glory his thousand isles;
Thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,
And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home!
To the solemn depths of the forest shades,

Thou art streaming on through their green arcades;
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow,
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.
I look'd to the mountains-a vapour lay
Folding their heights in its dark array:

Thou breakest forth-and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.
I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its lattice fell,
And it laugh'd into beauty at that bright spell.
To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not from thy pomp to shed
A tender smile on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st thro' the dim church-aisles thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day:
And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bath'd in a flood as of molten gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave:
Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest;
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer! oh, what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!
One thing is like thee to mortals given -

That Faith touching all things with hues of heaven!

MRS. HEMANS.

196. THE DEAD MAN OF BETHANY.

HEN Lazarus left his charnel-cave,

WE

And home to Mary's house returned,

Was this demanded, if he yearned To hear her weeping by his grave?