himself and his loathing for it so increased, that in his latter days these confessions became the sincere voice of his heart.

'The world cannot understand the penitence of the saints;' and therefore, many will never know how the holier a man became, the deeper became his spirit of repentance: no bitter cry, like Esau's; but a sweet fragrance of intense love, longing for perfection, and tenderness at all that transgressed the law of One so beloved.

Such penitence is indeed, in the sight of Heaven,

'Fresher than steam of dewy grove,
When April showers are twinkling nigh.'

THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT.

THIS is one of the grandest and most finished compositions in the whole Christian Year; but it is one, the scope of which can hardly be understood except by a somewhat scholarly mind.

The text is the parable of the strong man armed, and the Stronger than he, who taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. The application is to the victory over Satan, and the consecration of those treasures of the yearning classic world which once belonged to the kingdom of the prince of this world; but now are the enjoyment of the Christian. Before the Gospel was proclaimed, poets and philosophers were struggling towards the truth, and the words. and forms of beauty that expressed these yearnings, are, now that Satan's dominion is overthrown, replete with bright and holy thoughts to the believer. So even his own region of heathen fable has been won from Satan, and become our spoil.

*

Perhaps the first draft of this poem expressed the idea with greater distinctness, and it went more into details, though as a whole it was less finished. It was in four-line stanzas, without the two longer lines that now conclude them. It opened in the same manner with the fall of Lucifer; but it was without that simile, carried through three exquisite descriptive verses, of the Israelites obtaining the spoil of Canaan. In lieu of this, the now consecrated but once heathen symbols are enumerated in lines we would not willingly lose.

، The Laurel from the conqueror's brow,

Thy righteous arm entwined,

For him whose deeds sure triumph shew
O'er his own heart and mind.

The Myrtle wreath from Beauty's grove,
Thou gav'st to chastity,

For surely they are most in love

Who love but only Thee.

Such books as Anstice's Greek Choric Poems, Isaac Williams's Christian Scholar,

and Gladstone's Homer, bear ample witness to this.

Or if upon earth's darksome breast
They find some spirit rare,

Which, bright and true beyond the rest,
Gives back Thine Image fair;

With thankful, not adoring gaze,
'Tis theirs to look and muse
How glorious the meridian blaze,
If such the twilight hues.

With Ivy, meed of learned brows,
That scan the heaven's height,
Fix where the unseen comet glows,
And count the speed of light,

Thy thoughtful temples now are drest,
Meek souled humility;

To thy dove's eyes appear confest
The secrets of the sky.

To Love is given to win and wear
The poet's crown of bays;
To trace in bards and sages rare
Their unintended praise.

What first was earthly and profane,
Since Thou hast claimed Thy right,
Is turned into a sacred strain

By touch of gospel light.'

These allusions are now merely touched on in the stanza,

'The olive wreath, the ivied wand,
The sword in myrtles drest,

Each legend of the shadowy land

Now wakes a vision blest:

As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven,

So thoughts beyond their thoughts to those high bards were given.'

Perhaps they were altered because authority for the application of the ivy to astronomers of old, and to humility now, is not easy to trace, and the verse on it is evidently imperfect; perhaps, also, the whole construction of the poem was recast in consequence of Hurrell Froude's criticism (see a letter in his Remains) on some of the poetry being 'Sternholdy and Hopkinsy,' an imputation to which its present form certainly is not liable. The final verse

'There's not a strain to memory dear,

There's not a flower in classic grove,
There's not a sweet note warbled here,
But minds us of Thy love.

-is of the original; but the two added lines give a still deeper and more universal significance :

'O Lord, our Lord, and spoiler of our foes,

There is no light but Thine; in Thee all beauty glows.'

A very different note is struck in the poem in the Lyra, on 'Ill Temper.' It is a meditation for the benefit of those concerned with children, on the two 'evil spirits' that form the special torment and temptation of their otherwise happy age. Sullenness and Passion, compared in the two first verses to the hard, sunless, pitiless, grey frost, and to the wild and furious storm. In each case the sun is there, and one change of wind would render all bright and cheery; and

'So waits the Lord behind the veil.'

To Him then should the dumb deaf sullen spirit of the child be borne by urgent intercessions, remembering how He cast out such from the possessed on earth. And in like manner, the passionate temper is likened to the frenzied boy, whose father waited at the foot of the Mount of Transfiguration.

Raffaelle's conception of that scene was dear to the author; and there is a striking sentence in his Prelections, in which he vindicates the poetical propriety of the juxtaposition of the Transfiguration above, and the ravings below, as showing the true calm of the Kingdom of Heaven close to the wild distresses of earth. Here the same idea is present, and is brought forward for the encouragement and comfort of such as feel anger an absolute overmastering force, so driving out all power of resistance for the moment, as to bring them to despair. He bids them 'wait untired' in prayer and patience and resolution. 'Believe and all may be.' The same Hand that tamed the lunatic youth will drive back the fierce spirit of wrath, and give the victory at last. Has not Baptism been the pledge of grace to conquer? and

'Within thee, if thou wilt, be sure

That happy hours strong spells endure,
The seal of Heaven, not all outworn.'
(To be continued.)

MEDIEVAL SEQUENCES AND HYMNS.

No. XIV. ON THE CROWN OF THORNS.

(Si vis vere gloriari)

IF thou aright wouldst glory,
If thou wouldst win the prize
Bestowed by God Almighty

On those who heavenward rise
Learn thou His Crown to honour,

Learn in His steps to tread,
Who faint and bleeding bore it

On His most sacred Head.

;

The Monarch of Creation

This Crown did condescend

To sanctify and wear it

At His life's bitter end.
In this His helmet fought He,
With this in battle stood
Against the ancient foeman,
Triumphant on the wood.

This then the Warrior's helmet,
The Victor's laurel this,
The Diadem Imperial,

The Pontiff's mitre is.
Of thorns it first was platted
To shame and pain untold,
But lo! that Head most holy

Hath touched and made it gold.

The virtue of Christ's Passion
Hath mightily gone forth,
And shed on that rude circlet
Its gift of countless worth;
That Passion which enduring
The hard and thorny wood,
Those doomed to death eternal,
Hath satisfied with good.

Of evil it is platted

To us who slight His Word;
The thorny points deep wound us,
Which wounded once our Lord;
But when our sins are purged,
And we in grace abide,
Behold, the crown is golden,
The points are turned aside.

O kind, O righteous Jesu,
Grant to us all Thy power,
That we may be victorious
In death's approaching hour;
So fashion Thou our conduct
In this our mortal strife,
That we the crown may merit
Of everlasting life.

Amen.

PSALM CXXX.

(De Profundis.)

DEEP are the depths, O Lord,
From which I cry to Thee;
Bend down to my beseeching word,
To hearken, not to see.

A sinner, can I dare

That searching gaze to stand?
I tremble, knowing Thou dost bear
My pardon in Thy hand.

Look not, O Holy Eyes,

Too closely on my pain; Such virtue in forgiveness lies, I fear to sin again.

Dark is the lingering night,

And dark my weary breast;
They watch not for the morning light
As I for love and rest.

I will not cease to wait,

I will not cease to hope,

I watch until at morning's gate
The sun comes up the slope.

O Israel, trust in Him

Who died that you might live,
Who when His eyes in death were dim,

Still whispered, 'I forgive.'

Redeemer that Thou art,

Forgive Thy servants too;

We sinners that have pierced thy heart,

We know not what we do.

M. C.

HALF-MAST HIGH.

WITH silver gleam the moon's soft beams
Fell on the sleeping wave,

Yet o'er the main there seem'd to reign
The stillness of the grave;