AID, glorious Martyrs, from your fields of light
Our mortal ken! Inspire a perfect trust
(While we look round) that Heaven's decrees
are just :

Which few can hold committed to a fight
That shows, ev'n on its better side, the might
Of proud Self-will, Rapacity, and Lust,
'Mid clouds enveloped of polemic dust,
Which showers of blood seem rather to incite
Than to allay. Anathemas are hurled
From both sides; veteran thunders (the brute test
Of truth) are met by fulminations new-
Tartarean flags are caught at, and unfurled—
Friends strike at friends-the flying shall
pursue-
And Victory sickens, ignorant where to rest!

SCATTERING, like birds escaped the fowler's net,
Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand;
Most happy, re-assembled in a land

By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget
Their Country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,
Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines :—their union is beset
With speculative notions rashly sown,

Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous
weeds;

Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds
That master them. How enviably blest
Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone
The peace of God within his single breast!

General
View of the
Troubles
of the
Reformation

English Reformers in Exile

Elizabeth HAIL, Virgin Queen! o'er many an envious bar Triumphant, snatched from many a treacherous wile!

All hail, sage Lady, whom a grateful Isle
Hath blest, respiring from that dismal war
Stilled by thy voice! But quickly from afar
Defiance breathes with more malignant aim;
And alien storms with home-bred ferments claim
Portentous fellowship. Her silver car,
By sleepless prudence ruled, glides slowly on
Unhurt by violence, from menaced taint
Emerging pure, and seemingly more bright:
Ah! wherefore yields it to a foul constraint
Black as the clouds its beams dispersed, while shone,
By men and angels blest, the glorious light?

-ww

Eminent METHINKS that I could trip o'er heaviest soil, Reformers Light as a buoyant bark from wave to wave, Were mine the trusty staff that JEWEL gave To youthful HOOKER, in familiar style The gift exalting, and with playful smile : For thus equipped, and bearing on his head The Donor's farewell blessing, can he dread Tempest, or length of way, or weight of toil?More sweet than odours caught by him who sails Near spicy shores of Araby the blest, A thousand times more exquisitely sweet, The freight of holy feeling which we meet, In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales From fields where good men walk, or bowers wherein they rest.

HOLY and heavenly Spirits as they are,
Spotless in life, and eloquent as wise,
With what entire affection do they prize
Their Church reformed! labouring with earnest

care

To baffle all that may her strength impair ;
That Church, the unperverted Gospel's seat;
In their afflictions a divine retreat;

Source of their liveliest hope, and tenderest prayer!
The truth exploring with an equal mind,
In doctrine and communion they have sought
Firmly between the two extremes to steer;
But theirs the wise man's ordinary lot,
To trace right courses for the stubborn blind,
And prophesy to ears that will not hear.

The Same

MEN, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy Distractions
Their forefathers; lo! sects are formed, and split
With morbid restlessness;—the ecstatic fit
Spreads wide; though special mysteries multiply,
The Saints must govern is their common cry;
And so they labour, deeming Holy Writ
Disgraced by aught that seems content to sit
Beneath the roof of settled Modesty.
The Romanist exults; fresh hope he draws
From the confusion, craftily incites
The overweening, personates the mad—
To heap disgust upon the worthier Cause:
Totters the Throne; the new-born Church is sad,
For every wave against her peace unites.

Gunpowder FEAR hath a hundred eyes that all agree
Plot To plague her beating heart; and there is one
(Nor idlest that!) which holds communion
With things that were not, yet were meant to be.
Aghast within its gloomy cavity

That eye (which sees as if fulfilled and done
Crimes that might stop the motion of the sun)
Beholds the horrible catastrophe

Of an assembled Senate unredeemed

From subterraneous Treason's darkling power:
Merciless act of sorrow infinite!

Worse than the product of that dismal night,
When gushing, copious as a thunder-shower,
The blood of Huguenots through Paris streamed.

The THE Virgin-Mountain, wearing like a Queen
Jungfrau A brilliant crown of everlasting snow,
and the Falls Sheds ruin from her sides; and men below
of the Rhine Wonder that aught of aspect so serene

Can link with desolation. Smooth and green,
And seeming, at a little distance, slow,
The waters of the Rhine; but on they go
Fretting and whitening, keener and more keen;
Till madness seizes on the whole wide Flood,
Turned to a fearful Thing whose nostrils breathe
Blasts of tempestuous smoke-wherewith he tries
To hide himself, but only magnifies;

And doth in more conspicuous torment writhe,
Deafening the region in his ireful mood.

EVEN Such the contrast that, where'er we move, Troubles of

To the mind's eye Religion doth present;
Now with her own deep quietness content;
Then, like the mountain, thundering from above
Against the ancient pine-trees of the grove
And the Land's humblest comforts. Now her mood
Recalls the transformation of the flood,
Whose rage the gentle skies in vain reprove,
Earth cannot check. O terrible excess
Of headstrong will! Can this be Piety?
No-some fierce Maniac hath usurped her name;
And scourges England struggling to be free:
Her peace destroyed! her hopes a wilderness!
Her blessings cursed-her glory turned to shame!

-ww

PREJUDGED by foes determined not to spare,
An old weak Man for vengeance thrown aside,
Laud, "in the painful art of dying" tried,
(Like a poor bird entangled in a snare
Whose heart still flutters, though his wings forbear
To stir in useless struggle) hath relied
On hope that conscious innocence supplied,
And in his prison breathes celestial air.
Why tarries then thy chariot ? Wherefore stay,
O Death! the ensanguined yet triumphant wheels,
Which thou prepar'st, full often, to convey
(What time a State with madding faction reels)
The Saint or Patriot to the world that heals
All wounds, all perturbations doth allay?

Charles the First

Laud