RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. 241 Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow Might hark to hear or help to sing, The boundless whole "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith: Life's gift outruns my fancies far, And drowns the dream In larger stream, As morning drinks the morning star. ROYALTY. THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose eyes Suffices not all worth the city knows To pay that debt which his own heart he owes; For less than level to his bosom rise The low crowd's heaven and stars : above their skies Runneth the road his daily feet have pressed; A loftier heaven he beareth in his breast, And o'er the summits of achieving hies With never a thought of merit or of meed; Choosing divinest labors through a pride Of soul, that holdeth appetite to feed Ever on angel-herbage, naught beside; Nor praises more himself for hero-deed Than stones for weight, or open seas for tide. And still repeat, to all the street, So, even so, when men were young, From human hearts withdrew, The soul perplexed and daily vexed With sensuous False and True, Amazed, bereaved, no less believed, And fain would see Him too. "He is!" the prophet-tongues proclaimed ; In joy and hasty fear, "He is!" aloud replied the crowd, "Is, here, and here, and here." "He is! They are!" in distance seen On yon Olympus high, In those Avernian woods abide, And walk this azure sky: "They are! They are!" to every show Its eyes the baby turned, And blazes sacrificial, tall, On thousand altars burned: "They are! They are!"-On Sinai's top Far seen the lightning's shone, God spake it out, "I, God, am One"; Have dogged the growing man: God said that God is One, By Science strict so speaks he now To tell us, There is None! Earth goes by chemic forces; Heaven's A Mécanique Céleste! And heart and mind of human kind A watch-work as the rest! Is this a Voice, as was the Voice The ancient truth of God? Ah, not the Voice; 't is but the cloud, The outer darkness dense, Where image none, nor e'er was seen ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. "T is but the cloudy darkness dense, Some chosen prophet-soul the while Shall dare, sublimely meek, And darker hearts' despair, That soul has heard perchance his word, And on the dusky air, His skirts, as passed He by, to see Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf. "T is but the cloudy darkness dense; He dwells that none may see, Have passed and ceased to be: No God, no Truth! ah though, in sooth, So stand the doctrine's half; On Egypt's track return not back, Nor own the Golden Calf. Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can: No God, no Truth, receive it ne'er- But turn not then to seek again And wait it out, O man! The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite; "He cometh not," the people cries, "Nor bringeth God to sight": "Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!" Deluding and deluded cries The Prophet's brother-Priest: And Israel all bows down to fall Before the gilded beast. Devout, indeed! that priestly creed, O Man, reject as sin! 243 He yet shall bring some worthy thing Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, FROM THE "BOTHIE OF TOBER-NAVUOLICH." WHERE does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it? What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with? If there is battle 't is battle by night; I stand in the darkness, Here in the midst of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides, Signal and password known; which is friend, which is foeman? Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother. O that the armies indeed were arrayed! Sound, thou trumpet of God, come forth Would that the armies indeed were Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation, Backed by a solemn appeal, "For God's sake do not stir there!" THE STREAM OF LIFE. O STREAM descending to the sea, In garden plots the children play, O life descending into death, Our waking eyes behold, Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old. Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. O end to which our currents tend, To which we flow, what do we know, A roar we hear upon thy shore, Scarce we divine a sun will shine QUA CURSUM VENTUS. As ships becalmed at eve, that lay Are scarce, long leagues apart, de- When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, And all the darkling hours they plied, Nor dreamt but each the selfsame seas By each was cleaving, side by side: E'en so, but why the tale reveal Of those whom, year by year unchanged, Brief absence joined anew to feel, Astounded, soul from soul estranged? At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered : Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! SAMUEL LONGFELLOW. [U. S. A.] THE GOLDEN SUNSET. THE golden sea its mirror spreads The cloud-like rocks, the rock-like clouds, And, midway of the radiant flood, The sea is but another sky, The sky a sea as well, And which is earth, and which the heav ens, The eye can scarcely tell. So when for us life's evening hour Flooded with peace the spirit float, UNKNOWN. QUIET FROM GOD. |