FANATICISM.

At last with one heroic name* it shone,

When her one hero from his home went forth
To die. Hero he went, and martyr laid
His head beside the Caramanian hills,†
Lone, and afar, with God. Shine, martyr! burn,
Scattering thine ashes, seeds of fire and light,
Far o'er the world's now breaking, reddening East.

24 March, 1852.

"Amidst all the discords which agitate the Church of England, her sons are unanimous in extolling the name of Henry Martyn. And with reason; for it is in fact the one heroic name which adorns her annals from the days of Elizabeth to our own. Elliotts and Brainerds of other times, either quitted, or were Her apostolic men, the Wesleys and cast out of her communion. Her Acta Sanctorum may be read from end to end with a dry eye and an unquickened pulse. Henry Martyn STEPHEN, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, vol. ii. p. 336-7. is the bright exception."+ "On the 6th of October 1812, in the thirty-second year of his age, he brought the Journal of his life to a premature close while he sought a momentary repose under the shadow of some trees at the foot of the Caramanian mountains."-Id. ib. vol. ii. p. 336.

The Valley.

"The burden of the valley of vision."

I.

AGAIN in the valley of beauty; again

In the depths of the mountains, the land beyond

men;

Long distant and mystic, in dim-looming blue,
To the home-haunting spirit the heavenliest hue.

II.

Long distant and dim, like the skies that we roam When star-glancing night reveals glimpses of home, Once again, all before me, fair valley, thou art, And greener and fresher, as once was my heart.

III.

O fairer and greener, still, still, to the gaze
That dwells on a spring-time revived by its rays!
And why not the spirit's true Garden of bliss?
And why not its heaven ?—is there heavenlier than
this?

IV.

And why, when the sunset reveals the Above,
Now blazoned with glory, now blushing like love,
Why, when soft summer even lies loveliest, why
Stirs the heart with a sadness that dims the rapt eye?

V.

Why heaves the full heart, that has bright things to win,

With a sense that the sweet day is dying within? Why sinks the keen spirit, a thing that dreams love, And darkens as deepens the nymph-haunted grove?

VI.

What the thought of the hour?—that the fair fleeting day

Beams glimpses, bright gleams, of the so far away,

"The land very far,"* that shall lie unexplored Till earth unto earth, heart to heart, be restored—

VII.

That the heart cannot yet wing its way through the

west,

With its far-followed visions of Isles of the BlestThat something beyond the green woods and vale

green,

And behind the dim hills, and the purple and sheen,

VIII.

And beyond the blue verge where the hills become sky,

Is yet to the heart as mirage to the eye

The dream of the heart, in its haunted unrest,

As it strays o'er the hills in the light of the west.

IX.

What is it this sadness, this weight?-the deep

sense

Of beauty and bliss, the fruition intense,

"Thine eyes shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off."- Is. xxxiii. 17.

Where the spirit sinks stayed; still to soar through the Screen,

In the yearning on-gaze for the mystic unseen?

X

There are tears,* though the source be profound, or on high

'Midst the crags of the wild, in the thundercharged sky.

It is well to weep tears if the heart be but weak;
But better is strength; and there is, if we seek.

XI.

Enough of sweet weakness! There's strength, there is life :

In the rich heart of Nature all elements rife.

There is fire in the breast, though it swell with a sigh.

Let the flame rise and soar: there is air, there is

sky.

XII:

It must on with its mission, unstayed even here,
Where ever-fresh beauty grows ever more dear;

* "Sunt lacrimæ rerum; et mentem mortalia tangunt."