With his holy vestments dight,
Stood the new pope, Theocrite :
And all his past career
Came back upon him clear,
Since when, a boy, he plied his trade,
Till on his life the sickness weighed;
And in his cell, when death drew near,
An angel in a dream brought cheer:
And, rising from the sickness drear,
He grew a priest, and now stood here.
To the East with praise he turned,
And on his sight the angel burned.
"I bore thee from thy craftsman's cell, And set thee here; I did not well.
"Vainly I left my angel's sphere, Vain was thy dream of many a year.
"Thy voice's praise seemed weak; it dropped; Creation's chorus stopped!
“Go back and praise again
The early way — while I remain.
"With that weak voice of our disdain, Take up Creation's pausing strain.
“Back to the cell and poor employ; Become the craftsman and the boy!"
Theocrite grew old at home;
A new pope dwelt in Peter's dome.
One vanished as the other died;
They sought God side by side.
THE CHIMNEY SWEEP.
SWEEP ho! Sweep ho!
He trudges on through sleet and snow.
Tired and hungry both is he,
And he whistles vacantly.
Sooty black his rags and skin,
But the child is fair within.
Ice and cold are better far
Than his master's curses are.
Mother of this little one,
Could'st thou see thy little son!
Sweep ho! Sweep ho!
He trudges on through sleet and snow.
At the great man's door he knocks,
Which the servant maid unlocks.
Now let in with laugh and jeer,
In his eye there stands a tear,
He is young, but soon will know
How to bear both word and blow.
Sweep ho! Sweep ho!
In the chimney sleet and snow.
Gladly should his task be done,
Were 't the last beneath the sun.
Faithfully it now shall be,
But, soon spent, down droppeth he.
Gazes round, as in a dream,
Very strange, but true, things seem.
Led by a fantastic power
Which sets by the present hour,
Creeps he to a little bed,
Pillows there his aching head,
And, poor thing! he does not know
There he lay long years ago!
FROM EDWIN THE FAIR.- Taylor.
THE wind, when first he rose and went abroad
Through the waste region, felt himself at fault,
Wanting a voice; and suddenly to earth
Descended with a wafture and a swoop,
Where, wandering volatile from kind to kind,
He wooed the several trees to give him one.
First, he besought the ash; the voice she lent,
Fitfully, with a free and lashing change,
Flung here and there its sad uncertainties:
The aspen, next; a fluttered frivolous twitter
Was her sole tribute: from the willow came,
So long as dainty summer dressed her out,
A whispering sweetness, but her winter note
Was lisping, dry, and reedy: lastly, the pine
Did he solicit; and from her he drew
A voice so constant, soft, and lowly deep,
That there he rested, welcoming in her
A mild memorial of the ocean-cave
Where he was born.
THE world is with me, and its many cares
Its woes its wants the anxious hopes and fears
BECOMING
That wait on all terrestrial affairs -
The shades of former and of future years
Foreboding fancies and prophetic tears,
Quelling a spirit that was once elate.
Heavens! what a wilderness the earth appears,
Where youth, and mirth, and health, are out of date!
428 TO A FRIEND AFTER THE LOSS OF A CHILD.
But no
—a laugh of innocence and joy
Resounds, like music of that fairy race,
And, gladly turning from the world's annoy,
I gaze upon a little radiant face,
And bless, internally, the merry boy
Who makes a son-shine in a shady place.
FROM HOURS WITH THE MUSES. J. C. Prince.
SABBATH! thou art my Ararat of life,
Smiling above the deluge of my cares,
My only refuge from the storms of strife,
When constant Hope her noblest aspect wears,
When my torn mind its broken strength repairs,
And volant Fancy breathes a sweeter strain.
Calm season! when my thirsting spirit shares
A draught of joy unmixed with aught of pain,
Spending the quiet hours 'mid Nature's green domain.
TO A FRIEND AFTER THE LOSS OF A CHILD.
WHEN on my ear your loss was knelled,
And tender sympathy upburst,
A little spring from memory welled
Which once had quenched my bitter thirst;
And I was fain to bear to you
A portion of its mild relief,
That it might be as cooling dew
To steal some fever from your grief.
After our child's untroubled breath
Up to the Father took its way,
And on our home the shade of death
Like a long twilight haunting lay,
And friends came round with us to weep
The little spirit's swift remove
This story of the Alpine sheep
Was told to us by one we love.
They, in the valley's sheltering care,
Soon crop their meadow's tender prime, And when the sod grows brown and bare, The shepherd strives to make them climb
To any shelves of pasture green
That hang along the mountain side, Where grass and flowers together lean,
And down through mists the sunbeams glide.
But nought can lure the timid thing
The steep and rugged path to try;
Though sweet the shepherd call and sing,
And seared below the pastures lie
Till in his arms their lambs he takes,
Along the dizzy verge to go,
When, heedless of the rifts and breaks,
They follow on o'er rock and snow.
And in those pastures lifted fair,
More dewy soft than lowland mead, The shepherd drops his tender care,
And sheep and lambs together feed.
This parable, by nature breathed,
Blew on me as the south wind free, O'er frozen brooks that float unsheathed From icy thraldom to the sea.
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