Lyra Innocentium

Then far along the mournful way
Paternal Love speeds out, to say
The words of welcome; Angels bear

The robe, sweet pledge of pardoning care;
And as he daily seeks aright

His lowly station in their sight,

They watch th' all-ruling Eye, for leave

Some flower of Paradise to give,

Bid amaranth odours round him float,
Or breathe into his ear one note

Of that high loving strain,

Which rings from all the harps of Heaven, When from the Shrine the word is given, "The dead soul lives again."

O, if the Powers and Thrones above
Hover with crowns of joy and love,
Ungrudg'd, unsparing, over brows
That mourn in dust their broken vows,
Rather than where the Saints are seen
Each reigning in his place serene :—
If in Love's earthly home and bower
The mournful or the dangerous hour

Unbalm'd each prayer and longing guides
To the one couch where Pain abides :-

He who is Love, and owns Love's Name,
Is in His ocean springs the same

As in each little murmuring rill

That cheers soft mead or pastoral hill:
Brighter the joy, be sure,

Before Him, where one sinner weeps,
Than where, in Heaven's unchanging deeps,

A thousand orbs endure.

INDEX OF FIRST LINES.

A CHRISTIAN child in pain

A fragment of a rainbow bright
A holy home, young Saint, is thine
Alas! that e'er the pangs of birth

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