T^dt^s^ 
 
 /fit/. 
 
POEMS, 
 
 SACRED AND SECULAR: 
 
 BY THE 
 
 EEV, WILLIAM CBOSWELL, D. D, 
 
 II 
 
 EDITED, WITH A MEMOIR, 
 BY 
 
 A. 'MEYSLAXD CQXE. 
 
 Tu tamen amisso nonnunquam flebis amico : 
 Fas est praeteritos semper aniare viros. 
 
 PROPERT. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS. 
 
 M DCCC LXI. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by 
 TICKNOR AND FIELDS, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 University Press, Cambridge : 
 Stereotyped and Printed by Welch, Bigelow, & Co. 
 
TO 
 
 GEORGE CHEYNE SHATTUCK, M. D., 
 
 &c., &c., &c. 
 2T1)f Volume fa fnscrfbet), 
 
 AS A RECORD 
 OF THAT FAITHFUL FRIENDSHIP 
 
 WHICH SO GREATLY CONTRIBUTED TO THE HAPPINESS AND USEFUL- 
 NESS OP THE LATER YEARS OF 
 
 CROSWELL, 
 
 AND AS A TOKEN 
 
 OF THE EDITOR'S PERSONAL REGARD. 
 
 938586 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 THE Editor of these poems is indebted for the 
 entire collection to the labours and industry of the 
 poet's father, the Rev. Dr. Croswell, late of New 
 Haven. On inquiry, in every quarter which could 
 naturally be looked to, he has been unable to find 
 a single additional verse which he could, with con- 
 fidence, add to this volume as an original work of 
 its author. 
 
 The paternal memoir, too, has supplied the basis 
 for the short biography herewith presented ; but it 
 is not the less, on that account, an original sketch 
 of the poet's life and character, made up from 
 personal acquaintance, and from the testimony of 
 common friends. 
 
 The task of rearranging, revising, and, in short, 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 and most likely to awaken universal sympathy, 
 the Sonnets are here presented as the author's 
 choice productions, and in the form of one com- 
 plete work. The sonnet reserved for the closing 
 one gives a finish to the series, and seems, to 
 the editor, a beautiful, though unconscious por- 
 traiture of the poet himself, in his untimely (but 
 not, for himself, premature) demise. It is sufficient 
 to add, that, in the arrangement and collocation of 
 the other poems, similar views of propriety have 
 prevailed over other considerations ; and each 
 poem stands just where it does, as the result of 
 much reflection as to its fitting place, or, in other 
 words, as to the best setting for the display of its 
 special lustre as a gem. 
 
 A. C. C. 
 
 BALTIMORE, Nov. 9, 1860. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MEMOIR xv 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Winter 3 
 
 Christmas 4 
 
 Saint John the Evangelist 5 
 
 The Seven Churches 6 
 
 Epiphany 7 
 
 The Far West 8 
 
 Crete 9 
 
 Lent 10 
 
 Christ Bearing the Cross 11 
 
 To the Hepatica Triloba, found in March 12 
 
 Easter 13 
 
 Infant Baptism 14 
 
 Confirmation 15 
 
 The Knot 16 
 
 Communion of the Sick 17 
 
 The Knell 18 
 
 Saint James the Apostle 19 
 
 Saint Bartholomew 20 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 Bishop Griswold's Memorial 121 
 
 Lines written in the Chamber where Bishop Hobart 
 
 died, on the tenth Anniversary 124 
 
 Memorial of my beloved Friend and Predecessor, 
 
 the Rev. William Lucas 127 
 
 Ad Amicum 128 
 
 Stanzas written in a copy of Milton's Poems . . . 131 
 
 Fragment 133 
 
 To a Child, on her Birthday, in September .... 135 
 
 To Sophia 137 
 
 To a Lady, with a Sprig of Myrtle 138 
 
 For a Child's Album 139 
 
 Fragment 140 
 
 Home 141 
 
 Absence 142 
 
 The Two Graves 143 
 
 New- Year Thoughts 148 
 
 A New Year's Address 152 
 
 Valentines . . 157 
 
 The Chapel Bell, Yale College 161 
 
 An Apology 165 
 
 Architectural 166 
 
 Nahant 169 
 
 Old North Cock 170 
 
 New Haven 172 
 
 Prison Hymn, by Mary, Queen of Scots .... 175 
 
 Lake Owasco 176 
 
 Albany 178 
 
 Fragments 183 
 
 Convocation Poem 186 
 
 Psalm 1 202 
 
 Psalm CXXXIII 204 
 
 Psalm CXXXIV 205 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 Psalm CXXXVn 206 
 
 Psalm CL 208 
 
 Advent 209 
 
 Hymn for Advent 211 
 
 Christmas 213 
 
 Vigil of the Circumcision 214 
 
 The Epiphany 215 
 
 First Sunday after Epiphany 216 
 
 Second Sunday after Epiphany 217 
 
 Quinquagesima Sunday 218 
 
 Lent 219 
 
 Hymn for the First Sunday after Easter 221 
 
 Hymn for Whitsunday 223 
 
 Reveille 225 
 
 Saint Thomas 226 
 
 Saint Paul 227 
 
 Saint Stephen 229 
 
 Hymn for Saint Matthew's Day 230 
 
 Saint Andrew's Day 232 
 
 Sunday-School Hymn 234 
 
 The Upper Room, in which a Sunday-School was 
 
 kept 235 
 
 Flowers 236 
 
 Hymn, for the Chapel of a Lunatic Hospital ... 238 
 
 Baptismal Hymn 240 
 
 Charity Hymn 241 
 
 Ode, for Christmas Eve 243 
 
 Ode, for the Re-opening of Christ Church, Boston . 245 
 
 Song of Faith 247 
 
 Paraphrase, " By their Fruits ye shall know them " 249 
 
 The Missionary 251 
 
 Sunday-School Hymn 252 
 
 A Prayer 254 
 
xiv CONTENTS. 
 
 Traveller's Hymn 255 
 
 Hymn for Sisters of Mercy 256 
 
 Hymns of the Ancient Time 257 
 
 NOTES 
 
 265 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 GOOD men are not so many among mankind that 
 we can afford to lose the memory of any one who 
 has been eminently pure and lovely. Such men, 
 when they die, bequeath an example to their coun- 
 try and to after times which is more precious than 
 rubies. A saint of God leaves to the Church, when 
 he departs, the lustre of his character. A man of 
 genius who has been as truly humble as he was 
 great, should begin to be known and honoured at 
 least when he is gone where popular praise can no 
 longer offend him. For his reputation is no longer 
 his own ; it is the heritage of his native land, of the 
 schools that reared him, of the friends that loved 
 him, of the world itself that ought to revere him, and 
 of unborn generations that should be taught to imi- 
 tate him. Such are the reasons which induce me 
 to write a Memoir of an admired and beloved friend, 
 now with God. I owe him a debt of gratitude ; I 
 
 B 
 
xviii MEMOIR. 
 
 rejoice to testify to the widow and the fatherless how 
 sincerely I venerated him whose name they bear; 
 but a sense of duty to the times and to the Church, 
 is my chief motive in calling fresh attention to the 
 name and character of one who is worthy to be 
 had in perpetual remembrance. 
 
 WILLIAM CROSWELL was born on the seventh 
 of November, 1804, at Hudson, in the County 
 of Columbia and State of New York. This town 
 shares the name of the old navigator with the river 
 on which it is built, and the eyes of the young poet 
 first opened amid scenes of natural beauty which 
 are not surpassed in America. There the Kaats- 
 kills rear their summits in the degree of distance 
 most favorable for the effects of light a.nd shade, 
 and " Cloudland," which he lived to sing so thrill- 
 ingly, reveals itself nowhere more gloriously of a 
 summer evening than in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of his birthplace. The year of his birth was 
 a memorable one among the kingdoms of the world, 
 but that is of little moment in the history of one 
 whose life was hid with Christ in God. 
 
 He was the son of Harry Croswell, Esq., who, not 
 long after his birth, conformed to the Church, took 
 holy orders, and subsequently became an eminent di- 
 vine in the Diocese of Connecticut, where he lived in 
 honour and usefulness to a venerable age, surviving 
 his son, and becoming his biographer. The mother 
 
MEMOIR. xix 
 
 of our poet was a lady of respectable family in New 
 Haven, whose maiden-name was Sherman. He was 
 the third of seven children, and was not baptized 
 till he was nine years old, when, with his mother, 
 and the other children then living, he received that 
 sacrament on the 13th of June, 1813. His father 
 was ordained in the month of May of the following 
 year, and on New- Year's Day, 1815, entered upon 
 the Rectorship of Trinity Church, New Haven, 
 where he remained till his death, in 1858. That 
 beautiful little Puritan Capital, which its inhabitants 
 love to call " the City of Elms," and which has 
 since been distinguished for the rapid growth in it 
 of the Church, was the scene of William's boyhood. 
 As New Haven was the seat of Yale College, then 
 the most prominent of our American Schools, he 
 was surrounded with influences favourable to the 
 development of those literary tastes which he pos- 
 sessed even in childhood ; and the paternal in- 
 fluence, if not his own elevated instincts, were his 
 sufficient safeguard against what was unfavourable 
 in the atmosphere of a narrow sectarianism. The 
 Church in New Haven, under his father's ministry, 
 soon began to attract to its pale many of the best 
 and most refined of the Puritan families, and the 
 vigorous growth of church principles was rather 
 stimulated than depressed by the daily encounter 
 of unreasonable prejudices. It is pleasant to know, 
 
xx MEMOIR. 
 
 however, that his father's churchmanship, like his 
 own, was so amiably maintained that the kindliest 
 feelings always existed between the churchmen of 
 New Haven and their neighbours. 
 
 In outline, the story of such a life as Croswell's 
 may be told very briefly. Under the careful tutor- 
 ship of Mr. Joel Jones, who subsequently rose to 
 the presidency of Girard College, he was prepared 
 for Yale College, which he entered in 1818 ; an 
 important year in the history of the American 
 Church, if, as the Bishop of Maine has said, it was 
 the first year of marked revival, after the Revolu- 
 tion had paralyzed it. In his college course there 
 seems to have been nothing specially indicative of 
 his superiority, for a constitutional diffidence with- 
 held him at all times from self-assertion, and at 
 times, perhaps, from effort. He was an industrious 
 student and a great reader, especially of the good 
 old authors of our own language. His choice of the 
 sacred calling was not made during his college life, 
 his conscientious feelings of unworthiness maintain- 
 ing a contest with his natural tastes and inclina- 
 tions, and for a time overmastering them. He took 
 his Bachelor's degree in 1822, and in 1824 we find 
 him still undecided as to a profession, but finally 
 declining the proposal of an uncle who desired to 
 initiate him into the study of medicine, influenced, 
 in part, by the horrible impressions he had received 
 
MEMOIR. xxi 
 
 at an anatomical lecture illustrated by dissections. 
 " An extreme nervous sensibility and delicacy of 
 feeling," says his father, " were his abiding char- 
 acteristics through life ; " a remark which must be 
 borne in mind at every stage of his career, by those 
 who would fully comprehend what he did, and what 
 he omitted to do. It will explain, for example, his 
 rigid suppression of his juvenile poems, and the fact 
 that after writing and publicly pronouncing, with 
 great applause, at New Haven, at the request of the 
 civic authorities, a poem of several hundred lines in 
 honour of the national anniversary, he not only re- 
 fused to let it be published, but destroyed it, with that 
 generous sort of shame which true genius is sure to 
 feel when it receives extravagant commendation. 
 
 In 1825 he seems to have made an experiment 
 with law-studies, and it is not till the next year 
 that we find him, having attained his majority, re- 
 solved on an earnest Christian life, and on the high 
 calling of a minister of Christ. In the autumn of 
 1826, he entered the Seminary in Chelsea, which 
 at that time was far removed from the streets of 
 New York, and stood on the very brink of the 
 Hudson. The Gothic architecture, though in a 
 very imperfect form, was then only just introduced 
 among us, and the Seminary building seems to 
 have impressed very favourably the young Ecclesi- 
 astic, by its partial likeness to the academic abodes 
 
xxii MEMOIR. 
 
 of the mother country. A deeper impression, how- 
 ever, was produced in his mind and character, by 
 the charge to the clergy of his diocese which Bishop 
 Hobart delivered just at that time, and which 
 young Croswell was so fortunate as to hear. That 
 justly celebrated prelate had just returned from a 
 fruitful visitation of the churches and missionary 
 regions of New York, and his abundant labours, 
 with the energy, fervour, and zeal of which his 
 charge was an embodiment, could not but write 
 themselves in the heart of a pious and enthusiastic 
 candidate for Holy Orders. 
 
 To the great regret of the sons of Chelsea, Mr. 
 Croswell did not remain long enough in the Semi- 
 nary to become their fellow-graduate. His health 
 began to suffer ; and after a short time he removed 
 to Hartford, where he pursued his theological 
 studies in the College, and formed that intimate 
 acquaintance with Professor Doane which was des- 
 tined to leave its mark on the Church, as w^ell as 
 upon himself and his friends. The undertaking of 
 " The Watchman," in 1827, by these faithful allies 
 was a considerable event in the history of the 
 Church, and deserves more than casual mention. 
 
 It must be remembered that the Anglican Church 
 in America had been cut down to its very roots by 
 the Revolution, and that few signs of vigorous up- 
 growth began to appear before this period. Many 
 
MEMOIR. xxiii 
 
 things now began to encourage those who had long 
 laboured, apparently in vain, to convince their coun- 
 trymen of the inestimable value of a historical form 
 of the Gospel, and of a connection through it with 
 the venerable past, with the great body of the 
 Christian family in all ages, and with CHRIST him- 
 self, personally, as its author. Bishop Hobart, as the 
 doctrinal champion of the Church, had succeeded 
 in awakening the minds of men to the vast stores of 
 sanctified erudition which had been expended by 
 the divines of England upon the reformation and 
 defence of the Christian religion, and to the contrast 
 afforded by the system of Apostolic orthodoxy, and 
 ritual completeness, when compared with a narrow 
 and discordant Puritanism. The missionary zeal 
 of Bishop Chase was already refuting the inveter- 
 ate prejudices which had associated the daughter 
 church with the English government, and con- 
 demned it, as an exotic, to a short and feeble exist- 
 ence. It was time that she should begin to drop 
 the swaddling-clothes of her colonial nursing, and 
 put on the beautiful garments which rightfully be- 
 long to her. The writings of Cooper and Irving 
 had done something to obliterate ill-feeling, and 
 to prepare a new generation to appreciate the 
 exceeding beauty of her liturgy and the simple 
 dignity of her ceremonial. The rise in England of 
 a new literature, reproducing the old and super- 
 
xxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 scding the popular latitudinarianism of the Hano- 
 verian epoch, was marked by the appearance of 
 such publications as the " Christian Year," and the 
 " Rectory of Valehead " A similar work was to 
 be done here ; and by the refined and deeply relig- 
 ious character they were able to impart to the 
 " Watchman," the young friends Doane and Cros- 
 well become the lucida sidera of a brightening day- 
 dawn in the American Church. However uncon- 
 sciously, there can be no doubt that the whole 
 country received, originally from their editorial la- 
 bours, more just and enlightened impressions of that 
 great system of religious truth which a feeble pro- 
 vincialism had affected to treat as if it were not 
 identified with the language and the history of our 
 race, and as if it could be less than illustrious in the 
 memory of its long line of worthies in every rank 
 of the laity, and of its great divines and noble 
 martyrs. 
 
 In the College at Hartford, Mr. Croswell found 
 himself associated with a number of accomplished 
 gentlemen. Its President was the Bishop of Connec- 
 ticut, a prelate whose amiable character, adorned 
 by liberal culture, refined tastes, and great prac- 
 tical wisdom, is still conspicuous in the high po- 
 sition, to which his seniority entitles him, of the 
 Presidency of the House of Bishops. Of Mr. 
 Doane, who afterwards became the Bishop of New 
 
MEMOIR. xxv 
 
 Jersey, mention has been already made. Dr. Hum- 
 phreys, who subsequently presided for many years 
 over St. John's College at Annapolis, was also one of 
 the Professors ; and so was Dr. Potter, now Provis- 
 ional Bishop of New York . But pre-eminent among 
 these distinguished scholars was Dr. Jarvis, the 
 learned chronologist and sound divine, whose per- 
 sonal dignity and great erudition, combined with 
 the tastes and acquirements imparted by a long 
 residence in foreign countries, gave him, before his 
 death, the reputation of the most accomplished 
 scholar of America. Another ornament of the 
 College was Dr. Wheaton, then Rector of Christ 
 Church, and himself the architect of that noble fab- 
 ric, which, though now far in the rear of progress 
 in Gothic art, was at the time of its building even 
 farther in advance of everything of the kind in 
 America. Even in England, the Gothic churches 
 of the same date were not greatly superior. To 
 these names of gifted persons, whose society could 
 not but exercise a great influence on the youthful 
 genius of Croswell, might be added those of sev- 
 eral eminent laymen, and of a number of ladies of 
 cultivated minds, who contributed largely to the 
 attractions of Hartford. He derived not a little of 
 pleasure and profit from their frequent reunions at 
 the house of Dr. Sumner, a well-read physician, 
 and a man of science, to whose tastes and efforts, 
 
xxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 with those of the President, the College owed a fine 
 botanical garden, and that liberal adornment of the 
 grounds with trees and shrubs which has gradually 
 diffused itself through the town, and made Hartford, 
 with its beautiful park, one of the most pleasant 
 cities in the land. For Trinity College he ever 
 retained, therefore, the affection of a son ; and in 
 after years, as I have walked with him in those aca- 
 demic shades, he took pleasure in imparting to me 
 the traditions of the spot, and all his delightful 
 recollections of the past, Once he pointed to a 
 certain window, and said, " That was Doane's 
 room ! There we used to talk over our books, old 
 and new, and study, and write rhymes" He men- 
 tioned the names of several who had since been the 
 authors of graceful verse. " What a Parnassus 
 you made of it ! " said I. " Nay, rather," he an- 
 swered, " as Dr. Johnson said of Pembroke College, 
 we were a nest of singing-birds." 
 
 The friendship which he thus formed with Mr. 
 Doane was a romantic one, and it was destined to 
 be perpetuated, with no considerable abatement, 
 till his death. Under the genial excitement of its 
 earliest enjoyments, the genius of Croswell reached 
 its flowering season. Relieving his beloved asso- 
 ciate of the greater part of the editorial burdens, he 
 not only did the drudgery of " The Watchman," 
 but continued to adorn it with a series of charming 
 
MEMOIR. xxvii 
 
 sonnets, hymns, and other poems. Of these per- 
 haps the sweetest are his verses on " The Ordinal," 
 describing minutely his own ordination as a deacon, 
 in his father's church at New Haven, and the feel- 
 ings inspired by the solemnity. This was in 1828, 
 and soon after Mr. Doane become Rector of Trin- 
 ity Church in Boston. With the second volume of 
 " The Watchman " closed Mr. CroswelTs editorial 
 career, and also his life in Hartford. On the Feast 
 of St. John the Baptist, 1829, he was ordained 
 to the priesthood by the Bishop of Massachusetts, 
 (Dr. Griswold,) and entered on the rectorship of 
 Christ Church, in Boston. To a man of his tastes 
 and sensibilities, there could not have been com- 
 mitted a more attractive charge. It was neither a 
 "fashionable church," nor a post for popular display; 
 still less was it a fat incumbency. He found in it a 
 cure of souls, and that was all he desired : but he 
 was the man of all others to find in the antiquity 
 and other peculiarities of the church a charm 
 which endeared to him, to the end of his days, its 
 very stones and timbers. It was an old colonial 
 fabric, and one of the very few in America which 
 boasted a chime of bells. Its altar-service of silver 
 was the gift of King George the Second in 1 733, 
 and the bells were added only ten years later, by 
 friends of the Colonial Church in England. From 
 its tower, the battle of Bunker's Hill had been 
 
xxvni MEMOIR. 
 
 watched by the chief men of the Province. Sub- 
 sequently, Washington had worshipped beneath its 
 roof; and one of the earliest marble busts of the 
 first President adorned its walls. In its vaults re- 
 posed the dead ; and many authentic stories of the 
 young rector's predecessors were full of interest for 
 him. But these were the mere accidents of his 
 position. No one that knew him ever doubted that 
 he found his deepest satisfaction in feeding Christ's 
 sheep ; in going in and out among them, with a 
 holy love for their souls, that governed all his 
 actions ; and in the continual prayers which he 
 offered, publicly and privately, for the salvation 
 of all mankind. 
 
 The term of two-and-twenty years which he 
 passed in the duties of his sacred office was wholly 
 given to Boston, if we except the brief episode of 
 his residence at Auburn.-- His junior ministry 
 at Christ Church was concluded soon after his 
 marriage with Miss Tarbell, in 1840 ; and in 1844 
 he undertook that work of his maturer mind and 
 heart, the founding of the Church of the Advent. 
 In the service of this church, and ministering at its 
 altar, he died in 1851. It is not the purpose of this 
 Memoir to dwell on the events of his official life ; 
 and the few words which can be devoted to it may 
 as well be briefly added here. 
 
 As a pastor, few have ever been more exemplary 
 
MEMOIR. xxix 
 
 and devoted than Dr. Croswell. He delighted to 
 find out Christ in His poor ; and yet he was always 
 beloved and admired by many among the most re- 
 fined and affluent. As a preacher he was chaste 
 and fervent in his style, felicitous in his illustrations 
 and expositions of Holy Scripture, and clear and 
 evangelical in his statements of doctrine. If he had 
 not the gifts of the popular orator, and if his ex- 
 cessive modesty often led him to conceal rather 
 than to display his feelings, he was yet (in the 
 judgment of a genuine critic, from whom I have re- 
 ceived it) a most instructive and attractive minister 
 of the Word of God. In the ritual of the Church 
 he was careful, but by no means finical or fanciful ; 
 and though his delight in music and art were 
 indulged where he thought it edifying, he ever 
 prescribed to himself, as the limit of what he prac- 
 tised and approved, the law of the Church and the 
 custom of the Church of England, in her parochial, 
 Collegiate, and Cathedral Churches. It is to be re- 
 gretted that the rash judgment of some, who knew 
 him only slightly, subjected him to great suffering 
 and persecution in his latter years, on frivolous 
 grounds. It would be unjust to attribute his trials, 
 however, to any considerable opposition from those 
 of his brethren who are generally styled " Evan- 
 gelical." Of these, he ever numbered some as his 
 faithful friends, who loved him for his ardent piety, 
 
xxx MEMOIR. 
 
 and " esteemed him very highly for his work's sake." 
 Among the extreme and partisan class of this school 
 only had he any enemies : and them he habitually 
 forgave, as honestly mistaken, regarding them as 
 rather offended with what they imagined him to 
 be, than with what he was. 
 
 With all his gentleness and love of children, and 
 condescension to the poor, and humble devotion to 
 the sick and dying, there was often a dignity in his 
 manner which was heroic. I have seen him as 
 playful as a pet lamb ; and I have seen him as bold 
 as a lion. And such consideration for others ; such 
 charity ; such a power of entering into other men's 
 feelings, excusing their faults, and displaying their 
 better parts, I never knew except in him. Ambition 
 and rivalry he seemed not to understand. He was 
 simply devoted to his work and his place; and 
 therein he was full of love to God, and to his fel- 
 low-men. If he was not a saint, and is not now 
 rejoicing in the Paradise of God, I fear few will be 
 saved. 
 
 His poems are a transcript of his heart. And in 
 what, that is good and pure and holy, do they not 
 show him to have been deeply interested? He 
 was constitutionally averse to every form of pseudo- 
 philanthropy, and yet, as his poetry shows, no 
 humble labourer, no poor coloured man, no sufferer 
 or sorrower, was too lowly for him to regard with 
 
MEMOIR. xxxi 
 
 love for Jesus's sake. The very stairs up which 
 the children of his Sunday school had to climb 
 became as Jacob's ladder to his eyes. He saw 
 glory in everything which has Christ in it. Hence 
 that ardent delight in everything connected with 
 the work of Missions which is conspicuous in so 
 many of his poems. The gathering in of nations 
 to the fold of Jesus is the perpetually recurrent 
 burden of his song. 
 
 As he prayed in one of his poems for a death 
 like that of Stephen, it was granted to him, and he 
 " fell asleep," like the first martyr, while he minis- 
 tered and prayed. On Sunday, the 9th of Novem- 
 ber, 1851, he baptized an infant at the evening 
 service, and preached to the children, on the " little 
 maid," whose fidelity led to the cure and conversion 
 of Naaman. After this he joined in singing the 
 hymn, and then kneeling down at the rails of the 
 chancel and looking towards the altar, he offered 
 the prayer ; but the prayer-book dropped from his 
 hands, and he could not rise to give the benediction. 
 A bloodvessel had broken in his brain. In the 
 white raiment of his priesthood the dying man of 
 God was borne to his vestry, and thence to his 
 home, where soon after (the commendatory prayer 
 having been offered by his aged friend, Dr. Eaton) 
 he resigned his soul to his dear Lord. 
 
 When I received the intelligence of this sudden 
 
xxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 but sublime departure, I wept as though it had been 
 for an own brother. It was in Paris. I opened a 
 letter, and a cutting from a newspaper dropped out. 
 I read it, and for the moment, it clouded the pros- 
 pect of my return to my native land. A friend 
 who observed my emotion could hardly be persuad- 
 ed that I had not been afflicted in my own family. 
 I knew him far less intimately than many of his 
 friends, for I was by many years his junior ; but on 
 no heart had he written more deeply than on mine 
 the record of his pure, unselfish, loving exemplifi- 
 cation of what it is to be a Christian.* 
 
 To recur to his poetical career, we must go back 
 to Hartford, while as yet the dew of his youth was 
 upon him, and he had not vowed to turn all his 
 thoughts and studies in another way. It was often 
 in the midst of the company (I might say club) at 
 Dr. Simmer's, and with a most unpoetical slate in 
 his hand, that he threw off his verses, as it were 
 impromptu, under the inspiration of converse with 
 his friends, and of the subjects on which they were 
 taking sweet counsel together. 
 
 * So much I must be permitted to say of our friend- 
 ship : I have felt the difficulty of making further mention 
 of it, 
 " As shrinking still, lest in his praise I should myself commend, 
 
 So high in merit he, and I so very dear a friend." 
 
 Such are his own lines on the death of Winslow. 
 
MEMOIR. xxxiii 
 
 In general society he was a very different charac- 
 ter. The poetical temperament is naturally shy 
 and reserved ; for it is always viewing things in 
 lights invisible to ignoble minds, and it learns 
 from early childhood that it can expect no sym- 
 pathy from the multitude, in feelings and impres- 
 sions which are instinctive with it. That vulgar 
 assurance with which men of inferior grades of 
 talent often throw themselves into life and society, 
 and exhibit all that they have and are, without 
 restraint, is taking with the masses : they make 
 way before it, and give to such men the key of 
 mastery and success. A man of Croswell's tem- 
 perament must have an extraordinary force of 
 character to achieve success at all ; and when such 
 a man comes forward and attempts something bold 
 and self-asserting, it is with a sort of self-sacrifice, 
 of which the common mind has no idea. The 
 young poet was often accused of reserve ; and, of 
 course, this was imputed to pride, and to other 
 motives, of which he was equally unconscious and 
 incapable, and his feelings on one occasion found 
 vent in a few apologetic lines, which he tacked on 
 to the well-known sonnet of Sidney : 
 
 " Because I oft, in dark, abstracted guise, 
 
 Seem most alone in greatest company." etc. 
 
 His own lines are as follows : 
 c 
 
xxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 ' But one worse weakness I must needs confess, 
 That deep embarrassment which doth, alas ! 
 Both mental powers and bodily oppress: 
 Hence rises my reserve, and not from willingness." 
 
 He adds, in a playful note : " For the first ten lines 
 of this exculpatory sonnet, I am indebted to that 
 paragon of euphuists, worthy of all titles, both of 
 learning and chivalry, Sir Philip Sidney ; for the 
 remainder he is not responsible, nor for any viola- 
 tion of the first canon of Horace, de arte poetica, 
 which may be involved in them." 
 
 In arranging his sonnets, the reader will find 
 that I have given them the form of an apple, with 
 the seeds in the centre. I mean that I have re- 
 duced them to something like unity and rotundity, 
 and that I have avoided the exhibition of their 
 newspaper form. They are strung together, as it 
 were, on the thread of the Christian year, begin- 
 ning with the sonnet on " Winter," which coincides 
 with the season of Advent. The fine sonnet, " On 
 beginning the Watchman" is nevertheless the first 
 in order of time and of argument, if I may so 
 speak ; and nobody, in reading it, can fail to ob- 
 serve with what a high sense of doing a work for 
 GOD the poet entered upon that undertaking. It 
 is not wonderful, considering this devout start, that 
 his short labours in it were crowned with such re- 
 markable success. " Could it have been better, 
 
MEMOIR. xxxv 
 
 or different," says Bishop Doane, " if he had been 
 premonished of his course through life, or if he had 
 written it on the day on which his life was closed ?" 
 
 What I have likened to the seeds of the work is 
 that triplet of sonnets in which there is made a 
 transition from those appropriate to the Christian 
 seasons, to others of a more general sort. " The 
 Prayer" is introduced at the beginning of this 
 second part, and the first is concluded by " The 
 Valedictory." The " Palinode " is the link that 
 unites the two ; and this arrangement has enabled 
 me to conclude the whole with that noble sonnet, 
 in which the poet's own early but sublime death 
 seems to be foreshadowed. 
 
 But the history of the " Palinode " is worthy of 
 especial mention. In the valedictory sonnet pub- 
 lished in the " Watchman," he prematurely re- 
 nounced the poetical vocation, and blamed himself 
 for having ventured to employ the name of 
 " Asaph " in the production of uninspired com- 
 positions. This called forth from his friend Mrs. 
 Sigourney the following remonstrance : 
 
 TO ASAPH. 
 
 OCCASIONED BY HIS VALEDICTORY SONNET. 
 
 0, not farewell, deft ruler of the lyre ; 
 
 Sweet singer of our Israel, not farewell; 
 Thou, early called amid the temple choir, 
 
 The glad, high praises of our God to swell ; 
 
xxxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 Levite and priest, who Z ion's anthem led, 
 
 Had trembled if their solemn string were mute, 
 If the soul's pulse of melody were dead, 
 
 Or hushed the breathings of Jehovah's lute: 
 Wouldst ihou forego the baptism of the skies ? 
 
 Down at the altar's foot thy censer cast V 
 Hide in the earth a gift that seraphs prize, 
 
 Yet faithful hope to be pronounced at last? 
 Minstrel, return! Resume the hallowed strain; 
 Repent thee of thy sin, and woo Heaven's harp again. 
 
 In a succeeding sonnet, he gallantly withdraws 
 from any contest with such an authority, and 
 returns to his poetical tasks without gainsaying, 
 prefixing, from a popular poet, the lines: 
 
 " Lady, for thee to speak and be obeyed 
 Are one." 
 
 If this was a genuine retreat and recall, the 
 Church is not a little indebted to her who so 
 happily persuaded him not to neglect the gift that 
 was in him. And that it was genuine I have no 
 doubt at all. Never did any one more scrupulous- 
 ly avoid all unreality and affectation, though, in- 
 deed, his nature enabled him to do so without 
 effort. I have little doubt that the applause which 
 lie received pained him, in view of his own estima- 
 tion of his writings. He had an ideal before him v 
 to which his artless rhymes did little justice, and 
 the self-dispraise which was always the echo of the 
 
MEMOIR. xxxvii 
 
 praise of others disgusted him with the attempt. 
 Nothing but the conviction that he was really 
 doing good and giving enjoyment could stimulate 
 him to fresh efforts, and this conviction was wrought 
 by those earnest remonstrances of which Mrs. Sig- 
 ourney's was but the exponent. In preparing 
 these sonnets and the other poems of Dr. Croswell 
 for the press, I have forborne to do the part of an 
 editor, in correcting them, except only in those 
 extreme cases where momentary negligence has 
 allowed them to appear with obvious grammatical 
 blemishes, or errors equivalent. In these rare in- 
 stances I have gently touched the work, from a 
 conviction that, without such emendations, they 
 would in no wise have been permitted to appear, 
 in a permanent volume, by the poet himself. The 
 sonnets only seem to have been wrought up to a 
 high finish, and many of these are exquisite mosaics, 
 which appear to me incapable of being improved. 
 
 But let nobody censure Dr. Croswell for any of 
 the defects of these poems, without remembering 
 that a sort of friendly violence has been practised 
 upon him in making this collection. He was him- 
 self aware of his singular disposition to quote from 
 others in his own verse, and sometimes uncon- 
 sciously to give a new turn of thought to familiar 
 forms of expression borrowed from the old poets. 
 He has been known to say, "I can hardly tell 
 
xxxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 whether this is my own, or whether I have merely 
 versified what has been ringing in my head as the 
 echo of somebody else's voice." The nervous tem- 
 perament of the poet is singularly predisposed to 
 produce syncope, and I have often seen Croswell 
 in such moods as Walton ascribes to Sir Henry 
 Wotton, when "a holy lethargy did surprise his 
 memory." In new scenes or excitements he was 
 subject to these reveries, in which the very effort 
 to collect himself bred a momentary confusion, and 
 robbed him of what he best understood. His stern 
 sense of duty, however, and his love of truthful- 
 ness, enabled him to triumph over this infirmity in 
 all matters of business; and it is a proof of his 
 strength of mind, that, natural as it would have 
 been to him to yield himself to literary self-indul- 
 gence and all the waywardness of genius, he yet 
 overcame it by stern principle, and never gave 
 his friends the least reason to lament any indiffer- 
 ence to effort, save only in this matter of verse- 
 making. It will without a doubt be observed, that 
 when he borrows his thoughts or expressions, he 
 almost always sets the gem anew, or gives it a 
 new and felicitous development: 
 
 " Exiit ad ccelum ramis felicibus arbos, 
 Miraturque novas froudes et non sua poma." 
 
 It is in the light, ballad verse that what is spe- 
 cially his own comes out most vividly. In the 
 
MEMOIR. xxxix 
 
 verses on " The Ordinal " we have one of the most 
 striking pictures that words can give of the scene 
 at an ordination of deacons ; but it is also full of the 
 man, of William Croswell, in his young, fervent, 
 simple-hearted piety, devoting himself to Christ, 
 and binding his heart as a sacrifice to the horns of 
 the altar. So, in the verses on u Christinas," the 
 fragrancy of the hemlock, with which Trinity 
 Church in New Haven is usually decorated, and 
 the precise effect of the wintry light through the 
 frosted panes and the green foliage, are translated 
 into the verse with great descriptive power ; yet 
 the deep tone of feeling which these beauties of 
 the holy place ought to produce comes out also as 
 the real matter of the poet's delight, and we have 
 not only what should be their effect, but just what 
 was their effect, in his pious soul. A similar reality 
 is to be observed in a very different poem (in some 
 respects his best production), that on " The Syna- 
 gogue." No one who has ever been present at 
 the Jewish worship can fail to remark how stereo- 
 scopic is the view given, in Croswell's verses, of 
 the instructive scene: 
 
 " It is the holy Sabbath eve ; the solitary light 
 
 Sheds, mingled with the hues of day, a lustra nothing 
 bright ; 
 
 On swarthy brow and piercing glance it falls with sad- 
 dening tinge, 
 
 And dimly gilds the Pharisee's phylacteries and fringe." 
 
xl MEMOIR. 
 
 How truly the touch of genius is here ! It is the 
 very colouring and chiar'oscuro of Rembrandt ; and 
 yet we have something more in the felicity of 
 expression, which at once translates into Hebrew, 
 as it were, the thoughts and emotions of the 
 moment. It reproduces the Oriental climate, and 
 for a time the homely Jew of St. Giles' is " the 
 Pharisee," and the mere scarf to which his gorgeous 
 raiment has dwindled down is invested with the 
 beauty and propriety of full Mosaic attire. The 
 opening of the Ark, or receptacle of the Law; 
 the display of the holy books in their decorated 
 coverings ; and then the reading of " the backward 
 letters " by the minister, how perfectly it is pre- 
 sented in the spirit of the Jew himself ! Yet Cros- 
 well could not be a Jew even in poetic dream. 
 There are other poets who might have written 
 these verses so far ; but the rest is our poet, just 
 as he was, looking on, with a yearning heart, and 
 praying for the consolation of Israel : 
 
 " And fervently that hour I prayed, that, from the mighty 
 
 scroll, 
 
 Its light in burning characters might break on every soul ; 
 That on their hardened hearts the veil might be no 
 
 longer dark, 
 But be forever rent in twain, like that before the Ark." 
 
 Observe, also, in the concluding stanza, how the 
 spirit of the Gospel triumphs over the Jew in 
 
MEMOIR. xli 
 
 fervent charity only, and exults in the prospect 
 of his conversion ! The theological critic only will 
 be able to perceive the great power which resides 
 in the combinations of the last two lines, Messiah 
 with Jesus Christ, but above all, JEHOVAH with 
 the Nazarene ! The " nameless name " of Jehovah 
 a word so sacred that the Jew would not speak 
 it coupled with that of " the Nazarene," in 
 which he concentrated all that he most hated, de- 
 spised, and loathed ! 
 
 " For yet the tenfold film shall fall, Judali ! from thy 
 
 sight, 
 
 And every eye be purged to read thy testimonies right, 
 When thou with all Messiah's signs, in Christ distinctly 
 
 seen, 
 Shalt, by Jehovah's nameless name, invoke the Nazarene." 
 
 He once said to me, when I asked him where he 
 got that peculiar ballad tune of his, which runs 
 one line into another with only the slightest pause 
 on the rhyme : " O, that 's a mere echo of Tom 
 Moore ; I suspect it came from, 
 
 * The bird let loose in Eastern skies,' 
 or some such elevated ditty," at which he pleasant- 
 ly smiled. He never would admit that he had 
 much poetry in him. " At any rate," said he, " I 
 never yet could find that vein of unwritten poetry 
 of which the good Bishop of New Jersey accuses 
 me." Yet he owned to me, on one occasion (when 
 
xlii MEMOIR. 
 
 we were reading some really good poetry he had 
 just received in an English publication), that he 
 had himself felt what I could not but exclaim, as I 
 read it : u Why, Croswell, this man has got not only 
 your thoughts, but your own special harmony of 
 words and jingle of rhymes ! " He never said much 
 on the subject ; but he once confessed to me how 
 much he longed to write some poems for children, 
 of which he felt himself capable. He liked best 
 what he had written with least trouble, and he 
 had a fondness for the brevity and abruptness of 
 some of his verses. When on a journey with him, 
 I reminded him of his " Traveller's Hymn," which 
 I had seen but could not remember ; and he told 
 me, if I recollect aright, that it was a sort of Im- 
 promptu, which bubbled up when he was going 
 with Dr. Wainwright from Boston to New York, 
 to attend the General Convention. Some one had 
 said, " there should be more of it," which amused 
 him, for he thought long and wordy talk was the 
 plague of the nation. " A fellow once called on 
 me," he added, " to get the rest of two little poems, 
 of which he would not believe a few verses could 
 be all, for he seemed never to have seen a song 
 of only two stanzas." These poems which were 
 too short to be satisfactory were those on " St. 
 Stephen " and " Christmas." Their brevity was 
 their merit, in Croswell's judgment. He often 
 
MEMOIR. xliii 
 
 laughed good-humouredly at one who persisted in 
 manufacturing poetry by the yard. 
 
 But it will not be necessary to anticipate the 
 intelligent reader in his own comments on these 
 
 o 
 
 works. I would only add, that where Dr. Croswell 
 is occasionally satirical, it is simply playfulness indulg- 
 ing itself in truthfulness ; it is never bitterness nor 
 envy, nor hatred nor malice. The exquisite sense 
 of the ridiculous by which he was distinguished, and 
 his delicate sense of the absurdity of many things 
 in which the half-educated mind and heart find 
 contentment, if not delight, were ever prompting 
 him to expressions of keenest wit and sarcasm. 
 But it was the mere sarcasm of taste and feeling ; 
 never that of ill-will. A heart more universally 
 warmed towards his kind, in every station and 
 degree, and more capable of overlooking every- 
 thing in a human being, for Christ's sake, I have 
 never found. 
 
 Had Dr. Croswell, instead of devoting his life 
 to the service of souls, given all his thought to 
 the development of his poetical gifts, no competent 
 judge who knew him can doubt that he would 
 have left to his country, if not a great, yet a 
 famous and an enduring name. As it is, he de- 
 serves to be remembered, without reference to other 
 claims, for his poetry alone, and by it ; for if it be 
 not the critic's poetry, it is yet the Christian's, and 
 
xliv MEMOIR. 
 
 In the holy keeping of the Faithful it will be pre- 
 served without effort, for it will live in many hearts. 
 He was a poet by every token that belongs to 
 the character of one inspired by the Muse. No 
 unhealthy, raving, maniacal utterer of nonsense 
 tagged with rhyme, only occasionally rising into a 
 higher than his natural elevation of sentiment, and 
 mingling his unwisdom with words of feeling and 
 of truth, no such creature of imitation and affec- 
 tation was he ! His genius was real, because it 
 was healthful, unstudied, unlaboured, often put 
 away by effort, but never put on. It was said, with 
 the greatest truthfulness, by the friend who best 
 knew him, that " his poetry was practical. It was 
 the way-flower of his daily life, its violet, its 
 cowslip, its pansy. It sprang up where he walked. 
 You could not get a letter from him, though made 
 up of the details of business, or the household 
 trifles of his hearth, that some sweet thought, as 
 natural as it was beautiful, would not bubble up 
 above the surface with prismatic hues." Such 
 springs of thought and genuine feeling were ever 
 welling forth in his talk; though, when he became 
 conscious of it, or observed that he was exciting 
 surprise and pleasure, he would often blush and 
 check himself. This was the " unwritten poetry " 
 which Bishop Doane ascribed to him. Had he 
 only brought forth this ore, refined and coined it, 
 how rich his poetical works would have been ! 
 
MEMOIR. xlv 
 
 But lie cared not for the name or fame of a poet, 
 and hence he elaborated nothing. All that he has 
 left us is only to be regarded as virtually im- 
 provisation. What he would have said, in conver- 
 sation occasionally took rhyme and measure, and 
 occasionally he would write it down. In all his 
 poetry we have the photograph of some genuine 
 emotion, or some real incident, which happened to 
 be caught while it was shaping itself into the mel- 
 ody which was its native form in the mind of the 
 poet. If a critic should say " we have nothing fin- 
 ished in these poems," it would be not altogether 
 untrue. It is because they were never intended to 
 be poems, they are the author's thoughts as they 
 were conceived. He thought in rhythmical senten- 
 ces : and when he had set down such thoughts, there 
 he left them. An artist ^ould have worked them 
 up into a marketable shape ; but though Croswell 
 was a poet, the " art of poetry " was not his trade. 
 
 The reason of this was that he found in his sa- 
 cred calling that which satisfied every feeling and 
 absorbed all his thoughts and energies. The living 
 poetry of the Church's sublime system, its in 
 spired doctrines, its orderly structure, its majestic 
 Liturgy and Ritual, the music of its hymns and an- 
 thems, the flowers of its festivals ; yea, and the 
 homely attractiveness of its charities : its pathway 
 among the poor, the sorrowing, the sick and the 
 
xlvi MEMOIR. 
 
 dying ; its holy ministries to the dead, these were 
 the things in which his life found satisfaction with- 
 out satiety. He loved alike the simplicity and the 
 beauty of the Anglican Church. He believed it to 
 be the undiluted native Christianity of apostles and 
 martyrs ; he saw in it the New Testament practi- 
 cally carried out. Its naked charms were the object 
 of his unswerving love ; he wished neither more nor 
 less than what he regarded as hers. Hence, it was 
 beautiful to see with what unquestioning sincerity 
 he took every intimation of the rubric as meaning 
 precisely what it said, and not to be explained 
 away. His Mother's voice was to him the best 
 interpreter of his Father's will. That he was 
 fulfilling his priesthood was consolation enough, 
 while he spent the torrid summer months in Bos- 
 ton, and went to and fro among the poor, almost all 
 others having left the city. He was remonstrated 
 with for his self-sacrificing labours. " Yes ! " he an- 
 swered, " but the poor need me, and when I find 
 myself left in Boston, to minister to the sick, and 
 bury the dead, I love to feel that I can represent 
 the pastoral care of the Church among those who 
 are estranged from her ; and I assure you, it is a 
 rich reward to walk at the head of the meanest 
 funeral in the garments of her ministry." 
 
 The poems of such a man are not poems, then, in 
 the ordinary sense of the word. They are not the 
 
MEMOIR. xlvii 
 
 productions of literary canons, and of one zealous to 
 deserve well of critics. In the estimation of such as 
 would judge them on purely critical rules, however, 
 they could not fail of a much higher rank than has 
 been often attained by religious poetry, in America. 
 There is very little reseirblance to George Her- 
 bert in the structure of Croswell's poems. In fact, 
 considering the great similarity between the two 
 characters, and the matter of their thoughts and af- 
 fections, the two are as unlike in their poetry as the 
 seventeenth century is unlike the nineteenth, or as 
 England is unlike New England. And yet, in 
 what Coleridge says of the one, I would speak of 
 the other, only excepting the mention of classical 
 tastes, which are not so requisite for the appreciation 
 of Croswell. " He is a true poet, but a poet sui 
 generis" says Coleridge, " the merits of whose poems 
 will never be felt without a sympathy with the 
 mind and character of the man. To appreciate 
 him, it is not enough that the reader possesses a 
 cultivated judgment, classical taste, or even poetic 
 sensibility, unless he be likewise a Christian, and 
 both a zealous and an orthodox, both a devout and 
 a devotional Christian. But even this will not quite 
 suffice. He must be an affectionate and dutiful 
 child of the Church, and (from habit, conviction, 
 and a constitutional predisposition to ceremonious- 
 ness, in piety as in manners) find her forms and or- 
 
xlviii MEMOIR. 
 
 dinances aids of religion, not sources of formality ; 
 for religion is the element in which he lives, and 
 the region in which he moves." Coleridge adds a 
 very just remark, which it would be well for Cros- 
 welPs readers to bear in mind. He says that what 
 the Puritans regarded as papistic in the Church- 
 men of the Stuart period, was rather patristic. 
 Their habits of mind were bred of that primitive 
 apostolicity, which, though wholly unlike the relig- 
 ion of the Puritans, resembles Popery only as gold 
 is like brass, or like touchwood that is covered with 
 tinsel. 
 
 Horace expected to be remembered so long as 
 the rites of his religion should be perpetuated on 
 the Capitol. I believe these poems of my venerated 
 friend will survive while a single priest ministers, in 
 white raiment, at the altars of the Church, and so 
 long as her Faithful wait on the solemn services 
 of the Christian Year, from Advent to Advent. If 
 ever those sublime offices shall come to an end in our 
 land, it would be a glorious thing to let one's memo- 
 rial perish with them ; but since there is nothing so 
 imperishable as the Church of the Living GOD, I 
 believe that, as he was content to consecrate his 
 genius to her service, his writings will partake of her 
 immortality. 
 
 A. C. C. 
 Baltimore, 1860. 
 
SONNETS 
 
I. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 THE moon and stars light up their wintry fire ; 
 
 And, kindling with a lustre more intense, 
 
 As if to quell the frosty influence 
 Which wraps the world in its unstained attire, 
 They draw our spirits heavenward to admire. 
 
 Nor them alone. For in the marbled sky 
 
 Ten thousand little snow-white cloudlets lie, 
 In fleecy clusters ranged from east to west, 
 
 AVhich meet the toil-worn swain's exalted eye, 
 As when he sees upon the upland's breast 
 His own unspotted flock at silent rest, 
 
 With all their new-born mountain lambkins by, 
 And to his meditative mind recall 
 The mighty Shepherd that o'erlooks them all. 
 

 
 II. 
 
 CHRISTMAS. 
 
 O, HASTE the rites of that auspicious day, 
 
 When white-probed altars, wreathed in living green, 
 
 Adorn the temples,* and, half hid, half seen, 
 The priest and people emulously pay 
 
 Glad homage, with the festal chants between ; 
 And, aisles and arches echoing back the strain, 
 
 The sylvan tapestry around is stirred ; 
 
 And voices sweeter than the song of bird 
 Are resonant within the leafy fane. 
 
 If, in the fadeless foliage gathered there, 
 Pale Nature has so bright an offering, 
 
 Where all beside is withered, waste, and bare, 
 What lively tribute should our spirits bring 
 
 To beautify, O Lord, thy holy place of prayer ? 
 
 a Hillhouse's Vision of Judgment. 
 4 
 
III. 
 
 SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST. 
 
 " The disciple whom Jesus loved." 
 
 Gospel for the Day. 
 
 O HIGHLY favoured, unto whom 't was given 
 
 To lay thy hand upon the golden keys 
 
 That ope th' empyrean mysteries, 
 And all the bright apocalypse of heaven ! 
 Sweet solace of thy sorrowing soul, when driven 
 
 Into its island banishment alone. 
 Thy rapturous spirit has been long at rest, 
 
 Partaker of the glories then foreshown, 
 
 And knowing even as thy thoughts were known. 
 And if to bide His baptism be the test, 
 
 And drink the cup peculiarly His own, 
 Then thou hast gained thy mother's fond request, 
 
 And, stationed near the everlasting throne, 
 Shalt lean once more upon thy Saviour's breast. 
 
 5 
 
IV. 
 
 THE SEVEN CHURCHES. 
 
 How doth each city solitary sit 
 
 That once was full of people ! Round his path 
 The Christian pilgrim finds remaining yet 
 
 The fearful records of accomplished wrath. 
 
 The glory of God's house departed hath ; 
 The golden candlestick cannot emit 
 
 One glimmering ray, however faint and dim ; 
 
 There is no consecrated oil to trim 
 Th' extinguished flame which once the Spirit lit. 
 
 Alas ! that he who hath an ear to hear 
 The teaching of that Spirit, can forget 
 These dread fulfilments of prophetic writ, 
 
 Nor lay them to his stricken heart, in fear 
 Lest he thus hear, and thus abandon it. 
 
V. 
 
 EPIPHANY. 
 
 JOY to thy savage realms, O Africa ! 
 A sign is on thee that the great I AM 
 Shall work new wonders in the land of Ham ; 
 
 And while he tarries for the glorious day 
 To bring again his people, there shall be 
 A remnant left, from Cushan to the sea. 
 
 And though the Ethiop cannot change his skin, 
 Or bleach the outward stain, he yet shall roll 
 The darkness off that overshades the soul, 
 
 And wash away the deeper dyes of sin. 
 Princes, submissive to the Gospel sway, 
 
 Shall come from Egypt ; and the Morian's land 
 
 In holy transport stretch to God its hand : 
 Joy to thy savage realms, O Africa ! 
 
VI. 
 
 THE FAR WEST. 
 
 IN the recesses of the western wood, 
 
 In to its very heart, by all forgot 
 
 Save Him who made me, would it were my lot 
 To bear the burden of its solitude ; 
 
 And in some wild and unfrequented spot, 
 Sharing the Indian hunter's cabin rude, 
 
 To lead, in glad return, a willing guide, 
 
 His humbled spirit to the Crucified ; 
 And in the solemn twilight, hushed and dim, 
 
 The forest people often gathering, 
 
 To make the green and pillared arches ring, 
 Not with the war-song, but the holy hymn. 
 
 So might I live, and leave no other trace 
 
 Where I had made my earthly dwelling-place. 
 
VII. 
 
 CRETE. 
 
 ANCIENT of years, the hundred-citied isle ! 
 
 Still art thou left a goodly sight to see ; 
 
 To breathe thine air is still a luxury, 
 And man alone, of all around, is vile, 
 
 Viler than e'en thy first-born Caphtorim.* 
 When shalt thou be once more as thou hast been ? 
 
 When shall thy navied strength resistless swim, 
 And make thee, Britain-like, an ocean queen ? 
 When, rising from the dust, shalt thou be seen 
 
 A nursing mother to the Church again, 
 And when, alas ! another Titus come 
 
 To rear the fallen Cross, nor reordain 
 
 In all thy cities priestly men in vain, 
 But leave thy name a praise in Christendom ? 
 
 a Amos ix. 7. 
 
VIII. 
 
 LENT. 
 
 THE holy Lenten time is now far spent ; 
 
 And from the muffled altars, everywhere, 
 
 Full many a warning voice has bid prepare 
 The Lord's highway, and cried aloud, Repent ! 
 And be your hearts, and not your garments, rent ; 
 
 And turn unto the Lord your God with prayer. 
 Not, as aforetime, are the contrite sent 
 
 To sackcloth, ashes, and the shirt of hair, 
 
 Or knotted thong ; but consciences laid bare, 
 And lowly minds, and knees in secret bent, 
 And fasts in spirit, mark the penitent. 
 
 Let not the broken-hearted, then, despair ; 
 The sighs of those who worthily lament 
 
 Their sins, reach Heaven, and are accepted there. 
 10 
 
IX. 
 
 CHRIST BEARING THE CROSS. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING. 
 
 IF thou wouldst fortify thy young belief, 
 Christian disciple, read with anxious look 
 The pictured comment on the holy book, 
 
 That tells the sufferings of thy chosen Chief, 
 
 Nor let the look be single, neither brief: 
 
 That tortured eye, and countenance so meek, 
 So mild, and yet majestical, bespeak 
 
 The Man of Sorrows, intimate with grief. 
 From Him learn how divinity could lend 
 
 A dignity to suffering, nor disdain 
 
 Art's utmost effort in one face to blend 
 
 Immortal fortitude with mortal pain ; 
 
 And let not faith despise the aid of sense, 
 Nor spurn the pencil's mute omnipotence. 
 
X. 
 
 TO THE HEPATICA TRILOBA, 
 
 FOUND IN MARCH. 
 
 WHY liftest thou, so premature, thy head 
 
 Amid the withered waste, pale flower? Say, why 
 
 Dost thou, alone and desolate, defy 
 The year, yet unconfirmed, while there is shed 
 No wholesome dew upon thy leaf-strewn bed, 
 
 All choked and matted; but the frost-wind's sigh 
 
 Is heard, at eve, thy chill slope rustling by ? 
 Hast thou forgot thy time, or dost thou spread 
 
 Thy sweet leaves to the air, and smiling wave 
 ? Mid blasted verdure, like the garland shed 
 
 By fond affection o'er the early grave, 
 To breathe its bloom around the youthful dead ? 
 
 Short be their sleep in dust as thine, fair flower ! 
 
 So wake to life and joy when past their wintry hour ! 
 
XI. 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 ONCE more thou comest, O delicious Spring ! 
 And as thy light and gentle footsteps tread 
 Among earth's glories, desolate and dead, 
 
 Breathest revival over everything. 
 
 Thy genial spirit is abroad to bring 
 
 The cold and faded into life and bloom, 
 Emblem of that which shall unlock the tomb, 
 
 And take away the fell destroyer's sting. 
 
 Therefore thou hast the warmer welcoming : 
 For Nature speaks not of herself alone, 
 But in her resurrection tells our own. 
 
 As from its grave comes forth the buried grain, 
 So man's frail body, in corruption sown, 
 
 In incorruption shall be raised again. 
 
 13 
 

 XII. 
 
 INFANT BAPTISM. 
 
 How heavenly an inheritance is thine, 
 
 Sweet babe ! whom yon baptismal group present, 
 
 Now that the consecrating element 
 Hath bathed thy forehead, and the crucial sign 
 Is as a frontlet bound between the eyne, 
 
 In token that hereafter thou shalt be 
 A faithful soldier in the cause divine, 
 
 And, in thy triple warfare, manfully 
 Beneath the banner of the Cross shalt fight. 
 If Christ himself so tenderly invite 
 
 The little children to his heavenly fold, 
 They mock his ordinance, and do despite 
 
 Unto his high behest, who dare withhold 
 Or yet delay the pure, regenerating rite. 
 
 14 
 
XIII. 
 
 CONFIRMATION. 
 
 THE white-stoled Bishop stood amid the crowd, 
 Novitiates all, who, tutored to revere 
 The mitre's holy offices, drew near, 
 
 And, after sins renounced and pledges vowed, 
 Pale with emotion and religious fear, 
 
 In meek subjection, round the chancel, bowed 
 To hallowed hands, that o'er them, one by one, 
 Fell with a Prelate's thrilling benison. 
 
 Thou, who canst make the loadstone's touch impart 
 An active virtue to the tempered steel, 
 O, let Thy hand rest on them, till they feel 
 
 A new-born impulse stirring in the heart, 
 And, swinging from surrounding objects free, 
 Point with a tremulous confidence to Thee. 
 
XIV. 
 
 THE KNOT. 
 
 HOLY and happy be the wedded pair, 
 
 Who, typifying here the solemn rite 
 
 To which the Bridegroom and His Church invite 
 The good in heaven hereafter, hope to share 
 The glories of His great espousal there. 
 
 They, when He cometh at the dead of night 
 In triumph with the Spirit and the Bride, 
 
 Shall go to meet Him, with their odorous light 
 
 Well trimmed and burning steadily and bright, 
 And entering in together, side by side, 
 
 In wedding garments robed of purest white, 
 
 With crowns of gold, and waving boughs of palm, 
 Sit down among the hosts beatified, 
 
 Guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb. 
 
 16 
 
XY. 
 
 COMMUNION OF THE SICK. 
 
 KEBLE'S POEM IN ANOTHER VERSION. 
 
 A SIMPLE altar stood beside the bed, 
 With plate, and chalice, and fair linen vest, 
 
 For that communion high and holy spread : 
 We ate and drank, and then, serenely blest, 
 
 All mourners, one with calmly parting breath, 
 
 We talked together of the Saviour's death. 
 O gentle spirit, from thy sainted rest 
 
 Look down upon us who must yet remain, 
 
 With whom thou shared the hallowed cup of grace, 
 And so soon parted ; thou to Christ's embrace, 
 
 We to the world's drear loneliness again ; 
 
 Come, and remind us of the heavenly strain 
 We practised as thou passed through Eden's door, 
 To be sung on, with angels evermore. 
 
 B 17 
 
XVI. 
 
 THE KNELL. 
 
 NOT e'en thy heavenly and harmonious swell, 
 
 Calling to Sabbath worship with a sound 
 
 From tower to tower reverberated round, 
 Can with my spirit harmonize so well 
 As that sad requiem, melancholy bell ! 
 
 Which with unvaried cadence, stern and dull. 
 
 Tolls for the burial of the beautiful. 
 There is a potent and a thrilling spell 
 
 In every solitary stroke, to start 
 Long-cherished thoughts from memory's inmost cell, 
 And deep affections ; while each warning tone 
 
 That rests, 'mid solemn pauses far apart, 
 Like drops of water dripping on a stone, 
 
 Cheerless and ceaseless, wears into the heart. 
 
 18 
 

 XVII. 
 
 SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE. 
 
 WHEN Herod had put forth his hand in hate 
 
 To vex the Church, and thy heart's blood was pour'd 
 
 Beneath the tyrant's persecuting sword, 
 First of the chosen twelve, *t is said thy fate 
 So wrought on thine accuser, that, o'ercome 
 
 By thine example, and by grace subdued, 
 
 He came, with voluntary fortitude, 
 To share the torture of thy martyrdom, 
 
 And thus pronounce his conscience satisfied. 
 
 Cheering each other onward, side by side, 
 Together went betrayer and betrayed, 
 And on the self-same block their heads were laid ; 
 
 And while their blood the self-same scaffold dyed, 
 The self-same faith unshrinkingly displayed. 
 IP 
 
>ft 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 SAINT BARTHOLOMEW. 
 
 THOUGH it were eminence enough to be 
 
 Enrolled among the apostolic few, 
 Who, at their Master's call, devotedly 
 
 Went forth his self-denying work to do, 
 
 This is not all thy praise, Bartholomew ; 
 Thou for such fellowship wast set apart 
 
 By One who saw thee from afar, and knew 
 Thy spirit undefiled and void of art. 
 
 And still the portrait which thy Saviour drew 
 Bears record to thy singleness of heart. 
 For wide as Gospel tidings have been spread 
 
 Throughout all tongues, o'er continent and isle, 
 Shall this memorial to thy worth be read, 
 
 An Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. 
 20 
 
XIX. 
 
 SAINT MATTHEW. 
 
 RENOUNCING a vocation so abhorred, 
 
 Uncertain riches and the lust of gain, 
 How blest it were, commanded by the Lord, 
 
 While yet he passes by, to join his train, 
 And, taking up his cross, to walk like thee ! 
 
 Nor be the power of those examples vain 
 Which thine own sacred registries record ; 
 But, written for our learning, may they be 
 Read, marked, discerned, digested inwardly, 
 
 Until we see the path of duty plain, 
 Embrace the truth, and ever hold it fast, 
 And pressing onward, daily self-surpassed, 
 
 By comfort of that holy word, attain 
 The same eternal promises at last. 
 
XX. 
 
 MICHAELMAS. 
 
 LIFT up your heads, ye everlasting gates ! 
 
 While, with our brethren of the crystal sky, 
 
 God's glorious name we laud and magnify. 
 Angels, Archangels, Powers, and Potentates, 
 Dominions, Thrones, and thou, pre-eminent, 
 
 Among the leaders of the orders bright, 
 
 Who beat in battle from the starry height 
 Th' apostate spirit down his dread descent. 
 
 With these, O Michael, the redeemed unite 
 In that triumphant and eternal hymn, 
 Which, passing to each other, Cherubim 
 
 And Seraphim continually do cry : 
 Holy, thrice holy, Lord of love and light ! 
 
 All glory be to thee, O God most high ! 
 
XXI. 
 
 SAINT LUKE. 
 
 BLESSED Physician ! from thy ancient scroll 
 Can we not draw some wholesome medicine 
 To heal the heart that sickens with its sin, 
 
 And cure the deep distemper of the soul ? 
 
 Is there no balm in Gilead, to make whole 
 The bruised and broken spirit, and within 
 The bleeding bosom stanch the wound, and win 
 
 The stubborn malady to its control ? 
 
 Blessed Physician ! happy is thy dole, 
 
 Whose praise hath in the Gospel ever been ; 
 
 For thou wast His disciple who could bring 
 Help to the helpless on their bed of pain, 
 And from the gates of double death again 
 
 Restore the hopeless in their languishing. 
 
XXII. 
 
 FOXE'S BOOK OF MARTYRS. 
 
 I WELL remember, from my earliest age, 
 
 How, with a yearning heart, I loved to look, 
 Old Chronicler, upon thy pictured page, 
 
 That lent a glory to thy Martyrs' Book ; 
 And as I saw the patient sufferers there, 
 
 Like the three children in the furnace flame, 
 Without a smell of fire, unsinged their hair, 
 
 From year to year unaltered and the same, 
 I thought that even martyrdom was light, 
 
 And counted them as happy who endured 
 A fire no fiercer than it seemed to sight, 
 
 Of God's good will eternally secured ! 
 Thus do we look on sufferings yet untried, 
 Which man can only bear, when Heaven is on his 
 side! 
 
 24 
 
XXIII. 
 VALEDICTORY. 
 
 ON CLOSING A SERIES OF POEMS SIGNED <{ ASAPH." 
 
 WHY have I dared to wake the sacred string, 
 Silent for ages, fearing not to hold 
 High harping with that glorious bard of old, 
 
 The chief musician to the minstrel king ? 
 
 Alas ! that e'er presumptuous hand should bring 
 Dishonour on that borrowed name, or wrong 
 The leader in the service of the song. 
 
 Though fain to make his loud Shoshannim ring 
 In concert with the consecrated throng, 
 Who in their solemn courses, all life long, 
 Kept Zion's courts resounding with its swell, 
 
 So faint and fitful are the sounds I fling, 
 My soul recoils lest they profane the shell ; 
 Farewell, then, hallowed harp ! forever fare thee 
 well! 
 
XXIV. 
 PALINODE. 
 
 " LADY, FOR THEE TO SPEAK, AND BE OBEYED, 
 ARE ONE." 
 
 WHILE I, adventurous all too long, retire, 
 Expecting scarcely pardon, much less praise, 
 The unstrung chords what sweeping spirit sways ? 
 
 What sudden murmurings from the abandoned lyre 
 
 Pass on the breeze, and, as they pass, expire ? 
 O, could my disproportioned powers retain, 
 Forever treasured up, that cherished tone, 
 And blend, yet not abase it, with my own, 
 Its sweet reproaches had not been in vain ; 
 
 Yea, could I, kindled with a kindred fire, 
 But hope to catch the echoings of that voice 
 
 Which bids my harp renew its feeble strain, 
 How would my bounding bosom then rejoice, 
 
 Nor breathe distrust of God's good gifts again ! 
 
 26 
 
XXV. 
 A PRAYER, 
 
 ON BEGINNING A PERIODICAL NAMED " THE WATCHMAN." 
 
 O THOU, whom slumber reacheth not, nor sleep, 
 The guardian God of Zion, in whose sight 
 A thousand years pass like a watch at night, 
 
 Her battlements and high munitions keep, 
 Or else the WATCHMAN waketh but in vain. 
 
 Him, in his station newly set, make strong, 
 And, in his vigils, vigilant ; sustain 
 
 His overwearied spirit, in its long 
 
 And lonely round from eve till matin-song ; 
 
 And of Thy charge remind him, Watch and pray. 
 
 So, whether coming at the midnight bell, 
 Or at cock-crowing, or at break of day, 
 
 Thou find him faithful, and say, All is well, 
 
 How rich is the reward of that true sentinel I 
 
 27 
 
XXVI. 
 
 TRINITY COLLEGE, HARTFORD. 
 
 IN after days shall come heroic youth, 
 
 Warm from the school of glory : With a pride 
 I quote thy high prediction, Akenside, 
 
 In joyous hope to realize its truth, 
 
 Ere envious Time print his undainty tooth 
 
 Upon these sombre walls ; which then descried 
 'Mid groves that half develope and half hide, 
 
 Shall haply stay some loiterer by the flow 
 
 Of Hart's sweet waves, that gladden as they glide 
 
 By wooded steep, green bank, and margin low, 
 Till o'er his soul float up in classic dream 
 
 The long-lost image of the Portico, 
 
 The Sophist's seat, fast by Ilyssus' stream, 
 Lyceum's green retreats, and walks of Academe. 
 
^Jiyfe^y 
 '^fj^^^j^^ 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A PASTOR. 
 
 DEVOTED shepherd of thy Saviour's flock ! 
 
 From thy sublime and loved vocation rent, 
 *T is joy to know the overwhelming shock 
 
 Of thy bewept departure shall augment 
 The multitudinous army of the good, 
 And raise thee to that holy brotherhood. 
 
 Ashes to ashes, dust to kindred dust, 
 Thy body is committed to the ground ; 
 Thy spirit, with all Christian graces crowned, 
 
 (Such is our certain confidence and trust,) 
 
 Enjoys communion with the sainted just. 
 Long may such servants of the Church abound, 
 
 And, from the altars where thy light has stood, 
 Shed burning lustre on the land around ! 
 
XXVIII. 
 
 BURIAL OF ASHMUN. 
 
 WHAT desolate mourner rushes to the bier, 
 And stays the solemn rites of this sad hour ? 
 
 God, sustain her as she draweth near, 
 Support her in the struggles that o'erpower ! 
 
 It is a childless mother that bows down 
 
 Beside the coffined corpse, amid the crowd ; 
 
 It is the ashes of her only son, 
 
 His living face unseen for many a year : 
 
 Well may she lift her voice, and weep aloud. 
 
 The world cannot console her. God alone 
 
 Hath power to speak to such a sorrowing one, 
 And take her dreadful load of grief away : 
 To man it is not given ; for who can say, 
 
 In his own single strength, " Thy will be done " ? 
 
XXIX. 
 
 MEMORIAL 
 
 OF A COLOURED CLERGYMAN ORDAINED FOR A MISSION 
 TO AFRICA. 
 
 NOT on the voyage which our hopes had planned 
 Shalt thou go forth, poor exile, o'er the main ; 
 
 The savage glories of thy fatherland 
 Shall never bless thy aged sight again ; 
 Nor shalt thou toil to loose a heavier chain 
 
 Than e'er was fastened by the spoiler's hand. 
 
 And yet the work for which thy bosom yearned 
 Shall never rest, though Sin and Death detain 
 Messiah from his many-peopled reign, 
 
 Till all thy captive brethren have returned. 
 
 But thou hast gained, (O blest exchange !) instead, 
 A better country, and a heavenly home, 
 Where all the ransomed of the Lord shall come, 
 
 With everlasting joy upon their head. 
 
XXX. 
 
 TO A FRIEND, 
 
 ON HIS CONSECKATION TO THE EPISCOPATE. 
 
 LET no gainsaying lips despise thy youth ; 
 
 Like his, the great Apostle's favourite son, 
 
 Whose early rule at Ephesus begun, 
 Thy Urim and thy Thummim Light and Truth 
 
 Be thy protection from the Holy One : 
 And for thy fiery trials, be there shed 
 A sevenfold grace on thine anointed head, 
 
 Till thy right onward course shall all be run. 
 And when thy earthly championship is through, 
 
 Thy warfare fought, thy fearful battle won, 
 And heaven's own palms of triumph bright in view, 
 
 May this thy thrilling welcome be : Well done ! 
 Because thou hast been faithful over few, 
 A mightier rule be thine, O servant good and true ' 
 
XXXI. 
 
 THE CATECHIST. 
 
 TO A SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER. 
 
 MUCH do we miss thee from thy gentle task 
 
 Of love and mercy, on the Sabbath day, 
 As gather round thy little ones, to ask 
 
 What keeps their kindly Teacher far away. 
 The sweet and solemn quiet of the hours, 
 
 The sounds as solemn and as sweet as they, 
 In sevenfold cadence flung from yon old towers, 
 
 Where thou so oft hast met with us to pray, 
 These and the blessing on each head that brings 
 
 Young souls from darkness into light divine, 
 Connect thy memory with all heavenliest things, 
 
 And make a day of glorious prospect thine, 
 When they shall rise on strong, immortal wings, 
 
 And like a starry firmament shall shine. 
 
 C 33 
 
XXXII. 
 
 IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 HERE, Lady, as from some Sibylline leaf, 
 Read of the after time, when thou shalt know 
 Thou hast a mightier book than Prospero ; 
 Albeit he of necromancers chief 
 
 Boasted his volume of enchanting power, 
 (As thou hast read, whose leisure loves to pore 
 On Britain's and thy country's choicest lore,) 
 
 To call departed spirits to his bower. 
 This is the potent tome, which erewhile, spread 
 At mystic moments, when thy soul has read 
 Each penman's spell work, howsoever brief, 
 
 Shall straight recall his form in life and limb ; 
 Then Heaven forefend, that gentle hearts, with grief, 
 Or yet in anger, should remember him. 
 
 34 
 
XXXIII. 
 
 TO A WINGED FIGURE BY RAPHAEL. 
 
 WHETHER thou gazest up to some far isle 
 
 In the star-sprinkled depths above, where live 
 The race from whom thou art a fugitive, 
 
 Unseen, unheard from, for a dreary while ; 
 
 Or whether, seeking to restrain the smile 
 That rises to thy lips, thy fingers strive 
 To hide what eyes so bold and bright contrive ; 
 
 Or whether, meditating good or guile, 
 
 Thou restest on thine arm contemplative, 
 Are problems deeper than where thought can dive. 
 
 But if thy breast be not a holy pile, 
 
 Where naught unclean hath entered to defile, 
 Then Heaven forgive thee, false one ! and forgive 
 
 That I should trifle with a theme so vile. 
 
XXXIV. 
 
 MEDITATION 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A CLERGYMAN. 
 
 As some tall column meets its overthrow, 
 And levelled in the dust reclines, at length, 
 In all its graceful symmetry of strength, 
 
 So manhood, in his middle years, lies low, 
 
 Singled by death from out the stateliest, 
 While yet he lifts his towering head elate, 
 And feels the firmer for the very weight 
 
 Of all that in dependence on him rest. 
 
 Ah, why should we bewail his present fall, 
 Though prostrate now, and basely undertrod, 
 
 If, at the Master Builder's final call, 
 
 He stand amid the upright as before, 
 A pillar in the temple of his God, 
 
 And from his happy station go no more ? 
 
 36 
 
POEMS. 
 
CLOUDS. 
 
 " Cloud-land ! gorgeous land ! " COLERIDGE. 
 
 I CANNOT look above, and see 
 
 Yon high-piled, pillowy mass 
 Of evening clouds, so swimmingly 
 
 In gold and purple pass, 
 And think not, Lord, how Thou wast seen 
 
 On 'Israel's desert way, 
 Before them, in thy shadowy screen, 
 
 Pavilioned all the day ; 
 
 Or of those robes of gorgeous hue 
 
 Which the Redeemer wore, 
 When, ravished from his followers' view, 
 
 Aloft his flight he bore ; 
 When, lifted as on mighty wing, 
 
 He curtained his ascent, 
 And, wrapt in clouds, went triumphing 
 
 Above the firmament. 
 
40 CLOUDS. 
 
 Is it a trail of that same pall 
 
 Of many-coloured dyes 
 That high above, o'ermantling all, 
 
 Hangs midway down the skies ? 
 Or borders of those sweeping folds 
 
 Which shall be all unfurled 
 About the Saviour, when he holds 
 
 His judgment on the world ? 
 
 For in like manner as he went 
 
 (My soul, hast thou forgot ?) 
 Shall be his terrible descent, 
 
 When man expecteth not. 
 Strength, Son of man ! against that hour, 
 
 Be to our spirits given, 
 When thou shalt come again, with power, 
 
 Upon the clouds of heaven. 
 
DRINK, AND AWAY! 
 
 " There is a beautiful rill in Barbary received into a large basin, 
 which bears a name signifying Drink, and away ! from the great 
 
 danger of meeting with rogues and assassins." 
 
 DR. SHAW. 
 
 UP, pilgrim and rover ! 
 
 Redouble thy haste, 
 Nor rest thee till over 
 
 Life's wearisome waste : 
 Ere the wild forest ranger 
 
 Thy footsteps betray 
 To trouble and danger, 
 
 O, drink, and away ! 
 
 Here lurks the dark savage 
 
 By night and by day, 
 To rob and to ravage, 
 
 Nor scruples to slay. 
 He waits for the slaughter ; 
 
 The blood of his prey 
 Shall stain the still water ; 
 
 Then drink, and away ! 
 
 41 
 
42 DRINK, AND AWAY! 
 
 With toil though thou languish, 
 
 The mandate obey : 
 Spur on, though in anguish ; 
 
 There 's death in delay. 
 No bloodhound, want-wasted, 
 
 Is fiercer than they ; 
 Pass by it untasted, 
 
 Or drink, and away ! 
 
 Though sore be the trial, 
 
 Thy God is thy stay ; 
 Though deep the denial, 
 
 Yield not in dismay ; 
 But, rapt in high vision, 
 
 Look on to the day 
 When fountains elysian 
 
 Thy thirst shall allay. 
 
 Then shalt thou forever 
 
 Enjoy thy repose, 
 Where life's gentle river 
 
 Eternally flows ; 
 Yea, there shalt thou rest thee 
 
 Forever and aye, 
 With none to molest thee : 
 
 Then drink, and away ! 
 
WHEELOCK COTTAGE, MEDFIELD. 
 
 O, WORTHY of the artist's skill, 
 
 And passing fair to see, 
 That humble cot beneath the hill, 
 
 That shadowing willow-tree ; 
 The places where, with hook and line, 
 
 We dabbled in the pond, 
 (From morning sun to hungry dine,) 
 
 And all that lies beyond ! 
 
 But who shall paint the inmate there, 
 
 The pleasant face that made 
 The scene around us doubly fair. 
 
 And sunshine in the shade, 
 Whose cheerful age, reproving me 
 
 When I at luck repine, 
 Seems, in its soothing harmony, 
 
 So like to auld lang syne ? 
 
44 WHEELOCK COTTAGE. 
 
 A thousand happy days and blest 
 
 May Heaven award thee still, 
 Dear friend ! before thou go to rest 
 
 With those upon the hill ; 
 There may'st thou meet, in love's embrace, 
 
 The friends thou here hast known, 
 And see each fond, familiar face 
 
 As happy as thine own. 
 
THE KOBIN'S NEST, 
 
 DESTROYED BY A CAT. 
 
 ALL day, from yonder churchyard tree, 
 
 The redbreast, mourning for his mate, 
 Has poured that thrilling elegy, 
 
 Heart-broken and disconsolate. 
 Her favourite bough he never leaves ; 
 
 He never ceases to complain ; 
 But grieves, as if, like man, he grieves 
 
 The more because he grieves in vain. 
 
 Poor bird ! a troubled thought they wake, 
 
 Those notes of unaffected sorrow, 
 The thought how this sad heart may ache 
 
 With that same bitter pang to-morrow. 
 I dare not think what clouds of gloom 
 
 Upon our sunny hopes may fall, 
 And in one hour of bliss may doom 
 
 Dear mate, and nest, and nestlings all ! 
 
 45 
 
NATURE AND REVELATION. 
 
 IMITATED FROM THE PERSIAN OF KHOSROO. 
 
 I WANDERED by the burying-place, 
 
 And sorely there I wept, 
 To think how many of my friends 
 
 Within its mansions slept ; 
 And, wrung with bitter grief, I cried 
 
 Aloud in my despair, 
 WHERE, dear companions, have ye fled ? 
 
 And Echo answered, WHERE ? 
 
 While Nature's voice thus flouted me, 
 
 A voice from heaven replied, 
 O, weep not for the happy dead, 
 
 Who in the Lord have died ; 
 Sweet is their rest who sleep in Christ, 
 
 Though lost awhile to thee ; 
 Tread in their steps, and sweeter still 
 
 Your meeting hour shall be ! 
 
 46 
 
A NIGHT THOUGHTS 
 
 PET lilies of your kind, 
 
 Effeminate and pale, 
 That shiver in the autumn wind, 
 
 Like reeds before the gale, 
 Ye have not toiled nor spun, 
 
 As sister lilies might, 
 Nor are ye wise as Solomon, 
 
 Though sumptuous to the sight. 
 
 O fair, and well arrayed ! 
 
 And are ye they to whom 
 The world is under tribute laid 
 
 For finery and perfume ? 
 And have ye no delight, 
 
 Naught else that may avail, 
 To weather that eternal night, 
 
 When these expedients fail ? 
 
 a See Young, Night Second, lines 232-253. 
 
 47 
 
GREECE. 
 
 "A debtor to the Greeks." ST. PAUL. 
 
 UPON thy sacred mountain-tops, 
 
 How beautiful, O Greece, 
 The feet of him that publisheth 
 
 Through all thy borders peace ! 
 Like Paul, his spirit to release 
 
 Of those high claims he seeks, 
 Which bankrupt all the love we owe 
 
 As debtors to the Greeks. 
 
 A piercing cry from Mace don 
 
 Rings o'er the ocean still, 
 A cry from Athens, and the shrine 
 
 Upon its idol-hill. 
 A cry from Corinth and the Isles 
 
 Of loud entreaty speaks : 
 Up, Christians ! to your great discharge, 
 
 As debtors to the Greeks. 
 
 48 
 
THE BROOK KEDROX. 
 
 " He went over the brook Kedron with his disciples." ST. JOHN. 
 
 THE vale of thy brook of Life's valley so drear 
 
 Meet emblem, dark Kedron, might be, 
 As it swelled in its hurried and horrid career 
 
 To the depths of a desolate sea : 
 Unceasingly fed with the blood of the slain 
 
 From the Temple's far height was its flow, 
 Till it seemed like some wounded and wandering vein 
 
 That was lost in the distance below. 
 
 There David went over, and wept as he went ; 
 
 There his Son in his sorrow passed o'er, 
 And his garments were dipped in its crimson de- 
 scent, 
 
 Like a warrior's, wading in gore ; 
 And, wrapt in forebodings of anguish and woe, 
 
 It heightened that vision of pain, 
 When the blood of a mightier Victim should flow, 
 
 And the Lamb of the promise be slain. 
 
50 THE BROOK KEDRON. 
 
 Now, Kedron, for ages thy course has been dried, 
 
 And thy sands are unmarked with a stain, 
 Since the Victim ordained from eternity died, 
 
 And the Lamb of the promise was slain ; 
 The pilgrim now passes dry-shod o'er thy bed, 
 
 And the thought to his spirit may lay, 
 He who drank of the brook hath uplifted his head, 
 
 And hath borne our transgressions away ! 
 
THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 " But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon 
 their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the 
 vail shall be taken away." ST. PAUL. 
 
 I SAW them in their synagogue as in their ancient 
 
 day, 
 And never from my memory the scene shall fade 
 
 away ; 
 For dazzling on my vision still the latticed galleries 
 
 shine 
 With Israel's loveliest daughters, in their beauty 
 
 half divine. 
 
 It is the holy Sabbath eve ; the solitary light 
 Sheds, mingled with the hues of day, a lustre noth- 
 ing bright ; 
 
 51 
 
52 THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 On swarthy brow and piercing glance it falls with 
 
 saddening tinge, 
 And dimly gilds the Pharisee's phylacteries and 
 
 fringe. 
 
 The two-leaved doors slide slow apart before the 
 Eastern screen, 
 
 As rise the Hebrew harmonies, with chanted pray- 
 ers between ; 
 
 And 'mid the tissued veils disclosed, of many a gor- 
 geous dye, 
 
 Enveloped in their jewelled scarfs, the sacred rec- 
 ords lie. 
 
 Robed in his sacerdotal vest, a silvery-headed man, 
 With voice of solemn cadence, o'er the backward 
 
 letters ran ; 
 And often yet methinks I see the glow and power 
 
 that sate 
 Upon his face, as forth he spread the roll immaculate. 
 
 And fervently, that hour, I prayed, that from the 
 mighty scroll 
 
 Its light, in burning characters, might break on ev- 
 ery soul ; 
 
 That on their hardened hearts the veil might be no 
 longer dark, 
 
 But be forever rent in twain, like that before the ark. 
 
THE SYNAGOGUE. 
 
 53 
 
 For yet the tenfold film shall fall, O Judah ! from 
 thy sight, 
 
 And every eye be purged to read thy testimonies 
 right, 
 
 When thou, with all Messiah's signs in Christ dis- 
 tinctly seen, 
 
 Shalt, by Jehovah's nameless name, invoke the Naz- 
 arene. 
 
MIDNIGHT THOUGHT. 
 
 'T is the very verge of the midnight deep, 
 
 And I hark for the passing-bell, 
 That shall presently come, with its solemn sweep, 
 
 To bid the last hour farewell ; 
 A lonely vigil it is to keep, 
 
 As I sadly think of those 
 Who have sunk away to their long, last sleep, 
 
 And their undisturbed repose. 
 
 But O, how happy to think, this night, 
 
 Of the eyes that are shut, like flowers, 
 To open again more fresh and bright, 
 
 With the brighter and fresher hours : 
 Of the hosts of God, who pitch their tents 
 
 All good men round about, 
 Protecting their slumbering innocence, 
 
 And making their dreams devout ! 
 
DE PROFUNDIS. 
 
 " There may be a cloud without a rainbow, but there cannot be 
 a rainbow without a cloud." 
 
 MY soul were dark 
 
 But for the golden light and rainbow hue, 
 That, sweeping heaven with their triumphal arc, 
 
 Break on the view. 
 
 Enough to feel 
 
 That God indeed is good. Enough to know, 
 Without the gloomy cloud, He could reveal 
 
 No beauteous bow. 
 
PALESTINE. 
 
 THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. 
 
 " Several travellers, and, among others, Troilo and D'Arvieux, 
 assert that they remarked fragments of walls and palaces in the 
 Dead Sea. This statement seems to be confirmed by Maundrell 
 and Father Nahan. The ancients speak more positively on this 
 subject. Josephus, who employs a poetic expression, says that 
 he perceived on the banks of the lake the shades of the over- 
 whelmed cities. Strabo gives a circumference of sixty stadia to 
 the ruins of Sodom, which are mentioned also by Tacitus. I 
 know not whether they still exist ; but as the lake rises and falls 
 at certain seasons, it is possible that it may alternately cover and 
 expose the skeletons of the reprobate cities." CHATEAUBRIAND. 
 
 I WANDERED by the Dead Sea brink, in dreaming 
 
 hour, to gaze 
 Upon the awful monuments and wrecks of ancient 
 
 days, 
 
 If haply yet its rocky isles might alter on my eyes, 
 And, like some arch enchanter's pile, in gramarye 
 
 arise ; 
 
 56 
 
PALESTINE. 57 
 
 If yet the clustering bitumen its rude resemblance 
 bore 
 
 To pomps that here had glorified the younger world 
 before, 
 
 And peering still above the tide, if summits might 
 be seen, 
 
 Magnificent, like Baly's towers, in sunlight and sea- 
 green. 
 
 A mournful sight it was, I ween, that sea, from 
 
 shore to shore 
 Unruffled by one venturous wing, unbroken by an 
 
 oar; 
 
 The air above, the earth around, the desolate ex- 
 panse 
 
 Beneath my feet, were all alike without inhabitants ; 
 And, nearest like to living thing, the evening wind 
 
 was loud, 
 And Jordan, as its raving streams contested passage 
 
 crowd, 
 And suffocating bursts of smoke that poison all the 
 
 air, 
 Told how God's early wrath had left eternal traces 
 
 there. 
 
 But louder than the Jordan's rush, and deeper than 
 
 the breeze 
 That rustled in the hollow reeds, methought, were 
 
 sounds like these ; 
 
58 PALESTINE. 
 
 They came up with the sulphurous fumes that from 
 
 the surface broke, 
 As if the voice of those below in solemn warning 
 
 spoke : 
 O, had the wonders here been done which now are 
 
 done in vain, 
 Still had these buried cities stood, the glory of the 
 
 plain ; 
 But darker is thy country's doom, and better shall 
 
 it be 
 For Sodom, in the judgment day, than, guilty land, 
 
 for thee ! 
 
AFRICA. 
 
 WHEN shall thy centre opened be ? 
 
 When shall the veil, that lay 
 Upon that land of mystery 
 
 So long, be torn away ? 
 When shall the hallowed Cross be seen 
 
 Far in those sunny tracts, 
 Beyond the lofty mountain screen, 
 
 And thundering cataracts ? 
 
 When shall thy daily barks, that bring 
 
 Rich lading to the sea, 
 Of plumes of gorgeous colouring 
 
 And choicest ivory, 
 And incense of acacia groves, 
 
 And costly gems, and grains 
 Of that most valued gold washed down 
 
 By Abyssinian rains ; 
 
60 AFRICA. 
 
 When shall they bear a freightage back 
 
 More precious than those woods, 
 Whose fragrance fills the Niger's track 
 
 In seasons of the floods ? 
 When shall each kingdom that receives 
 
 The Gospel, learn to prize 
 The treasures hidden in its leaves 
 
 Above all merchandise ? 
 
 Then bread upon thy waters cast 
 
 Shall not be cast in vain ; 
 But after many days are past, 
 
 It shall be found again. 
 Then thy barbaric sons shall sue, 
 
 Nor nature's self resist, 
 An entrance for their kindred true, 
 
 The dark evangelist. 
 
SOUTH-SEA MISSIONARIES. 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A PASSAGE IN STEWART'S JOURNAL,. 
 
 WITH pleasure not unmixed with pain, 
 
 They find their passage o'er, 
 As, with the Sabbath's dawn, they gain 
 
 That islet's rocky shore ; 
 Behind them is the sweltering main, 
 
 The torrid land before. 
 
 No sound was in the silence heard 
 
 To break the air of balm, 
 Save when the screaming tropic bird 
 
 Wheeled seaward in the calm ; 
 The faint and heated breeze scarce stirred 
 
 The streamers of the palm. 
 
 61 
 
62 SOUTH-SEA MISSIONARIES. 
 
 The shipman in the distance sees, 
 
 Across the glowing bay, 
 The crowded, straw-built cottages, 
 
 Like sunburnt ricks of hay, 
 Beneath the tall banana-trees, 
 
 Bask in the morning ray. 
 
 And as that self-devoted band 
 Of Christian hearts drew near, 
 
 No cool and bracing current fanned 
 The lifeless atmosphere. 
 
 Why should they seek that savage land, 
 So desolate and drear ? 
 
 In faith, those far-off shores they trod, 
 
 This humble six or seven, 
 And through those huts of matted sod 
 
 Shall spread the gospel leaven, 
 Till each becomes a house of God, 
 
 A mercy-gate of heaven. 
 
THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES. 
 
 METHINKS there is indeed a feast 
 
 In these inspiring words alone, 
 Which could not even be increased 
 
 By music's most enchanting tone. 
 My inmost sense they ravish quite 
 
 With scenes and sounds so dear to me, 
 They fill my ear, they fill my sight, 
 
 And leave no room for minstrelsy. 
 
 Raise ye who will the spells of power 
 
 In which the sons of song combine : 
 To sit and muse some silent hour 
 
 O'er these transporting leaves, be mine ! 
 Here pitch my verdant tent ; for here 
 
 He must have felt it good to be, 
 Who built these tabernacles dear 
 
 To Faith, and Fame, and Fantasy ! 
 
THE MEETING OF THE TRIBES. 
 
 ON THE OPENING OF A COUNCIL OF THE CIITRCH. 
 
 " For thither the tribes go up." 
 
 THE tribes have gone up, not in battle array, 
 
 But to keep on God's mountain their festival day ; 
 
 The tribes have gone up, with their banners dis- 
 played, 
 
 In peace, o'er the thousands who meet in their 
 shade. 
 
 From the east, from the west, from the south, from 
 
 the north, 
 From Dan to Beersheba, their powers have come 
 
 forth ; 
 From the wide-spreading valleys their ancients are 
 
 seen, 
 And the dwellers on Lebanon's mountains so green , 
 
 64 
 
MEETING OF THE TRIBES. 65 
 
 And, Judah, thy lordliest lion is there, 
 Unharmed, from the glorious depths of his lair ; 
 For the archers have fiercely shot at him in vain, 
 And he shakes off their darts, like the dew, from his 
 
 In gladness the chosen of Levi pour out, 
 And the feeblest starts up at the summons devout ; 
 Nor will one of the twelve in their borders abide, 
 From the ship-covered coast to the Great River's side. 
 
 May the dew which, like Hermon's, distils from above, 
 Sink deep in all hearts, and inspire them with love ; 
 And the grace on the head of the aged high-priest a 
 Flow down on the greatest, and reach to the least. 
 
 The spirit of peace to their counsels restore, 
 
 O God ! and let Ephraim vex Judah no more ; 
 
 The spirit of might and of wisdom impart, 
 
 Nor let Reuben's divisions cause searching of heart. 
 
 So the least of all seeds shall become a great tree, 
 And shall spread from the mountains its boughs to 
 
 the sea, 
 
 Till all the wide land with its shelter is blest, 
 From the dawning of day to the uttermost west. 
 
 a Bishop White. 
 
THE MISSIONARY'S FAREWELL. 
 
 THE signal is made from yon mast o'er the trees, 
 Which nods to the billows, and beckons the breeze ; 
 The anchor 's upheaved, and the sails are unfurled, 
 To carry him forth to the ends of the world. 
 
 And now the near headlands already float by, 
 And the half-shrouded cottages swim in his eye ; 
 And a thousand past joys are recalled by the view, 
 Which his bosom can never, O, never renew ! 
 
 At length he puts forth from his own native bay, 
 And the bark of his country sweeps southward away; 
 And the heart of the messenger inwardly bleeds, 
 As each object grows dim on the shore, and recedes. 
 
THE MISSIONAR TS FARE WELL. 6 7 
 
 How can he refrain from the strong burst of tears, 
 As the land of his forefathers fast disappears, 
 As the mountains and hill-tops grow dusky and dun, 
 And turret and spire fade away one by one ! 
 
 But his bosom, alas ! shall more bitterly ache 
 O'er the tenderer ties which that parting must break ; 
 And the tears will, in spite of his manliness, start, 
 As affection's full tide rushes back on his heart. 
 
 But for these though the flesh in its weakness may 
 
 yearn, 
 
 His spirit is willing, he would not return ; 
 His orders are onward, J t is his to obey ; 
 He dare not decline, and he dare not delay. 
 
 And the day is soon coming those friends to restore, 
 Whom he loveth not less, but his Saviour the more, 
 When the faithful to death shall receive their re- 
 ward, 
 And together partake of the joy of their Lord. 
 
 With him, when our own weary voyage is past, 
 Be the haven of happiness entered at last, 
 In that far better country, undarkened by sin, 
 Where the shouts of the ransomed shall welcome 
 us in ! 
 
STANZAS. 
 
 YON distant tower of old gray stone, 
 
 The verdure of the trees, 
 The golden sunlight o'er them thrown, 
 
 What fairer scene than these ? 
 The organ and the Sabbath bell, 
 
 Blent like the far-off sea, 
 What tones the raptured heart can swell 
 
 Up to such ecstasy ? 
 
 To human sympathies the sight 
 
 Is dearer far within, 
 When all, on bended knees, unite 
 
 In penitence for sin ; 
 And heavenlier far the thoughts they raise, 
 
 When human voices there 
 Swell high the glorious tide of praise, 
 
 Or breathe the contrite prayer. 
 
THE ORDINAL. 
 
 ALAS for me could I forget 
 
 The memory of that day 
 Which fills my waking thoughts, nor yet 
 
 E'en sleep can take away ; 
 In dreams I still renew the rites 
 
 Whose strong but mystic chain 
 The spirit to its God unites, 
 
 And none can part again. 
 
 How oft the Bishop's form I see, 
 
 And hear that thrilling tone, 
 Demanding, with authority, 
 
 The heart for God alone ! 
 Again I kneel as then I knelt, 
 
 While he above me stands, 
 And seem to feel as then I felt 
 
 The pressure of his hands. 
 
70 THE ORDINAL. 
 
 Again the priests in meek array, 
 
 As my weak spirit fails, 
 Beside me bend them down to pray 
 
 Before the chancel rails ; 
 As then the sacramental host 
 
 Of God's elect are by, 
 When many a voice its utterance lost, 
 
 And tears dimmed many an eye. 
 
 As then they on my vision rose, 
 
 The vaulted aisles I see, 
 And desk and cushioned book repose 
 
 In solemn sanctity ; 
 The mitre o'er the marble niche, 
 
 The broken crook and key. 
 That from a Bishop's tomb shone rich 
 
 With polished tracery ; 
 
 The hangings, the baptismal font, 
 
 All, all, save me, unchanged, 
 The holy table, as was wont, 
 
 With decency arranged ; 
 The linen cloth, the plate, the cup, 
 
 Beneath their covering shine, 
 Ere priestly hands are lifted up 
 
 To bless the bread and wine. 
 
THE ORDINAL. 71 
 
 The solemn ceremonial past, 
 
 And I am set apart 
 To serve the Lord, from first to last, 
 
 With undivided heart : 
 And I have sworn, with pledges dire, 
 
 Which God and man have heard, 
 To speak the holy truth entire 
 
 In action and in word ! 
 
 O Thou, who in Thy holy place 
 
 Hast set Thine orders three, 
 Grant me, Thy meanest servant, grace 
 
 To win a good degree ; 
 That so, replenished from above, 
 
 And in mine office tried, 
 Thou mayst be honoured, and in love 
 
 Thy Church be edified. 
 
RECOLLECTIONS OF ST. PAUL'S DAY. 
 
 " At mid-day, king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, 
 above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and 
 them which journeyed with me. Whereupon, King Agrippa, 
 I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." 
 
 How swift the years have come and gone, since, on 
 
 this blessed day, 
 
 A victim at the altar's horn, I gave myself away ; 
 And, streaming through the house of God, a glory 
 
 seemed to shine, 
 Invisible to other eyes, but manifest to mine. 
 
 It was not in his terrours clad, nor with those to- 
 kens dire, 
 
 The rushing of the whirlwind's wing, the earth- 
 quake, and the fire, 
 
 Nor yet amid the blasting blaze that makes the 
 sunshine dim, 
 
 And pales the ineffectual beams that minister to 
 Him: 
 
 72 
 
ST. PAUL'S DAY. 73 
 
 Serene was that effulgent noon, and gladdening 
 
 was the ray, 
 Which made a heavenly vision there I could not 
 
 disobey ; 
 And gentle those subduing tones which soothed 
 
 and tempered all, 
 As with the holy harmony of voices still and small. 
 
 father, mother, brethren, friends, no less than 
 
 brethren dear ! 
 Who promised, at this solemn hour, to be in spirit 
 
 near, 
 Say, is it not your influence in blended prayer I 
 
 feel, 
 As now before the mercy-seat from many shrines 
 
 we kneel ? 
 
 1 would my heart might ever thus dissolve with fer- 
 
 vent heat, 
 
 As here, fast by the oracle, the service I repeat ; 
 That even in my inmost soul the same rejoicing 
 
 light 
 Might burn, like Zion's altar flame, unquenchable 
 
 and bright. 
 
CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. 
 
 " I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Sa- 
 tan's seat is ; and thou boldest fast thy name, and hast not denied 
 my faith." 
 
 NOT for thy pomp and pride of place, 
 
 Not for thy relics rare 
 Of kings, and ministers of grace, 
 
 Whose names thy vessels bear ; 
 Not for thy boast of high degree, 
 
 Nor charms of gorgeous style, 
 Hast thou been ever dear to me, 
 
 O thou time-honoured pile ! 
 
 But for thy constant truth, which still 
 
 Preserves, from age to age 
 Unmoved, through good report and ill, 
 
 The Fathers' heritage ; 
 Which firmly as the hills remains, 
 
 As years have o'er thee swept, 
 And singly, 'mid apostate fanes, 
 
 The ancient faith has kept. 
 
 74 
 
CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. 75 
 
 For sixscore years thy lofty vaults 
 
 With those ascriptions ring, 
 Which lift the soul, while it exalts 
 
 The Christ, of Glory King. 
 And well might walls, so taught, cry out, 
 
 If human lips were dumb, 
 And aisles spontaneous swell the shout 
 
 Until the Bridegroom come. 
 
 For this, how oft my spirit longs 
 
 To tread thy courts ! How stirs 
 My inmost heart to join thy throngs 
 
 Of earnest worshippers ! 
 For this, how oft, on bended knee, 
 
 I ask, dear Church, to see 
 No drought on others' husbandry, 
 
 But much of dew on thee ! 
 
 Though many have afflicted thee, 
 
 And all thy ways despise, 
 And turn, with gayer company, 
 
 To where new shrines arise, 
 Here let thy children keep their feet, 
 
 And do not yet despair 
 That they who scorn thee yet may meet 
 
 Before thy shrine in prayer. 
 
76 CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. 
 
 Though cheerless to the eye of sense, 
 
 A land that none pass through, 
 Eternal is thine excellence, 
 
 Which shall be brought to view. 
 And on thy gates the stranger's son 
 
 Shall, in God's time, record, 
 " The Zion of the Holy One, 
 
 The City of the Lord!" 
 
CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 HERE, brother, let us pause awhile, 
 
 And in this quiet chancel muse 
 On vanished friends who thronged each aisle, 
 
 And crowded these deserted pews ; 
 To whom I broke the bread of life, 
 
 And poured the mystic cup of grace, 
 And hoped, when past this mortal strife, 
 
 To share with them our Lord's embrace. 
 
 Full are the tombs o'er which we tread ; 
 
 And, with o'erwhelming sense of awe, 
 I summon back the holy dead 
 
 Whom once around these rails I saw. 
 And how much nearer, at this hour, 
 
 Their unseen presence than we know ! 
 This is a thought of thrilling power : 
 
 O, speak with reverent voice, speak low ! 
 
78 CHRIST CHURCH. 
 
 How oft, at dead of night, when sleep 
 
 In heaviest folds wrapped all around, 
 I Ve come, my vigil here to keep, 
 
 And sighed to hear some human sound ! 
 Alone, amid the scene of gloom, 
 
 I Ve watched for dawn, and felt oppressed 
 To know, that, in the lofty room, 
 
 I was the only living guest. 
 
 The ticking of yon ancient clock, 
 
 That marks the solemn tread of Time, 
 Against my heart-strings seemed to knock ; 
 
 And, hark ! those Christmas bells sublime ! 
 So have they rung a hundred years, 
 
 And on the ears that heard them first 
 The chiming of the starry spheres 
 
 With their enrapturing tones has burst. 
 
A CHRISTMAS EVENING PASTORAL. 
 
 " Ye shall have a song as in the night when a holy solemnity is 
 kept." ISAIAH. 
 
 MY own dear Church, how can I choose 
 
 But turn, in spirit, back to thee, 
 As on this hallowed night I lose 
 
 Myself in pensive revery ? 
 For in thy courts a single day 
 
 'T is good, if but in thought, to dwell ; 
 Nor may I tear my heart away 
 
 From all that it has loved so well. 
 
 How sweet to hear at eventide 
 
 The pealing of thy silver chime, 
 In tuneful changes, far and wide, 
 
 Give note of coming Christmas-time ! 
 
 79 
 
80 CHRISTMAS EVENING PASTORAL. 
 
 How richly through the wintry sky 
 It floats ! as if the heavenly train 
 
 Sang, " Glory be to God on high, 
 And peace to peaceful men ! " again. 
 
 While thus the vocal heavens invite, 
 
 And bells ring out in angel-tone, 
 To Bethlehem let us haste to-night, 
 
 And see the wonders there made known. 
 Thy radiant courts are all ablaze, 
 
 And brilliant is the festive scene, 
 As when rose on the prophet's gaze 
 
 Fair Canaan, dressed in living green. 
 
 The wreaths in loftiest arches tied, 
 
 The boughs in each deep window spread, 
 The festoons swung from side to side, 
 
 The columns twined and garlanded, 
 The leafy cross, which venturous arm 
 
 Has dared to hang the chancel o'er, 
 Give all the shady lodge a charm 
 
 That never met the eye before. 
 
 Thus, verdant as a sylvan tent, 
 
 Thine old age puts its greenness on ; 
 
 Thy bowery aisles all redolent 
 With goodliest smell of Lebanon. 
 
CHRISTMAS EVENING PASTORAL. 81 
 
 How fresh the branches stand, and thick ! 
 
 With what a dazzling light, and clear, 
 Like Aaron's golden candlestick, 
 
 Gleams out each ancient chandelier ! 
 
 And he who looks above the crowd 
 
 May almost see, in vision, swim 
 Beneath the cornice, veiled in cloud, 
 
 The mystic shapes of cherubim ; 
 Now, listening to the grateful strain, 
 
 Each in his angle seems to rest, 
 With twain unfolded wings, and twain 
 
 Spread crosswise on his raptured breast. 
 
 And now a joyous echo rings, 
 
 And seems the whole angelic row, 
 That o'er the rood-loft poise their wings, 
 
 Their loud, uplifted trumps to blow ; 
 And quivering now through wavy trees, 
 
 And throbbing breasts, (with thrilling sound 
 Of solemn pastoral symphonies,) 
 
 A glory truly shines around ; 
 
 It shines on robes without alloy, 
 
 On priestly vestment, pure and white, 
 
 And on the shepherd's head whose joy 
 It is to watch his flock by night. 
 
82 CHRISTMAS EVENING PASTORAL. 
 
 It brightest shines where hearts once cold 
 Are kindling with the truths revealed, 
 
 And, like the faithful swains of old, 
 
 Beneath their gladdening influence yield. 
 
 Thrice blest, who thus the night prolong, 
 
 Who soar on each inspiring tune, 
 And emulate the shining throng 
 
 That pass away to heaven too soon ! 
 Thrice blest, who, as the years roll by, 
 
 More fondly treasure up the word, 
 And God their Saviour glorify 
 
 For all that they have seen and heard ! 
 
 Though many a friend is dead and gone, 
 
 Though many a sainted face we miss, 
 Long may thy tuneful peal ring on, 
 
 That calls, dear Church, to feasts like this ! 
 For whence could joy and comfort flow 
 
 To aching hearts that bleed for them, 
 But for His grace, whose reign below 
 
 Began this night in Bethlehem ? 
 
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 
 
 IT was a solemn day to me, 
 
 This twenty-fourth of June, 
 Eleven years ago ; alas 
 
 That they have passed so soon ! 
 And often as it comes about, 
 
 I meditate thereon, 
 And strive to follow, as I may, 
 
 Christ's herald, good St. John. 
 
 It was a solemn place to me, 
 
 That sanctuary old, 
 Where still we, after sixscore years, 
 
 The same high service hold. 
 And still 't is good, amid the change 
 
 That sweeps o'er all beside, 
 To know that, while these walls shall stand, 
 
 That service shall abide. 
 
84 ST. JOHN BAPTISTS DAY. 
 
 How many who were present then 
 
 Sleep in their tombs below ! 
 How many to their distant posts 
 
 Have gone, as I now go ! 
 Of all the crowds that then were here, 
 
 How few are left behind ! 
 And of that few, how fewer still 
 
 Who call that scene to mind. 
 
 To me it is as yesterday ; 
 
 I see the whole proceed, 
 The bishop, and the brethren round, 
 
 Who came to bid God-speed ! 
 The holy altar, then withdrawn 
 
 Deep in its own recess, 
 Ere desk and pulpit crowded in, 
 
 To make its honours less. 
 
 O, it was not in mockery 
 
 That then I offered there, 
 In weakness, fear, and trembling tones, 
 
 The Institution-prayer. 
 How often, as I 've paced those aisles 
 
 At sacred hours alone, 
 Have I recited o'er that prayer, 
 
 To God is truly known ! 
 
ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. 85 
 
 How little thought the warden gray 
 
 That aught but death the keys 
 Surrendered by his faithful hand 
 
 Should ever wrest from these, 
 That e'er this ancient fold should count 
 
 Their broken pledge no sin, 
 Or part, for trifling cause, the bonds 
 
 Of God's own discipline ! 
 
 Dear Church ! as now that tender charge 
 
 I solemnly resign, 
 Some bleeding hearts will testify 
 
 The fault has not been mine ! 
 For who could hear thy heavenly chime 
 
 With gladder heart than I ? 
 Who love thee with a fonder love, 
 
 Or in thy service die V 
 
 God raise thee up some faithful man, 
 
 More prompt to follow on, 
 In doctrine and in holy life, 
 
 Christ's herald, good St. John ! 
 Give him all boldness to rebuke, 
 
 And skill thy griefs to cure, 
 And, for his heavenly Master's sake, 
 
 All patience to endure ! 
 
FROM THE ANTIQUE. 
 
 " Fons Crucis, Fons Lucis." 
 BY THE NAME OF CROSSE-WELLE. 
 
 WELLE of the Crosse ! would I might be 
 In spirit, as in name, like thee, 
 
 Whose gentle flow from Calvarie's mount 
 
 Covers the nations like a sea, 
 Drowns in its depths the Egerian fount, 
 And older wave of Castalie. 
 
 WELLE of the Crosse ! would that my name 
 Were emblem of my being's aim, 
 Upon whose face, in tranquil rest, 
 
 The purest hues of heaven might glow, 
 And through its deep, transparent breast, 
 Fair truth be seen far down below. 
 
FROM THE ANTIQUE. 87 
 
 Welle of the CROSS E ! would that I might 
 Thy glorie with thy name unite : 
 
 That, cleansed by thee from every stain, 
 
 My soul might gladly count but loss 
 All worldly thought, all worldly gain, 
 To bear the burden of the Cross. 
 
 O yes, for thee, WELLE OF THE CROSSE ! 
 Fain would I count all gain but loss ; 
 For thee fain would I live and die, 
 Nor covet ease, nor toil decline, 
 So I all sin might crucify, 
 
 So I but conquer in that sign ! a 
 
 a In hoc signo vinoes. Constantine's Vision. 
 
TO MY FATHER. 
 
 MY father, I recall the dream 
 
 Of childish joy and wonder, 
 When thou wast young as I now seem, 
 
 Say, thirty-three, or under ; 
 When on thy temples, as on mine, 
 
 Time just began to sprinkle 
 His first gray hairs, and traced the sign 
 
 Of many a coming wrinkle. 
 
 I recognize thy voice's tone 
 
 As to myself I'm talking ; 
 And this firm tread, how like thine own, 
 
 In thought, the study walking ! 
 As, musing, to and fro I pass, 
 
 A glance across my shoulder 
 Would bring thine image in the glass, 
 
 Were it a trifle older. 
 
TO MY FATHER. 89 
 
 My father, proud am I to bear 
 
 Thy face, thy form, thy stature, 
 But happier far might I but share 
 
 More of thy better nature, 
 Thy patient progress after good, 
 
 All obstacles disdaining, 
 Thy courage, faith, and fortitude, 
 
 And spirit uncomplaining. 
 
 Then for the day that I was born 
 
 Well might I joy, and borrow 
 No longer of the coming morn 
 
 Its trouble or its sorrow ; 
 Content I 'd be to take my chance 
 
 In either world, possessing 
 For my complete inheritance 
 
 Thy virtues and thy blessing ! 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 
 
 MY mother ! many a burning word 
 
 Would not suffice the love to tell 
 With which my inmost soul is stirred, 
 
 As thoughts of thee my bosom swell : 
 But better I should ill express 
 
 The passion thus, than leave untold 
 The glow of filial tenderness 
 
 Which never in my heart grows cold. 
 
 Oft, as I muse o'er all the wrong, 
 
 The silent grief, the secret pain, 
 My froward youth has caused, I long 
 
 To live my childhood o'er again ; 
 And yet they were not all in vain, 
 
 The lessons which thy love then taught ; 
 Nor always has it dormant lain, 
 
 The fire from thy example caught- 
 
 90 
 
TO MY MOTHER. 91 
 
 And now, as feelings all divine 
 
 With deepest power my spirit touch, 
 I feel as if some prayer of thine, 
 
 My mother ! were availing much. 
 And thus availing, more and more, 
 
 O, be it thine, in bliss, to see 
 The hopes with which thy heart runs o'er, 
 
 In fondest hour, fulfilled in me ! 
 
EPITHALAMIUM. 
 
 METHINKS those joyous bells will ring 
 
 In my rapt ear with holiest power, 
 When I within that shrine shall bring 
 
 The offering of my nuptial hour ; 
 And I shall feel the debt I owe 
 
 For all the past of hope and love, 
 Dear Church, that gives so much below, 
 
 In pledge of more reserved above ! 
 
 Though brief the time in service spent, 
 
 How long and dear its ties shall be ! 
 As precious and as permanent 
 
 As numbers of eternity : 
 For though no bridal bond be theirs 
 
 Who in the resurrection rise, 
 Yet from their graves all holy pairs 
 
 Pass to their union in the skies. 
 
 92 
 
EPITHALAMIUM. 93 
 
 O, may that worthiness be mine, 
 
 To walk hereafter by her side 
 O'er whom I joy, in rites divine, 
 
 As joys the bridegroom o'er the bride. 
 Together may we join the throng 
 
 Who follow at their Saviour's call, 
 And celebrate in mystic song 
 
 The heavenly marriage festival ! 
 
A DAUGHTER'S PORTION. 
 
 GOD, who on our household 
 Thus far hast fondly smiled, 
 
 1 thank thee for thy choicest boon, - 
 
 My precious, only child. 
 And pray thee that the favour 
 
 Which has so richly blest 
 Her sunny days of infancy, 
 
 May shine on all the rest. 
 
 I have not asked for beauty, 
 
 Fair cheek, or golden tress ; 
 Though all that is within me melts 
 
 At woman's loveliness. 
 I have not asked for riches, 
 
 Nor even wealth of mind ; 
 Though doting on intelligence, 
 
 Pure, lofty, and refined : 
 
 94 
 
A DAUGHTER'S PORTION. 95 
 
 Those better gifts I covet, 
 
 Which thou dost bid us seek, 
 A soul serene, affectionate, 
 
 And resolute, yet meek. 
 The meetness of the children 
 
 Who shared our Lord's caress, 
 And whose surpassing excellence 
 
 Is early holiness. 
 
 O, might she thus resemble 
 
 That late departed saint, 
 Who, worthy of Madonna's name, 
 
 I may not dare to paint ! 
 Or catch the falling glories 
 
 Throned on that aged brow, 
 Which, in the multitude of peace, 
 
 Has passed from us but now ! 
 
 Fain would I ask, as o'er me 
 
 That raptured image swims, 
 All ready with the seraph choirs 
 
 To join the heavenly hymns, 
 That her unearthly comforts, 
 
 And looks, divinely mild, 
 Might, by some secret sympathy, 
 
 Inspire my gracious child. 
 
96 A DAUGHTER'S PORTION. 
 
 While thus, dear Lord, my musings 
 
 Have blent, in tender ties, 
 The child, and aged childlike friend, 
 
 Whom tears shall canonize, 
 May the hope that both are living, 
 
 And rejoicing in thy smile, 
 Cheer the lonely dwelling-places 
 
 Which each has left awhile. 
 
TO 
 
 FAIR child ! thou fillest mine eye with tears, 
 
 For thou carriest back my mind 
 To the sinless days which the flight of years 
 
 Has left so far behind ; 
 And I search my shrinking self to know 
 
 How the spirit, so darkened now, 
 Can be purged of its manhood's guilt and woe, 
 
 And be pure once more as thou. 
 
 Again, thou carriest on my thought 
 
 To the vision of things before, 
 When the last great battle with sin is fought, 
 
 And the struggle of death is o'er ; 
 For in vain our Heaven we hope to see, 
 
 And our Saviour undefiled, 
 Till we learn His lesson of such as thee, 
 
 And become like a little child ! 
 
TO MY SISTER. 
 
 How like, alas ! in their estate 
 
 Are home and heart ! the one 
 Is left unto thee desolate, 
 
 Its thousand ties undone ; 
 The other, as the winds go by, 
 
 Sore charged with storm and rain, 
 Hear in their sound the dismal cry, 
 
 " When shall we meet again ? " 
 
 But hush, fond heart ! there is a home 
 
 Not made by hand of clay, 
 Where change and chance shall never come, 
 
 In heaven's eternal day. 
 For that loved rest thyself prepare 
 
 By deeds of holy strain, 
 Till, in the many mansions there, 
 
 We meet, nor part again. 
 
 98 
 
LONELINESS. 
 
 TO G. W. D. 
 
 I MISS thee at the morning tide, 
 
 The glorious hour of prime ; 
 I miss thee more when day has died, 
 
 At blessed evening-time. 
 As slide the aching hours away, 
 
 Still art thou unforgot ; 
 Sleeping or waking, night and day, 
 
 When do I miss thee not ? 
 
 How can I pass that gladsome door, 
 
 Where every favourite room 
 Thy presence made so bright before 
 
 Is loneliness and gloom ? 
 Each place where most thou lov'dst to be, 
 
 Thy home, thy house of prayer, 
 Seem yearning for thy company : 
 
 I miss thee everywhere. 
 
TO A FRIEND 
 
 WHO SENT ME A WATCH-CASE AND A THERMOMETER. 
 
 How much, O Time ! at every beat 
 
 My faithful watch has said 
 Of thine unseen yet quick retreat, 
 
 Thy never-ceasing tread ! 
 And friends have given me, day by day, 
 
 A clearer power to see 
 How fast thy circles wear away 
 
 Into Eternity. 
 
 But howsoever times may range, 
 
 Let not this token be 
 A type of like mercurial change 
 
 Between my friends and me. 
 Howe'er the quickened silver mount, 
 
 Or shrink into the ball, 
 Be our dilated hearts unwont 
 
 To either rise or fall. 
 
THE NAME OF MARY. 
 
 WRITTEN IN A BIBLE. 
 
 WHO sees, where in the sacred leaves 
 
 The name of some dear friend 
 Its tribute at God's Hand receives, 
 
 And saintliest lips commend, 
 And prays not that the Book may bear 
 
 For her that witness true ; 
 That all the hallowed name who share 
 
 May be like-minded too ? 
 
 Wouldst have thy name in heaven's own page, 
 
 With heaven's own colours writ ? 
 Learn, in thy green, unsaddened age, 
 
 At Jesus' feet to sit ; 
 By faith unfeigned, and holy love, 
 
 And penitential prayer, 
 *T is graven in the Book above, 
 
 And kept unfading there. 
 101 
 
TO 
 
 LADY ! to whom belong 
 
 The will and power to rofl 
 The tide of music and of song 
 
 That overflow the soul, 
 The stream has passed away, 
 
 But left a glittering store, 
 Deposited in rich array 
 
 On memory's silent shore, 
 
 A strand of precious things, 
 
 Where in confusion lie 
 The wrecks of high imaginings 
 
 And thoughts that cannot die. 
 O for that voice alone, 
 
 Whose full, refreshing flow 
 Could on the troubled soul its own 
 
 Serenity bestow ! 
 
103 
 
 Why should those streams be mute 
 
 Which brighten as they roll, 
 Nor in their liquid lapse pollute, 
 
 But beautify the soul ? 
 O, tranquillize, refine 
 
 The heart, till it shall be, 
 As in its primal day, divine, 
 
 And full of Deity ! 
 
STANZAS, 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF AN AGED SERVANT OF GOD. 
 "Fortunate Senex." 
 
 I WAS in spirit with the crowd 
 
 Who stood around thy bier, 
 When grief, though deep, was yet not loud, 
 
 As each in turn drew near, 
 And, mutely bending, o'er and o'er 
 
 Fond kindred lips were pressed 
 Upon thy placid brow, before 
 
 They laid thee to thy rest. 
 
 No stain upon thy clear renown, 
 
 Descended from the brave, 
 Brought thy gray hairs with sorrow down, 
 
 Tried veteran ! to the grave ; 
 We saw thee hastening, calm and sage, 
 
 On to thy perfect day, 
 And, in thy green and good old age, 
 
 Serenely fade away. 
 
 104 
 
STANZAS. 105 
 
 Peace to thy patriarchal dust ! 
 
 From yon old solemn shrine 
 Breaks forth a tone of loftiest trust 
 
 That better things are thine ; 
 Thy light shone ever there to bless, 
 
 And on thy hoary head, 
 Found in the way of righteousness, 
 
 A crown of glory shed. 
 
 Nursed in her aisles, and truly taught 
 
 By her to live and die, 
 Our grief finds refuge in the thought 
 
 That there thou still art nigh ; 
 It treasures there a precious store 
 
 For sweet and soothing calm, 
 To read thy favourite prayers, and pour 
 1 The same victorious psalm. 
 
 Thus shall thy memory be a spell 
 
 Of strong but silent power, 
 Within the church thou lov'dst so well, 
 
 And round thy household bower ; 
 Yea, every spot is sanctified, 
 
 Amid this vale of tears, 
 Where thou, for heaven, hast laid aside 
 
 The burden of thy years. 
 
IN MEMORY OF D. W. 
 
 " Heu ! Quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui memi- 
 nisse 
 
 ONCE how my exiled schoolboy heart 
 
 Would with impatience yearn 
 For those dear vernal holidays 
 
 When I might homeward turn ! 
 And, haven where I would be then, 
 
 How fondly would I say, 
 Thou wert too fair to look upon, 
 
 Save on such holiday ! a 
 
 And still thy bowers are beautiful, 
 
 Thy walks are fair to see, 
 But time and troublous thoughts have worked 
 
 A dreary change in me ; 
 
 a < When I sat last on this primrose bank, and looked down 
 these meadows, I thought of them as Charles the Emperor did 
 of the city of Florence, that they were too pleasant to be 
 looked on, but only on holidays." WAI/CON. 
 106 
 
IN MEMORY OF D. W. 107 
 
 And year by year thy loveliness 
 
 Has on my sense grown dim, 
 Till thou hast scarce a charm unbroke, 
 
 Since thou art spoiled of him. 
 
 A grief for which all words are weak 
 
 Has pierced me to the quick, 
 Nor dare I trust myself to speak 
 
 The thoughts that crowd so thick ; 
 I yield me to the consciousness 
 
 Which death and sorrow bring, 
 That all of earth we dote upon 
 
 Hath no continuing. 
 
TO MY NAMESAKE, 
 
 ON HIS BAPTISM. 
 " Formose Puer." 
 
 CHILDE William, I have little skill, 
 
 But much of heart and hope, 
 To clear from every sign of ill 
 
 Thy happy horoscope. 
 The occult gift is hid from me, 
 
 Nor may my art divine 
 Thy life's unfolded destiny 
 
 From this sweet palm of thine. 
 
 But in thy mother's tender love, 
 Thy father's anxious care, 
 
 And, more, the answer from above 
 To our baptismal prayer, 
 
TO MY NAMESAKE. 109 
 
 In these a hallowed influence dwells, 
 
 A charm that 's heavenlier far 
 Than might of planetary spells, 
 
 Or culminating star. 
 
 The power of holiest rites, fair boy, 
 
 The tears that oft will wet 
 Thy forehead from excess of joy, 
 
 These be thy amulet ! 
 On these auspicious prospects rest, 
 
 These figure out thy fate ; 
 How can they fail to make thee blest, 
 
 Blest, if not fortunate ? 
 
 A childless man, well may I deem 
 
 Thy name my highest pride, 
 Rich in thy parents' dear esteem, 
 
 Though poor in all beside ; 
 Well may my heart with gladness ache, 
 
 Flower of a noble stem, 
 If one will love thee for my sake, 
 
 As I have honoured them. 
 
TO A FRIEND, 
 
 EMBARKING IN A SHIP NAMED " THE HEBER." 
 
 ALL gentle gales, 
 
 Serene and smiling skies, thy course attend ; 
 The winds of God and goodness fill thy sails, 
 
 My faithful friend. 
 
 And if the trust 
 
 Be not in vain, that Heaven does still assign 
 Our guardians from the spirits of the just, 
 
 Be Heber's thine ! 
 
 And when 't is o'er, 
 
 The stormy passage of our life, may we 
 Meet in that world where he has gone before, 
 
 Without a sea. 
 no 
 
TO MY GODSON, 
 
 WILLIAM CROSWELL DOANE. 
 
 IT seems, dear boy, but yesterday, 
 
 Since to the font we came, 
 A happy and delighted throng, 
 
 To answer in thy name : 
 And I, thy father's chosen friend, 
 
 Joyed o'er thy father's son, 
 To hear the priestly blessing blend 
 
 Our names, allied in one. 
 
 But ah ! how cloud has followed cloud ! 
 
 How many a thrilling scene, 
 What trials and what triumphs, crowd 
 
 The narrow space between ! 
 And we are sundered far and wide, 
 
 Who framed in happier hour 
 The ties which time shall not divide, 
 
 Nor death shall overpower, 
 in 
 
112 TO MY GODSON. 
 
 Let not thine eye to me be strange, 
 
 Whose smile has been so sweet, 
 And I can bear what other change 
 
 Awaits us ere we meet. 
 And sure the love which thus begun 
 
 Must bind us to the end, 
 And never can thy father's son 
 
 Forget thy father's friend. 
 
LAMENT. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF A PASTOR. 
 
 MY brother, I have read 
 Of holy men, in Christ who fell asleep, 
 For whom no bitter tears of woe were shed, 
 
 I could not weep ! 
 
 And thou thyself art one, 
 O man of loves, and truth without alloy ! 
 The Master calleth, and, thy work well done, 
 
 Enter thy joy ! 
 
 To such as thee belong 
 The harmonies in which all heaven unite, 
 To share the inexpressive nuptial song, 
 
 And walk in white ! 
 
 H 113 
 
114 ON THE DEATH OF A PASTOR. 
 
 But O thy Church ! thy home ! 
 Thy widowed home ! who shall forbid to grieve ? 
 How may they bear the desolating gloom 
 
 Such partings leave ? 
 
 Great Shepherd of the flock ! 
 E'en Thou, whose life was given for the sheep, 
 Sustain them in the overwhelming shock, 
 
 And safely keep ! 
 
TO THE 
 REV. THOMAS WINTHROP COIT, D.D. 
 
 ON HIS ACCEPTANCE OF A POST OF DUTY IN THE WEST. 
 
 WITH hope and courage unrepressed, 
 
 Go, follow where the orb of day 
 And Empire's Star, both tending west, 
 
 Have pointed out thy brightening way ; 
 And from our dwellings by the sea, 
 
 Beyond the mountain barriers bear 
 The bonds which sacred sympathy 
 
 Hath sanctified by many a prayer. 
 
 And when thy steps are safely led 
 By mighty marge of rivers wide, 
 
 Which, like an earth-born giant, spread a 
 Their thirsty arms on every side, 
 
 a " And Trent, like an earth-born giant, spreads 
 His thirsty arms along th' indented meads." 
 
 MILTON, Vacation Exercise. 
 
116 TO REV. THOMAS W. COIT, D. D. 
 
 O, let their waters, as they glide 
 Resistless on, thine emblem be, 
 
 A stream of many thousand tides 
 Against the Truth's great enemy. 
 
ELEGIAC. 
 
 ON THE DEATH OF THE REV. B. D. WINSLOW. 
 
 IN silence I have wept for tbee, and with a grief 
 sincere, 
 
 And conscious, dearest Benjamin, that love was in 
 arrear, 
 
 But shrinking still, lest in thy praise I should my- 
 self commend, 
 
 So high in merit thou, and I so very dear a friend. 
 
 Else I had earlier witness borne, how, watching by 
 
 thy side, 
 "When thou the hour of thy release didst patiently 
 
 abide, 
 At midnight, as the taper's light began like thee to 
 
 wane, 
 Thou pouredst in my ravished ear thy last and 
 
 swan-like strain. 
 
 in 
 
118 ELEGIAC. 
 
 Like Baruch, when the prophet's lips glowed with 
 unearthly fires, 
 
 I noted down the soothing words which peace divine 
 inspires, 
 
 Preserving since, with hallowed care, thy oft-repeat- 
 ed lay, 
 
 So soon to prove its moral true, " This, too, 
 shall pass away ! " 
 
 We prayed and parted, when the dawn began too 
 
 soon to break, 
 And dear the book thou gavest me, to cherish for 
 
 thy sake, 
 And dearer still the pencilled words, the last I saw 
 
 thee write, 
 In token of the Master's grace, who giveth songs 
 
 by night ! 
 
 The vows thy youth had registered, ere yet it lost 
 
 its dew, 
 
 Here, in my life's meridian day, I solemnly renew ; 
 And when, though following far behind, I 've run 
 
 my weary race, 
 May I, with thee, in better worlds, share in our 
 
 Lord's embrace. 
 
BISHOP WHITE. 
 
 "Olarum et venerabile nomen." 
 
 IT was a consecrated place, 
 
 And thought still lingers there, 
 Where first I saw thee face to face, 
 
 And heard thy voice in prayer ; 
 Though thousands thronged each long-drawn aisle, 
 
 I dwelt upon thy mien, 
 As though alone it filled the pile, 
 
 So saintly and serene. 
 
 And there, arrayed on either hand, 
 
 A goodly sight to see, 
 Rose up our apostolic band, 
 
 A glorious company. 
 And still I deem that hour most blest 
 
 When round the shrine they stood, 
 With thee, the father of the rest, 
 
 A holy brotherhood. 
 
 119 
 
120 BISHOP WHITE. 
 
 Age had forborne thy frame to bow ; 
 
 Thine eye, without eclipse, 
 Seemed ready, like thy reverend brow, 
 
 For heaven's apocalypse ; 
 And well the thought that o'er thee stole 
 
 Might be of triumph high, 
 Like those which swelled the patriarch's soul 
 
 When he desired to die. 
 
 For lo ! the vine thy hand did plant 
 
 Extends its grateful shade, 
 Where every tired inhabitant 
 
 May sit, nor be afraid ; 
 Its fair succession spreads apace, 
 
 Till scarce the land has room, 
 Foretold, like Banquo's kingly race. 
 
 To stretch till crack of doom. 
 
 O, may thy light, which lingers yet, 
 
 Long to our wishes fond, 
 Give promise, by its glorious set, 
 
 Of better things beyond : 
 A happy fate, old man, be thine, 
 
 Deserving of thy fame, 
 And robes reserved in worlds divine, 
 
 As pure as thine own name ! 
 
BISHOP GRISWOLD'S MEMORIAL. 
 
 ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH, FEBRUARY 15, 1844. 
 
 " As Elisha witnessed the translation of Elijah, so we could hard- 
 ly hope anything better for his successor than that the mantle of 
 this our father in Israel might rest upon him." W. C. 
 
 " I was present, with several of the clergy, about ten minutes 
 after his death, which, as you know, took place in Bishop EAST- 
 BURN'S study. It was a scene long to be remembered. There lay 
 the good old man, extended at full length on the floor, more ma- 
 jestic and commanding of presence in death than I had ever 
 beheld him in life. His silver hairs spread a kind of halo round 
 his head, and, his blue cloak wrapped gracefully round his limbs, 
 with his arms crossed on his bosom, he looked like a Christian 
 * warrior taking his rest.' " Letter from REV. J. L. WATSON. 
 
 THE funeral year has through its circle run, 
 
 And Memory's spells the solemn scene renew, 
 When, like Elijah, thy good mission done, 
 Leaving thy mantle with thy chosen one, a 
 Thy sainted spirit to its source withdrew ; 
 
 a His successor. 
 121 
 
122 BISHOP GRISW OLD'S MEMORIAL. 
 
 And Reverence still, in many a prophet's son, 
 
 To Bethel comes, and stands afar to view. 
 And prays that he on whom thy titles rest 
 May be both with thy robe and with thy spirit blest. 
 
 Me thinks I see thee, as I oft have seen 
 In other days, so chastened and resigned, 
 
 Serving the Lord, as with a prophet's mien, 
 Or Paul's, in all humility of mind. 
 
 I see thy trials on thy faded cheek, 
 
 But thine endurance in thy brow serene, 
 
 Thy look elate, but yet subdued and meek, 
 Thy seraph smile, and sweet unconscious air 
 That threw a glory round thine apostolic chair. 
 
 Long had I loved thee with a filial heart, 
 
 And mourn thee with a deep and sorrowing 
 love, 
 
 Thrice happy, might I hope to bear a part 
 In the same mansions of the house above. 
 
 May I be with thee, where thy lot shall be, 
 And grow more like thee, in thy simple guise, 
 
 Thy unaffected truth's sincerity, 
 
 And all that made so lovely in our eyes 
 The quiet, childlike heart, which God doth highly 
 prize. 
 
BISHOP GRISWOLUS MEMORIAL. 123 
 
 Father, whose life was thus devoid of pride, 
 
 Thus lowly wise, on winning souls intent, 
 Let not thy ransomed spirit now be tried, 
 Among the myriads of the glorified, 
 
 By any pledge of love on thee misspent. 
 
 Thou wouldst not ask a costly monument, 
 Nor joy to see the storied rock assume 
 
 Thy living shape ; or sculptured figures, bent 
 In mimic sorrow o 'er a garnished tomb, 
 Enshrine thy place of rest amid the minster's gloom. 
 
 But rather, as on earth thou oft hast prayed, 
 
 Wouldst pray, that all who loved thee, far or 
 
 nigh, 
 
 Priest, Levite, elder, matron, youth, and maid, 
 On whom thy hands in solemn rites were laid, 
 
 Might grow in every grace as years went by, 
 And, stirring up the gift through thee conveyed, 
 
 Have their blest record with thine own on high ; 
 And, walking in the steps which thou hast trod, 
 Be thy memorial dear, alike to man and God. 
 
LINES 
 
 WRITTEN IN THE CHAMBER WHERE BISHOP HOBART 
 DIED, ON THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 OUR house, whereon dark clouds have lowered 
 
 Is once more desolate, 
 And hushed the solemn chamber where 
 
 The good man met his fate. 
 Pass lightly up the echoing stairs, 
 
 And look in silence round, 
 And take thy shoes from off thy feet, 
 
 For this is holy ground. 
 
 Here stood, erewhile, his dying couch, 
 
 Against this crimsoned wall, 
 Where, quivering through the locust-leaves, 
 
 The setting sunbeams fall. 
 Here last he saw yon glorious orb, 
 
 Like his, descending low, 
 And through the casement pour, as now, 
 
 That rich autumnal glow. 
 
LINES. 125 
 
 But dwell not on the painful scene, 
 
 Nor, rapt in vision, muse, 
 Till in the sadness of the past 
 
 The present good we lose. 
 No sun could make more golden set, 
 
 Nor leave a track more bright, 
 Than his, whose radiant memory still 
 
 Fills all our courts with light. 
 
 Look earthward forth, and see, fast by 
 
 The oracle of God, 
 And mark the well-worn churchyard path, 
 
 The last his footsteps trod. 
 Pass through the Gothic porch, and view 
 
 The chancel's choicest trust, 
 Where all but speaks, in lifelike grace, 
 
 His monumental bust. 
 
 The pilgrim at lona's shrine 
 
 Forgets his journey's toil, 
 As faith rekindles in his breast 
 
 On that inspiring soil ; 
 And those who trace in Heber's steps 
 
 Carnatic wood and wave, 
 A portion of his spirit seek 
 
 By their apostle's grave. 
 
126 LINES. 
 
 And here our prophet's sons shall oft 
 
 Their father's ear recall, 
 And here on each successor's head 
 
 His reverend mantle fall. 
 " Here may they hope to fill the breach, 
 
 Like him the plague to stay, 
 While in his thrilling tones they preach, 
 
 And with his fervour pray." 
 
 Thus, Auburn, shall thy hallowed haunts 
 
 Be sought from age to age, 
 And hither sons of holy Church 
 
 Make pious pilgrimage. 
 And though some bitter memories 
 
 Must dash the past with pain, 
 Sweet village, thou shalt ever be 
 
 The loveliest of the plain ! 
 
MEMORIAL 
 
 OF MY BELOVED FRIEND AND PREDECESSOR, THE REV. 
 WILLIAM LUCAS. 
 
 THREE years ago, dear friend, to-day, 
 Thy chastened spirit passed away ; 
 
 And, musing in the room, 
 The last thy earthly footsteps trod, 
 In walk, like Enoch, close with God, 
 
 Light kindles up the gloom. 
 
 In all thy steps thus may I tread, 
 And feed the flock as thou hast fed, 
 
 And make my lot my choice, 
 Till, reaping where thou well hast sown, 
 At harvest home, before the throne, 
 
 I may with thee rejoice ! 
 
 127 
 
AD AMICUM. 
 
 FRIEND of my early youth, 
 
 Whom each succeeding year, 
 Disclosing depths of love and truth, 
 
 Has made to me more dear : 
 The spell, at length, is burst 
 
 That kept me dumb so long, 
 And at my heart, as at the first, 
 
 Old friendship's pulse is strong. 
 
 The scales fall from our eyes, 
 
 Nor darkly now we see 
 How youngest hearts may realize 
 
 That life is vanity. 
 How valueless now seem 
 
 Its passing smiles and tears ! 
 Like dreams remembered in a dream 
 
 Its imagery appears. 
 
 128 
 
AD AMICUM. 129 
 
 O, lovely was the sight, 
 
 When last I saw thy son, 
 And hailed the promise with delight 
 
 With which his youth begun. 
 It brought to mind the days 
 
 Of our own golden age, 
 Ere yet we took the separate ways 
 
 Of manhood's pilgrimage. 
 
 As in that fairy-land 
 
 Through which we trod when boys, 
 Pursuing ever, hand in hand, 
 
 Our studies and our joys, 
 We saw him pressing o'er 
 
 The selfsame pleasant road, 
 Where we had passed so long before, 
 
 To learning's high abode. 
 
 But ah ! how soon the train 
 
 Of visions melts like foam ! 
 We search for that sweet face in vain 
 
 In thy afflicted home. 
 How hast thou borne the blow 
 
 By which the wreck was made ? 
 And tears that in such anguish flow, 
 
 How shall their course be stayed ? 
 
130 AD AMICUM. 
 
 I, that did once rejoice 
 
 To be the bridegroom's friend, 
 Till I can cheer thee with my voice, 
 
 Some soothing strain would send. 
 But who but God can dry 
 
 The fountains of thy grief? 
 And when the merry-hearted sigh, 
 
 Who else can give relief? 
 
 O, in this dark eclipse, 
 
 Though all be gloom beneath, 
 Methinks I hear some angel lips 
 
 These words of comfort breathe : 
 " Believers, doubt not this, 
 
 All that GOD takes, and more, 
 In that approaching world of bliss 
 
 He will, through CHRIST, restore." 
 
STANZAS 
 WRITTEN IN A COPY OF MILTON'S POEMS, 
 
 THE GIFT OF A FRIEND WHO DIED AT SEA. 
 
 THY cherished gift, departed friend, 
 
 With trembling I unfold, 
 And fondly gaze upon its lids, 
 
 In crimson wrought, and gold. 
 I open to its dirge-like strain 
 
 On one who died at sea ; 
 And as I read of Lycidas, 
 
 I think, the while, of thee. 
 
 Thy languid spirit sought in vain 
 
 The beautiful Azores, 
 But, ere it reached the middle main, 
 
 Was rapt to happier shores. 
 As in a dream-like, halcyon calm, 
 
 It entered on its rest, 
 Amid the groves of Paradise, 
 
 And islands of the blest. 
 
132 STANZAS. 
 
 Kind friends afar, at thy behest, 
 
 Had fitted bower and hall 
 To entertain their kindred guest 
 
 In ever green Fayal. 
 In greener bowers thy bed is made, 
 
 And sounder is thy sleep, 
 Than ever life had known, among 
 
 The chambers of the deep. 
 
 No mark along the waste may tell 
 
 The place of thy repose ; 
 Yet there is ONE who loved thee well, 
 
 And loved by thee, who knows. 
 And though now sunk, like Lycidas, 
 
 Beneath the watery floor, 
 Yet His great might that walked the waves 
 
 Shall thy dear form restore. 
 
 Though years must first pass by, no time 
 
 His purpose shall derange, 
 And in his guardianship thy soul 
 
 Shall suffer no sea change. 
 And when the depths give back their charge, 
 
 O, may our welcome be 
 With thine, among Christ's ransomed throngs, 
 
 Where there is no more sea ! 
 
FRAGMENT. 
 
 TRUST me, Cousin Bess, 
 Full many a day my memory has played 
 The creditor with me on your account, 
 And made me shame to think that I should owe 
 So long the debt of kindness. But in truth, 
 Like Christian on his pilgrimage, I bear 
 So heavy a pack of business, that albeit 
 I toil on mainly in one twelve hours' race, 
 Time leaves me distanced. Loath indeed were I 
 That for a moment you should lay to me 
 Unkind neglect. Mine, cousin, is a heart 
 That smokes not, yet methinks there should be 
 
 some 
 Who know how warm it beats. I'm no sworn 
 
 friend 
 Of half an hour, as apt to leave as love. 
 
 133 
 
134 FRAGMENT. 
 
 Mine are no mushroom feelings, that spring up 
 
 At once, without a seed, and take no root, 
 
 Wisely distrusted. In a narrow sphere, 
 
 The little circle of domestic life, 
 
 I would be known and loved. The world beyond 
 
 Is not for me. And, Bessy, sure I think 
 
 That you should know me well, for you and I 
 
 Grew up together ; and when we look back 
 
 Upon old times, our recollections paint 
 
 The same familiar faces. 
 
TO A CHILD, 
 
 ON HER BIRTHDAY, IN SEPTEMBER. 
 
 STEEPED in the soft September light, 
 
 What mellowing hues array 
 The forward view ! so pure and bright 
 
 Be all thy life's long day ; 
 A dewy lustre thus be shed, 
 
 A sweet and soothing calm 
 Swim in thine eye, and o'er thy head 
 
 Fall on thy soul like balm. 
 
 May Heaven preserve each dainty tress 
 
 From all that would destroy, 
 As, in thy playful restlessness, 
 
 They seem to share thy joy ; 
 Good angels shelter from all ills 
 
 The fast-maturing grace, 
 That with a saddening sweetness fills 
 
 Thy penserosa face. 
 
136 TO A CHILD. 
 
 Oft as I turn from year to year, 
 
 And days of absence roll, 
 I '11 bind thy vision, made more dear 
 
 By memory, to my soul ; 
 I '11 pray that he by whom 't is won 
 
 May keep thy minstrel boon, 
 A singing heart, in unison 
 
 With every darling tune. 
 
TO SOPHIA. 
 
 " The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom." 
 
 SUCH wisdom as thy name implies 
 
 And all who seek may find, 
 Be ever honoured in thine eyes, 
 
 And treasured in thy mind ; 
 Its glory more than gold or gem 
 
 Thy happy brow shall deck, 
 Be on thy head a diadem, 
 
 And pearls about thy neck. 
 
 For they who fear the Lord shall be 
 
 Unto salvation wise ; 
 And mighty is the mystery 
 
 Which in that sentence lies ; 
 Unmoved by other fear or shame, 
 
 Let but that fear be thine, 
 And in the spirit of thy name 
 
 Pursue the life divine. 
 
 137 
 
TO A LADY, 
 
 WITH A SPRIG OF MYRTLE. 
 
 O, THOSE were happy times, I think, 
 
 When symbolizing leaves 
 Conveyed, instead of pen and ink, 
 
 The thoughts that love conceives. 
 No soiling, then, of dainty skin : 
 
 Besides, the token sweet 
 From each obtruding gaze kept in 
 
 The mystery complete. 
 
 Mere words are all too rude and rough ; 
 
 Nor can the tongue reveal, 
 In terms half delicate enough, 
 
 What raptured spirits feel. 
 But worlds of tender sentiment 
 
 In one green spire may lie, 
 And kindred hearts know more is meant 
 
 Than meets the stranger's eye. 
 
 138 
 
FOR A CHILD'S ALBUM. 
 
 DEAR child of many a hope and prayer, 
 
 Write in this little book 
 No thought on which thou wouldst not dare 
 
 To have thy Saviour look. 
 On every line, O, may He pour 
 
 Some glimmering of that ray 
 Which shineth ever more and more 
 
 Unto the perfect day. 
 
 Thine be a daily growth in grace, 
 
 Whatever else betide, 
 In favour with our rescued race, 
 
 And God be on thy side ; 
 Thine, too, in holiest purity 
 
 An upward path to trace, 
 Till, with thine angel, thou shalt see 
 
 In heaven thy Father's face. 
 
FRAGMENT. 
 
 ON GIVING THE NAME OF A DEPARTED CHILD TO 
 HER NEW-BORN SISTER. 
 
 'T WOULD seem to blot her from her place. 
 
 Though she, to fill one bitter cup, 
 Hath died, we must not thus efface 
 
 Her memory. No ! we reckon up 
 The lost, who slumber in their grave, 
 
 As ours. We cite their several names, 
 Which He, who now hath taken, gave ; 
 
 And love as well the absent claims 
 As this new born. 'T would give me pain 
 To hear them call another JANE. 
 
 140 
 
HOME. 
 
 I KNEW my father's chimney-top, 
 
 Though nearer to my heart than eye, 
 
 And watched the blue smoke reeking up 
 Between me and the winter sky. 
 
 Wayworn I traced the homeward track 
 My wayward youth had left with joy ; 
 
 Unchanged in soul I wandered back, 
 A man in years, in heart a boy. 
 
 I thought upon its cheerful hearth, 
 And cheerful hearts' untainted glee, 
 
 And felt, of all I 'd seen on earth, 
 This was the dearest spot to me. 
 
 141 
 
ABSENCE. 
 
 O, WHEN shall I be restored 
 To the place that is kept for me 
 
 Around the hearth, and around the board, 
 In my father's family ? 
 
 When shall my mother's eye 
 
 My coming footsteps greet, 
 With a look of days gone by, 
 
 Tender and gravely sweet ? 
 
 I know, when the prayer is said, 
 That for me warm bosoms yearn, 
 
 For me fond tears are shed ! 
 O, when shall I return ? 
 
 142 
 
THE TWO GRAVES. 
 
 THERE is a struggle and a strife 
 
 Within me, as I bid adieu 
 To all my household friends in life, 
 
 And may not say the same to you, 
 But leave once more, dear kindred dead ! 
 Your lowly tombs un visited : 
 
 To leave unmarked the heaving waves 
 
 Of that still burial-ground, 
 Where four long years above your graves 
 
 The thickened turf has bound ; 
 And think that that rank-bladed sod 
 May ne'er again by me be trod. 
 
 143 
 
144 THE TWO GRAVES. 
 
 But oftener shall my bosom yearn 
 Toward your calm bed of ease, 
 
 And thither thought and feeling turn 
 In their sad reveries ; 
 
 And never shall that cherished spot 
 
 Be in my stricken heart forgot. 
 
 The chain of grief, time-drawn to length , 
 That binds me there to both, 
 
 Alas ! it strengthens with my strength, 
 It groweth with my growth ; 
 
 And, even now, my spirit sinks 
 
 To drag its still increasing links. 
 
 When thou wast called away, the first 
 
 In burial as in birth, 
 I thought thy parents* souls would burst 
 
 At thy return to earth, 
 And prayed to bear the grief alone, 
 Nor add their anguish to my own. 
 
 It was too much to feel my heart 
 So unprepared, my brother ! 
 
 With thee in this vain world to part, 
 Or meet thee in another. 
 
 O, may my peace, like thine, be made 
 
 Ere my cold corse is near thee laid ! 
 
THE TWO GRAVES. 145 
 
 While yet we struggled to sustain 
 
 The drear, soul-sinking weight, 
 The fatal shaft was bent again 
 
 At us disconsolate, 
 
 And thou wast summoned next, the best, 
 The youngest, and the loveliest. 
 
 The seeds of visible decay 
 
 Were in thee from that hour, 
 And thenceforth thou didst pine away, 
 
 And wither like a flower. 
 O God ! it was a grievous thing 
 To see thy bitter suffering. 
 
 Then came the poignancy of woe, 
 
 The acme of distress, 
 The pangs which parents only know 
 
 When they are daughterless ; 
 But still they struggled on, and still 
 Submitted to their Maker's will. 
 
 Now all that of thy form survives 
 
 Is at thy brother's side, 
 For ye were lovely in your lives, 
 
 And death did not divide ; 
 And all that memory brings of thee 
 Is to my bosom agony. 
 j 
 
146 THE TWO GRAVES. 
 
 The relics of thy golden hair, 
 Thy books, and dresses gay 
 
 Which it was joy to see thee wear 
 Upon a holiday, 
 
 These things, alas ! now thou art gone, 
 
 It wrings my heart to look upon. 
 
 Sometimes thy silvery voice I hear 
 Where children are at play, 
 
 But dare not lift my eye for fear 
 The spell will melt away ; 
 
 Too well I know the grave denies 
 
 Thy image to my waking eyes. 
 
 Still it has been to me a dear, 
 Though desperate delight, 
 
 To meet thee in my dreams, and hear 
 Thee bless my sleeping sight ; 
 
 And waking from those visions vain, 
 
 I 've wept to dream them o'er again. 
 
 And yet, so pure, why should I weep 
 Thy early death, sweet child ? 
 
 How might we hope on earth to keep 
 Thy spirit undefiled ? 
 
 What but thy prompt departure hence 
 
 Could save thy angel innocence ? 
 
THE TWO GRAVES. 147 
 
 Yes, when I see, beloved child ! 
 
 The evil ways of men, 
 My soul is more than reconciled 
 
 To thy departure then ; a 
 And blessings flow to Him that died 
 That sinners might be sanctified. 
 
 Now thou art in the Spirit-land, 
 
 With the holy and the blest, 
 Where the wicked cease to trouble, and 
 
 The weary are at rest ; 
 And I am happy, since I know 
 That thou shalt be forever so. 
 
 a These four lines are virtually quoted from a beautiful little 
 poem, by Caroline Bowles, addressed To a Dying Infant " : 
 " I look around, and see 
 
 The evil ways of men ; 
 And, beloved child ! 
 I 'm more than reconciled 
 To thy departure then." 
 
NEW-YEAR THOUGHTS. 
 
 MY Muse is no migrating bird, 
 
 Nor one that sleeps the cold away ; 
 But in her parlour cage is heard 
 
 Still piping her perennial lay. 
 While o'er the sea her tribes retire, 
 
 She, though a patient sufferer, 
 Keeps, from her prison by the fire, 
 
 The household in a cheerful stir. 
 
 What dearer lesson to impart 
 
 To murmuring minds than her rich song ? 
 " Abate no jot of hope or heart, 
 
 Though days grow short, and cold grows strong. 
 Though pent up in a straitened room, 
 
 Break out, like me, in merriest strain, 
 And rise above the circling gloom 
 
 Till better days come round again." 
 
 148 
 
NEW-YEAR THOUGHTS. 149 
 
 How much we need such song of cheer, 
 
 He will not ask who looks, I ween, 
 Where through the portals of the year 
 
 The wintry world without is seen ; 
 He will not ask who sees the sky 
 
 Lowering with grim and murky face, 
 Or hears the boding frost-wind sigh 
 
 Around his ice-bound dwelling-place. 
 
 He will not ask who sees the crowd, 
 
 In twilight dim, so hurrying past, 
 All muffled to the eyes, and bowed 
 
 Before the keen and biting blast ; 
 He will not ask who promptly goes, 
 
 On such a night, at duty's call, 
 'Mid hail, and sleet, and drifting snows, 
 
 And storm-drops freezing as they fall. 
 
 He will not ask who has to do, 
 
 These dismal times, with suffering men, 
 And follows famine's ghastly crew 
 
 To misery's cold and squalid den, 
 Where fires are out, or burning low, 
 
 And through broad chinks and broken panes 
 The scythe-like air sweeps to and fro, 
 
 Curdling the life-blood in the veins. 
 
150 NEW- YEAR THOUGHTS. 
 
 He will not ask who climbs the stair, 
 
 Where, reft of fuel, fire, and food, 
 A mother sits, like wan despair, 
 
 Benumbed amid her huddling brood ; 
 Where hopeless woe and hunger steel 
 
 To every form of ill the mind, 
 Half crazed by sense of what they feel, 
 
 And fear of what is worse behind. 
 
 O, wouldst thou keep thy heart in tune 
 
 'Mid fireside joys, thy spirit lift, 
 Like song of bird in gay saloon, 
 
 Or blossoms in the snowy drift ; 
 With deeds of love thy joys expand, 
 
 And deal the blessings of thy lot 
 On every side, with generous hand, 
 
 To aching throngs <that have them not 
 
 Go, warm the cold ; go, clothe the bare ; 
 
 Go, feed the starved ones at thy door ; 
 And let the empty-handed share 
 
 From out thy basket and thy store ; 
 Go, wipe from misery's eye the tear, 
 
 Take by the hand affliction's son ; 
 And happy shall be all the year 
 
 That is thus happily begun. 
 
NEW-YEAR THOUGHTS. 151 
 
 Go, give the sick and weary rest ; 
 
 Gladden the cells where prisoners lie ; 
 Pour balm and oil in wounded breast, 
 
 And soothe the soul about to die. 
 Go where thy name a blessing draws 
 
 From rescued lips on such employ ; 
 Partake the bliss of those who cause 
 
 The widow's heart to sing for joy. 
 
 Do thus, and thou shalt go to rest 
 
 With music round thy midnight bed, 
 And, blessing, shall be trebly blessed 
 
 For each such soul thus comforted. 
 Thy sun shall make a golden set 
 
 This New Year's day, and be by far 
 The happiest day that ever yet 
 
 Was lettered in thy calendar ! 
 
A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. 
 
 FllOM THE DESK OF POOR RICHARD, JR. 
 
 A HAPPY NEW YEAR, patrons, friends ! 
 
 Incline a gracious ear 
 To what Poor Richard, junior, sends 
 
 To prove his wish sincere ; 
 And do not grudge, he says, to take 
 
 Out of his earthen jar 
 True treasures, for the giver's sake, 
 
 If they true treasures are. 
 
 As pure, through Bozra's shallowest stream, 
 
 Oft glitter grains of gold, 
 And fair the blessed flowerets gleam 
 
 From sods all dull and cold ; 
 
A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. 153 
 
 So those who prized old Richard's prose, 
 
 Will not to-day disdain 
 Whatever wholesome precept glows 
 
 Beneath the carrier's strain. 
 
 Ye who would change these evil days, 
 
 And have them truly blest, 
 Must make, in ancient Richard's phrase, 
 
 Of everything the best : 
 And each, though knowing but in part. 
 
 The mystery of sin, 
 Must cure in his own evil heart 
 
 His evil's origin. 
 
 The secret is, Poor Richard says, 
 
 But understood by few, 
 That they have happiest New Year's days 
 
 Who have the most to do : 
 The poor rejoiceth in his tasks, 
 
 With present good content, 
 And sweet his daily bread who asks 
 
 But to be innocent. 
 
 He little knows the bitter cost 
 
 At which the rich increase ; 
 The hours of sweet composure lost, 
 
 And compensating peace ; 
 
154 A NEW YEAR'S ADDRESS. 
 
 He little knows their waking toils, 
 
 Their visions of distress, 
 Who dream, amid their hoarded spoils, 
 
 Of fortune's fickleness. 
 
 Cups strive to hold, Poor Richard writes. 
 
 The bucket's draught in vain ; 
 Nor can man's straitened appetites 
 
 More than their fill contain. 
 Enjoyment has its bounds, though deep 
 
 Be wealth's unfailing spring, 
 And all our chiefest comforts keep 
 
 In moderation's ring. 
 
 Labour to pleasure giveth zest, 
 
 Which gold can never win ; 
 Cheap recreations are the best, 
 
 And none so dear as sin. 
 True joy is where yon visitant 
 
 Some broken spirit cheers, 
 And where the pale, lank cheek of want 
 
 Is wet with grateful tears. 
 
 A bold, bad man, or fool, is he 
 
 Who dare the cup refuse 
 Which mercy mixeth lovingly, 
 
 And would his neighbour's choose. 
 
A NEW YEARS ADDRESS. 155 
 
 We know the worst of what we are, 
 
 But not another's curse ; 
 And certain bad is better far 
 
 Than dread of something worse. 
 
 Poor Richard knows full well distress 
 
 Is real, and no dream ; 
 And yet life's bitterest ills have less 
 
 Of bitter than they seem. 
 Meet like a man thy coward pains, 
 
 And some, be sure, will flee ; 
 Nor doubt the worst of what remains 
 
 Will blessings prove to thee. 
 
 And thou, whose days abundance bring, 
 
 Give needy men their due ; 
 Who saves the poor from suffering, 
 
 May save from sinning too. 
 And be thou slow to wield the rod 
 
 When others do thee wrong, 
 And bear awhile with them, when God 
 
 Hath borne with thee so long. 
 
 On you alone, of lily kind, 
 
 Effeminate and pale, 
 Who idle in the summer wind, 
 
 Poor Richard fain would rail, 
 
156 A NEW YEARS ADDRESS. 
 
 Because ye have not toiled and spun 
 
 As sister lilies might, 
 Nor are ye wise as Solomon, 
 
 Though gaudier to the sight. 
 
 Your only place, ye well-arrayed, 
 
 Poor Richard thinks, for whom 
 The world is under tribute laid 
 
 For finery and perfume, 
 Soon as your well-anointed hair 
 
 Is long enough to braid, 
 Should be with some man-milliner, 
 
 To learn a useful trade. 
 
 These are a few of Richard's rules ; 
 
 Nor does he much expect 
 To found, amid the rival schools, 
 
 A very numerous sect ; 
 Nor will he longer moralize, 
 
 Lest he should prove severe ; 
 Enough is said to help the wise 
 
 To make a happy year ! 
 
VALENTINE. 
 I. 
 
 AGAIN the fated hours have come, 
 
 As holy legends tell, 
 When Valentine in martyrdom 
 
 A blessed victim fell ; 
 And doubt thou not, one wish of thine, 
 
 O gentle maid ! would make, 
 This day, thy chosen Valentine 
 
 A martyr for thy sake. 
 
 By ice and snow though severed wide, 
 
 Naught else, O maiden true ! 
 Of cold or distance shall divide 
 
 Between myself and you ; 
 Though many a bond in sunder parts, 
 
 Snapped by this frosty weather, 
 It shall but keep two loving hearts 
 
 Still closer bound together. 
 157 
 
VALENTINE. 
 II. 
 
 " Nee me meminisse pigebifr ELIS^E, 
 Dum memor ipse mei, dum spiritua hos regit artus. 
 Pro re pauca loquar." 
 
 No season this for leaves and flowers ; 
 
 And wandering birds who seek a mate, 
 'Mid wintry winds and snowy showers, 
 
 Find all forlorn and desolate. 
 They come too soon, or Spring too late ; 
 
 A caution, as it were, to me, 
 Lest I should rashly tempt my fate, 
 
 And disappoint my destiny. 
 
 My heart, so like the season, cold, 
 
 Has lost its once elastic spring, 
 And warns me I am much too old 
 
 To go again philandering ; 
 And yet, could youth replume its wing, 
 
 And love inspire the thrilling line, 
 Not Petrarch's self such stores should bring, 
 
 To win thee for his VALENTINE. 
 
VALENTINE. 
 III. 
 
 " thou sweet spirit, hear I 
 Hear the mild spell, and tempt no blacker charm ' " 
 
 LADY ! beneath a potent sign, 
 
 I hail thee from afar, 
 For 't is the night when Valentine 
 
 Reigns in the calendar ; 
 And he my patron saint above 
 
 All other saints shall be, 
 Who suffered for devoted love, 
 
 And manly constancy. 
 
 Few relics of his mortal part, 
 
 And fewer still, I ween, 
 Of his true love and tender heart, 
 
 In these cold days are seen : 
 But if his spirit still may rest 
 
 On earth, O, be it mine, 
 Till I, dear maid, shall stand confessed 
 
 Thy faithful Valentine ! 
 
 159 
 
A VALENTINE. 
 IV. 
 
 I STAND the fated hours among ; 
 
 And ere their spell depart, 
 I would not leave thee all unsung, 
 
 Fair lady of my heart ! 
 Though wintry airs are wondrous sharp, 
 
 Though storms obscure the moon, 
 And cold has snapped thy strings, poor harp ! 
 
 My heart is still in tune. 
 
 Yes, let the world without be chill, 
 
 Let all be wild and wet, 
 The fire within glows brightly still, 
 
 The pulse throbs warmly yet ; 
 Nor will it throb, dear maid, in vain : 
 
 How rude soe'er the line, 
 Thy gentle heart will not disdain 
 
 Thine own true Valentine. 
 
 160 
 
THE CHAPEL BELL, YALE COLLEGE. 
 
 FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF A LATE POOR SCHOLAR. 
 
 " The chapel bell with grief they heard, 
 The dinner bell with glee." Old Song. 
 
 DAN CHAUCER, in my dreaming ear 
 
 Methinks thou reasonest well, 
 " What jingleth in the wind so clear 
 
 As doth the chapel bell ? " 
 The tongue, that once roused holy clerk 
 
 To lauds and primes, is still, 
 In college towers, as hard at work, 
 
 As lively and as shrill. 
 
 That chapel bell no ear forgets 
 That once its voice has known, 
 
 And way of turning somersets 
 Peculiarly its own : 
 
 K 161 
 
162 THE CHAPEL BELL. 
 
 Hark ! how they follow round and round, 
 
 And oft in silence dance, 
 As if, for very joy, the sound 
 
 Had lost its utterance ! 
 
 Alas ! old chapel bell, to me, 
 
 Whose precious dreams are broke 
 By these remains of Popery, 
 
 Thy jargon is no joke ! 
 I Ve mixed too much with Protestants, 
 
 And trust I ever shall, 
 To relish these monastic haunts, 
 
 And hours canonical ! 
 
 O, dull as lead that scene of gloom 
 
 Where students stretch and yawn, 
 Pent up in recitation-room 
 
 An hour before the dawn ; 
 Well may the cheek with blushes glow, 
 
 To think of wrongs then done 
 Thy injured shade, O Cicero ! 
 
 And thine, O Xenophon ! 
 
 A fig for all affected talk 
 
 Of early matin prayers, 
 Of long and lone surburban walk, 
 
 And bracing morning airs ; 
 
THE CHAPEL BELL. 163 
 
 If stomachs are unbreakfasted. 
 
 The case can scarce be worse ; 
 And if as empty is the head, 
 
 'T is sure a double curse. 
 
 I '11 bless my stars, which shine so bright, 
 
 When I shall be no more 
 Compelled to rise by candle-light, 
 
 And vote the stars a bore. 
 I '11 laugh as I have never laughed, 
 
 Nor dread the coming ill 
 Of meeting some protested draft 
 
 Of monitorial bill. 
 
 O, how I grudge that graduate's luck 
 
 Who has of sleep his fill, 
 And snores like Captain Clutterbuck, 
 
 Released from morning drill. 
 He rises not at tuck of drum, 
 
 Nor with the daybreak gun, 
 Nor always, it is said by some, 
 
 With wintry's tardy sun. 
 
 Like him, these summons I '11 deride, 
 
 Draw closer down my cap, 
 And, turning on my other side, 
 
 Resume my morning nap. 
 
164 THE CHAPEL BELL. 
 
 I '11 linger for a richer tone, 
 Till in the breakfast bell 
 
 I feel, and, with the poet, own 
 Thy touch, Ithuriel ! 
 
Irttt? fTT Ff TTTTTTTTTTt ft? f 
 
 AN APOLOGY. 
 
 FROM A BOCK CALLED THE POET'S SEAT. 
 
 EMERGING from the storied wood, 
 
 Enforced, I took the poet's seat ; 
 Inspiring faces o'er me stood, 
 
 And Greenfield lay beneath my feet. 
 With lulling sound I heard fast by 
 
 The unseen river's broken flows, 
 And all things seemed to multiply 
 
 One image of serene repose. 
 
 I little thought, 'mid musings vain, 
 
 How like that stone to fate of bard, 
 Rich visions floating round his brain, 
 
 But ah ! his seat, so lone and hard ! 
 Of friendship and of feeling full, 
 
 How little, in his weakness, dreamt he 
 That head and fancy both were dull, 
 
 And, like his rocky inkstand, empty ! 
 
 165 
 
ARCHITECTURAL. 
 
 "HOUSES OF WOKSHIP." 
 
 PRAY tell me, is yon classic dome, 
 
 Hemmed in on either flank, 
 Designed for God's or Mammon's home, - 
 
 A temple or a bank ? 
 And tell me why, to human eyes, 
 
 No outward signs declare 
 If it be house of merchandise, 
 
 Or holy house of prayer. 
 
 The Hindoo pagod's towers are gay 
 
 With flaunting banners set ; 
 And crescents in the sunbeams play 
 
 On mosque and minaret : 
 As by the Synagogue I went, 
 
 Some months ago, I saw 
 Conspicuous in the pediment 
 
 The tables of the law. 
 
ARCHITECTURAL. 167 
 
 But who shall say of this unique 
 
 With what it has to do, 
 Or Catholic, or Heretic, 
 
 Or Pagan, Turk, or Jew ? 
 Or that new pantheistic sect 
 
 Whose creeds with all accord, 
 Who worship, with a like respect, 
 
 " Jehovah, Jove, or Lord " ? 
 
 O, why should Christian men thus fear 
 
 To lift on every shrine 
 The symbol to their souls most dear, 
 
 Faith's sure and steadfast sign ; 
 That swerves not when the vanes are whirled, 
 
 The sport of every breeze, 
 As fitful as this fickle world, 
 
 Or fancy's reveries ? 
 
 But look on all the neighboring spires, 
 
 And see it written plain, 
 The shape which most the town admires 
 
 Is, like its name, but vain. 
 The Cross is still a stumbling-block, 
 
 And noisy Gushfords vaunt 
 That nothing but your weathercock 
 
 Is purely Protestant. 
 
168 ARCHITECTURAL. 
 
 There were some reason on their side, 
 
 If these same cocks could crow 
 As often as is Christ denied 
 
 By those who meet below ; 
 Or could they warn the wavering, 
 
 By passion tossed and doubt, 
 Of their unrest whom every wind 
 
 Of doctrine veers about. 
 
NAHANT. 
 
 ROCKS, sands, and seas, 
 
 What charms hast thou but these, 
 
 O desolate Nahant ! 
 Rocks, sands, and seas, 
 Twelve grotesque cottages, 
 And six storm-beaten trees, 
 
 Struck all aslant ! 
 
 169 
 
OLD NORTH COCK. 
 
 ROOSTED upon his ancient ball, 
 Last night, sat the old North cock, 
 
 In the midst of a terrible northeast squall 
 Which made the steeples rock, 
 
 And waked the watchmen one and all, 
 As the bell tolled twelve o'clock. 
 
 With head erect and unruffled form, 
 The hearty and tough old cock, 
 
 Through wind and rain, and cold and warm, 
 All weathers continues to mock ; 
 
 And he whisked him round to face the storm, 
 And breasted himself to the shock. 
 
 O image of triple guilt, quoth I, 
 I should very much like to know 
 
 170 
 
OLD NORTH COCK. 171 
 
 If you have a bit of reason why, 
 
 While all these changelings here below, 
 
 Like Peter of old, their Lord deny, 
 You never were known to crow. 
 
 Whist ! whist ! quoth Chanticleer, you 're slow ; 
 
 How could I crow as fast or 
 Oft, as these niy friends below, 
 
 And each misguiding pastor, 
 And the Priestly men who teach them so, 
 
 Deny their Lord and Master ? 
 
NEW HAVEN. 
 
 A WINDOW in a picture-shop ; it brought all back 
 to me 
 
 The churches and the colleges, and each familiar 
 tree; 
 
 And, like a sunlit emerald, came glancing out, be- 
 tween 
 
 Its pretty, snow-white palisades, the verdure of " the 
 Green." 
 
 O, could I write an Ode, like Gray's, upon a distant 
 
 view 
 Of Eton College, could I draw the pictures that 
 
 he drew, 
 How would the pleasant images that round my 
 
 temples throng 
 Live in descriptive dactyls, and look verdantly, in 
 
 song! 
 
 172 
 
NEW HAVEN. 173 
 
 " Tres faciunt collegium," each jurist now agrees ; 
 Which means, in the vernacular,. a college 
 
 made of trees; 
 And, bosomed high in tufted boughs, yon venerable 
 
 rows 
 The maxim in its beauty and its truth alike disclose. 
 
 Not so when, lit with midnight oil, the casements in 
 
 long line, 
 (Where more is meant than meets the eye,) like 
 
 constellations shine ; 
 And, alma-mater like, the kine, from dairy fields 
 
 astray, 
 Make every passage where they pass a sort of milky 
 
 way. 
 
 And on the green and easy slope where those proud 
 
 columns stand, 
 In Dorian mood, with academe and temple on each 
 
 hand, 
 The football and the cricket-match upon my vision 
 
 rise, 
 With all the clouds of classic dust kicked in each 
 
 other's eyes. 
 
 I see my own dear mother Church, that warned me 
 
 from my sin, 
 The walls so Gothic all without, so glorious all within, 
 
174 NEW HAVEN. 
 
 And, emblem of that ancient faith her hallowed 
 
 courts that fills, 
 Reared from the adamantine rock, the everlasting 
 
 hills. 
 
 0, could the vista of my life but now as bright ap- 
 pear 
 
 As when I first through Temple Street looked down 
 thine espalier, 
 
 How soon to thee, my early home, would I once 
 more repair, 
 
 And cheer again my sinking heart with my own 
 native air ! 
 

 PRISON HYMN, BY MABY, QUEEN OF 
 SCOTS. 
 
 JEHOVAH, my Saviour, 
 
 My confidence Thou ; 
 O loveliest Jesus, 
 
 Deliver me now ! 
 In closest immurings, 
 In cruel endurings, 
 My flesh and my spirit cry out after Thee ! 
 
 I languish 
 
 In anguish, 
 And, bending the knee, 
 
 Adore Thee, 
 
 Implore Thee 
 To liberate me. 
 
8k&s$d^^ 
 
 } ^ifHjHSHHNnf^^ t-f f i--^-^-f-f-f-^ r 
 
 LAKE OWASCO. 
 
 " One of the seven fair lakes that lie 
 Like mirrors 'neath the summer sky." 
 
 ENSENORE. 
 
 FAIR upon thy tranquil face 
 
 The gilded clouds, in rich array, 
 Reflected pass, and leave no trace, 
 
 Types of thy people passed away ! 
 And he who through thy pictured page 
 
 Looks deepest down, with rapture sees, 
 Like relics of that long-lost age, 
 
 The glimmerings of dim mysteries. 
 
 Well may the statesmen, for such seats, 
 
 Resign the empire's helm awhile, 
 And deep within thy green retreats 
 
 The languid summer hours beguile. 
 Here Scipio had, in joy, repaired 
 
 With Lselius, at the Senate's close, 
 And by thy shaded strand had shared 
 
 The charms of friendship and repose. 
 
LAKE OWASCO. 177 
 
 Bright visions haunt thy storied dells, 
 
 Nor may thy crystal waters drown 
 The mingled pomps of poet's spells, 
 
 And legends of thine old renown. 
 To fancy's ear they utter speech 
 
 In tones unsyllabled before, 
 And every ripple on the beach 
 
 Seems faintly whispering, " ENSENORE ! 
 
ALBANY. 
 
 " Genus unde Latinmn 
 ALBANIQUE PATRES atque ALT^E MCENIA ROIVLE." 
 
 INSTINCT with filial love I come, O ancient Albany ! 
 
 My childhood's faithful nurse, to pay the tribute 
 due to thee ; 
 
 For in thy dear domestic haunts I learned my ear- 
 liest song, 
 
 And manhood's riper minstrelsies to thee of right 
 belong ! 
 
 When, after many weary years, again to thee I drew, 
 
 And suddenly from Greenbush side the landscape 
 burst to view, 
 
 How thrilled my pulse, how swelled my heart, upon 
 that lofty height ! 
 
 For never in my life, methought, saw I a fairer sight. 
 
 178 
 
ALBANY. 179 
 
 Thy gilded spires and pinnacles rose glittering in 
 
 the sun, 
 
 And each familiar edifice I counted one by one, 
 As, row on row descending steep, they met the 
 
 river shore, 
 Which, sheathed in winter's icy mail, with masts 
 
 was bristled o'er. 
 
 Though sharply blew the northern wind, so bril- 
 liant was the scene, 
 So shone the noble stream that lay in glassy bonds 
 
 between, 
 I felt thou wert a spectacle of stirring power to 
 
 see, 
 And proudly hailed thee as mine own, O ancient 
 
 Alba ny ! 
 
 Yet brighter than that spectacle, that prospect's 
 fair array, 
 
 Or Nature in her purity that round about me lay, 
 
 A dearer vision chained my soul more touching far 
 than these, 
 
 And peopled all the pictured past with busy mem- 
 ories. 
 
 O, let me in my weakness give these childish feel- 
 ings way, 
 
 That rush upon me as I weave my humble verse 
 to-day, 
 
180 ALBANY. 
 
 Nor wonder if the spells of youth, strong as enchant- 
 ment's chain, 
 
 Should bind me to the single theme, and quite ab- 
 sorb the strain. 
 
 What troops of stirring images my brooding fancy 
 
 fill, 
 
 Oft as I turn my glistening gaze to Capitol and Hill ! 
 As fast they rush as when, of yore, with many a 
 
 reckless boy, 
 I glided down its dangerous slope, and snatched a 
 
 fearful joy. 
 Where are the partners of those feats, the striplings 
 
 one and all, 
 Who sat with me at Wisdom's feet in old " Uranian 
 
 Hall," 
 Ere yet the genius of the place her fostering care 
 
 withdrew, 
 To gather fitter audience there, and fairer though 
 
 less few ? 
 
 How small their living number now ! how many in 
 
 their grave, 
 The gallant and the generous, the beautiful and 
 
 brave ! 
 And hearts are broke and eyes are dim which then 
 
 with lustre shone, 
 And each stands in the other's sight unknowing 
 
 and unknown. 
 
ALBANY. 181 
 
 While thus our cycles sadly pass, and flesh and blood 
 
 decay, 
 How good to know that all we prize has not yet 
 
 passed away, 
 That while earth's generations change, as years have 
 
 come and gone, 
 Still Freedom's precious heritage of human rights 
 
 lives on ! 
 
 Still peers the self-same Capitol upon the city's 
 
 brow, 
 Though loftier to my boyhood's eye, yet not more 
 
 dear than now ; 
 Nor less illustrious on its rolls its statesmen's glory 
 
 shines, 
 True to their common country each, though ranged 
 
 in adverse lines. 
 
 In democratic majesty again around me rise 
 Its long processions of the past, the mighty and the 
 
 wise, 
 The men of reverend name who there discharged 
 
 their honoured trust, 
 
 And filled my soul with wisdom's words and senti- 
 ments august. 
 There first I marked his high career, whose early 
 
 merit won 
 The choicest of his epithets, " the people's favourite 
 
182 ALBANY. 
 
 Who to the triumph in the van led on the Empire 
 
 State, 
 And now in highest sphere adorns his country's 
 
 consulate. 
 
 Long may the Alban fathers there in Roman virtue 
 
 sit, 
 And tire its echoes with the strains of eloquence 
 
 and wit, 
 
 And, fast emerging from the cloud and din of fac- 
 tious war, 
 
 Make our symbolic orb of day rise still " Excelsior ! " 
 May yet the good St. Nicholas maintain our old 
 
 renown, 
 From worthy sire to worthier son to be transmitted 
 
 down, 
 And keep beneath his tutelage, till time shall cease 
 
 to be, 
 The trophies of thy founders' fame, O ancient Co- 
 
 lonie I 
 
FRAGMENTS. 
 
 SUNDAY MORNING. 
 
 LORD of the Sabbath, hear me, even Thou 
 
 In the beginning who didst consecrate 
 
 A meet proportion of the new-born time 
 
 To thy perpetual service, to assist 
 
 The deep infirmities of mortal kind ; 
 
 Blessing the seventh day and hallowing it 
 
 As a memorial of thine own repose 
 
 From thy creative labors, and a pledge 
 
 And presage of the glorious rest eterne 
 
 Remaining for the Israel of God. 
 
 Here let me worship, as the Hebrew did, 
 
 In the serene of yon deep vault, ere Thou, 
 
 Half veiled within the tabernacle bright, 
 
 Madest thy pavilion in the wilderness, 
 
 Amid the long, white avenues of tents. 
 
 The world's great fathers, in those primal days, 
 
 Drowned in the abyss of ages which have been, 
 
 183 
 
184 FRAGMENTS. 
 
 Made each high hill their altar. Happy they 
 
 Who met together, at this holy hour, 
 
 Beneath some mountain palm, the place of prayer 
 
 Ere temple rose, or oratory cool 
 
 Was built fast by the sea or river side. 
 
 IN A HEBREW BIBLE WITHOUT POINTS. 
 
 Open now the Hebrew page, 
 Sleek and glossy spite of age ; 
 Unsophisticated text, 
 By no Masorite perplext ; 
 Where each character you see 
 In its stern simplicity. 
 Upright, racy, square, and bold, 
 Symbol of the truth they hold, 
 As the eye delights to track, 
 Row by row, the letters black, 
 Say, is not each martial line 
 Worthy of the Word divine ? 
 
 ON A SERMON-COVER. 
 
 Nor was my earliest sermon case forgot, 
 With velvet cover, and with vellum lined ; 
 The opening collects on the left-hand page, 
 
FRAGMENTS. 185 
 
 And on the right-hand those of closing prayer. 
 With skill imprinted at the Wickbam press. 
 Though soiled and worn, yet not more soiled and 
 
 worn 
 
 Than are the dingy sheets I fasten in, 
 Oft as I preach contemporaneous notes. 
 Not so the truths themselves, nor truest love, 
 Decay and perish, though the world wear old 
 And threadbare as the velvet, and the skies 
 Be shrivelled parchment at the day of doom ! 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 [This fragment of what the author suppressed as a 
 "wretched doggerel," is all that is known to remain of 
 the poem which the poet delivered before the House of 
 Convocation of Trinity College, in the month of August, 
 1848. It is preserved for the interest which it shows in 
 that seat of learning, and for the local matters to which 
 it gives a memorial, and the useful rebukes it points. It 
 was written invitd Minerva, in the greatest haste ; it was, 
 in fact, a sort of improvisation, and he never referred to 
 the performance except with expressions of extreme re- 
 pugnance, such as appear in the verse itself. Beginning 
 with recollections of the Puritan College at New Haven, 
 he refers to the pictures in the " Trumbull Gallery."] 
 
 THERE first we gazed on the serene expanse 
 
 Of BERKELEY'S bright and heavenly countenance, 
 
 And could not but contrast it, in our sport, 
 
 With thy pinched visage, prick-eared DAVENPORT ; 
 
 Nor queried, as we turned to either face, 
 
 Which were the real genius of the place. 
 
 186 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 187 
 
 [He then takes up an idea which has been thrown out by 
 another, in a former Convocation poem (1840), and speaks 
 of Trinity College as the realization of Bishop Berkeley's 
 attempt to establish St. Paul's College in Bermuda.] 
 
 Taught, (in a brother's words,) to love in thee 
 
 " Earth's every virtue, writ in poesy ; " 
 
 O BERKELEY, as I read, with moistened eyes, 
 
 Of thy sublime but blasted enterprise, 
 
 Refusing, in thy pure, unselfish aim, 
 
 To sell to vulgar wealth a founder's fame, 
 
 But in thy fervour sacrificing all 
 
 To objects worthy of the name of PAUL, 
 
 What joy to see in our official line 
 
 A faith revived, identical with thine ; 
 
 Pledged to fulfil the spirit of thy scheme, 
 
 And prove thy College no ideal dream ! 
 
 [He next refers to the portrait of Bishop Seabury in 
 Trinity College, mentioning the fact that Bishop Berke- 
 ley's son was a chief instrument in obtaining the conse- 
 cration of Bishop Seabury by the Scottish Bishops.] 
 
 And when, on yonder walls, we now survey 
 
 The man u whose grace chalked his successor's way," 
 
 And study, SAMUEL, thy majestic head, 
 
 By BERKELEY'S son to Heaven's anointing led, 
 
 And see the ways of Providence combine 
 
 The gentle bishop with the masculine, 
 
 We pray this noblest offspring of thy see 
 
 May honour BERKELEY, nor dishonour thee. 
 
188 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 [He now refers to Dr. Cutler, formerly Eector of Yale 
 College, and Dr. Johnson, one of its Fellows, who in the 
 early part of the seventeenth century became converts 
 to the principles of the Church, from the light of their 
 studies, and were of course deprived of their places. 
 They went to England for orders; Cutler became Eec- 
 tor of Christ Church, Boston, and Johnson the father of 
 churches and of churchmen in Connecticut. Dr. Cros- 
 well himself, and Dr. Eaton, who were present on the oc- 
 casion, were both successors of Cutler in the Rectorship 
 of Christ Church.] 
 
 And join with these those master minds of yore 
 Who loved their College much, but conscience 
 
 more, 
 
 CUTLER and JOHNSON, whom one rigorous day 
 Drove out from Yale, a voluntary prey, 
 To reap at once by Cam and Isis' side 
 The honours which maternal scorn denied. 
 Though it might well provoke their reverend smiles 
 To think of rivalling those immortal piles, 
 Yet, as aspiring over sect and clique, 
 To follow all that made them catholic, 
 If they were here, from Christ Church chimes afar, 
 To-day, as CUTLER'S two successors are, 
 They would have prayed, dear Trinity, to see 
 " No drought on others, but much dew on thee." 
 
 [Next the poet speaks of architecture, and laments the 
 prostitution of the Gothic to common uses, and especially 
 bewails the lack of proper chapels in American Colleges.] 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 189 
 
 Harvard and Yale have both revived the style 
 And antique grandeur of some fine old pile. 
 Those solemn towers, how beautiful they stand, 
 Like mighty minsters of our fatherland ! 
 But not, alas ! for worship ; though their looks 
 Be so cathedral-like, they hold but books ; 
 The form without the spirit, each retains, 
 The vizard of the fable without brains. 
 And so they sever piety from art. 
 Addressing more the intellect than heart. 
 
 Not to resist the truism of the hour, 
 We freely grant that knowledge may be power ; 
 But on our knees, and not on alcoved shelves, 
 We find, through God, the knowledge of ourselves. 
 
 [It should be recollected that this poem was spoken in 
 Christ Church, of which the Rev. Dr. Wheaton, its Rec- 
 tor, had been the architect. The poet now passes to as- 
 pirations for Trinity.] 
 
 But far from such unholy sights as these 
 
 The hopes that haunt our sacred reveries : 
 
 In yonder hall there yet is room to spare 
 
 For store of books, would that the books were 
 
 there ! 
 
 But (if indeed, the love of letters hold 
 Its place, as handmaid to the Faith of old) 
 
190 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 If we would have that favoured site to be, 
 
 Above all others, " fair exceedingly," 
 
 Let WHEATON plan, like this, another shrine 
 
 For purposes exclusively divine ; 
 
 Not York Cathedral " on a smaller scale," 
 
 And " much improved where the dark ages fail ; " 
 
 Nor yet King's College Chapel, that " immense 
 
 And glorious work of fine intelligence ; " 
 
 But " all we can, high Heaven disdains the lore 
 
 Of nicely-calculated loss or more." 
 
 There, with the stony archwork overhead, 
 
 Beneath our feet the ashes of the dead, 
 
 And monumental effigies around, 
 
 The soul might wander as in holy ground, 
 
 And feel a soft religious sadness brood, 
 
 Deepening the spirit of its quietude. 
 
 There let the sun " salute with his first smile 
 
 Our holiest symbol crowning the dear pile ; " 
 
 And be the power of architecture shown 
 
 To lift the Athanasian Creed in stone. 
 
 Within, a tempered light, like sunset skies, 
 
 Let glimmerings of a thousand gorgeous dyes 
 
 Shed streaming down from every pictured pane 
 
 Their rainbow glories round the vaulted fane, 
 
 And through the window o'er the altar fling 
 
 The heaven-hued symbols in enamelling. 
 
 There let the organ and the strain devout 
 
 Make every stone in sympathy cry out, 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 191 
 
 Like some harmonious fabric of the Lord's, 
 
 " Whose vaults are shells, and pillars tuneful chords." 
 
 There let the surpliced priests in order stand, 
 
 And why not white-robed choirs on either hand ? 
 
 If this be too extravagant a pitch, 
 
 (Alas that our endowments are not rich !) 
 
 Still, what we can. Let us contend, at least, 
 
 For daily service and the vested priest ; 
 
 And let the season blend, in fixed career, 
 
 The Christian and the academic year ; 
 
 Be music carried to the full extent 
 
 Allowed by ancient choral precedent ; 
 
 And let the students' well-trained voices swell 
 
 Each hoary laud, time-honoured canticle, 
 
 Which England, purged from superstition's stain, 
 
 Resumed among her earliest rites again. 
 
 [He refers next to the attempts at daily and choral ser- 
 vices, made at Hobart College, and Burlington, and St. 
 Paul's in Missouri, the latter under the Kev. William 
 Corbyn, one of Yale's Berkeley scholars.] 
 
 Hark ! the strains, increasing far and wide, 
 From SENEKA and graceful RIVERSIDE] 
 Like deep to deep the billowy anthem calls, 
 From far Nashotah to her own St. Paul's, 
 And rings through her affiliated halls. 
 Vale of the Cross, as gentle shepherds tell, 
 Such sounds are heard in thy secluded dell ; 
 
192 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 From Corbyn's grot the self-same chant is raised, 
 And " daily prayer is made, and daily is HE praised." 
 
 [He recurs to the divers uses which the chapel of Yale 
 College is made to serve, in contrast with such chapels as 
 he has spoken of.] 
 
 Perhaps it is not scandal to compare 
 
 Such courts with that amphibious place of prayer, 
 
 (Contrived, like Goldsmith's chest, two debts to 
 
 pay, 
 
 A bed by night, a chest of drawers by day,) 
 Where now awhile in worship we engage, 
 Then knights and squires shall enter on the stage ; 
 Which for a time a meeting-house is made, 
 And then it glitters in a masquerade. 
 Four years I saw the central aisle divide 
 The rows of rising seats on either side, 
 Where double choirs, ward over against ward, 
 Might sing responsive praises to the Lord. 
 But not so these : while yet the tutor reads, 
 The muster-master's busy work proceeds. 
 In due obeisance every head was bent 
 Upon the entering of the President, 
 But 't was a superstition for the free 
 At JESUS' name to bow the lowly knee. 
 And scarce the echoes died of prayer and praise, 
 Before the youths declaimed, or spouted plays. 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 193 
 
 These are the ways which in our Western climes 
 Make the " men-children of these forward times ; " 
 Of whom old Dryden said, so long ago, 
 " But seven wise men the ancient world did know, 
 We scarce know seven that think themselves not 
 
 so." 
 
 Against these evils let the CHURCH commence 
 Her sure protection, and her " cheap defence." 
 Though worldly cares have chilled devotion's flame, 
 Here let our needs a daily homage claim ; 
 Here let our prayers like morning incense rise, 
 Our lifted hands like evening sacrifice ; 
 Devotion's debt at morn and eve to pay, 
 And magnify our Saviour day by day. 
 
 In order these great objects to secure, 
 All must be first begun in miniature ; 
 And if a while your patience will but bear 
 With these plain couplets, I* will tell you where. 
 
 This is the place and time ; at once begin 
 Here to restore the ancient discipline. 
 Adopt the Church's homogeneous plan 
 To make the boy the father of the man ; 
 Where, in their due development, appear 
 The blade, the ear, the full corn in the ear, 
 So making good the old proverbial line, 
 Just as the twig is bent, the trees incline. 
 
 M 
 
194 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 Let every pupil, with his sapling, aid 
 To fill the grounds with " shrubbery and shade ; " 
 Plant oaks and " elms, those undissenting trees," 
 That grow not fast, but thrive for centuries ; 
 Beneath whose shadow, ages hence, our heirs 
 May bless our forethought, and take thought for 
 
 theirs. 
 
 And let the English ivy, high and thick, 
 Conceal the tame monotony of brick, 
 Amid the snows of winter ever green, 
 From summer suns a most refreshing screen. 
 
 Nor would my scheme reject the dining-hall, 
 Where what was meant for one was meant for all ; 
 Such as it was of old, when common food 
 Was made a bond of Christian brotherhood, 
 And each might wait, and of his Saviour learn 
 u To be as him that serveth," in his turn. 
 
 But first of all erect a chapel there, 
 
 And join at morn and eve in common prayer ; 
 
 If means be wanting, take yon upper room, 
 
 And teach the light " to counterfeit the gloom ; " 
 
 Then, chastening down the gaudy light of day, 
 
 Subdue the thoughts bewildered with their play, 
 
 And let the organ add its soothing sway. 
 
 Set up the holy altar there, and trail 
 
 Their young affections round the chancel pale ; 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 195 
 
 Purging the taint of heresy and schism 
 
 By constant portions of the Catechism. 
 
 In open view, let none regard the floor 
 
 Too low when prostrate mortals would adore, 
 
 But duly raise, upon their bended knees, 
 
 The full response of ancient litanies : 
 
 Invoke their Saviour in his Church's voice, 
 
 And in his eucharistic hymns rejoice. 
 
 The pointed Psalter printed in their heart, 
 
 There let them learn to bear their tuneful part, 
 
 Drilled to the cadence of that thrilling scale 
 
 Which, caught from seraphs, must o'er earth prevail. 
 
 So shall the watered seed spring up, and so 
 
 Children of grace to giant stature grow. 
 
 Nor let us see that holy place within 
 
 A priest in " broadcloth buttoned to the chin." 
 
 Holmes writes, " Heaven needs no surplice ; " as if he 
 
 Thought Heaven is pleased when men dress 
 
 slovenly. 
 
 Heaven needeth not man's wisdom, but " much less 
 It needeth any of man's foolishness." 
 
 If this be superstition, may we be 
 
 All guilty of it in the first degree. 
 
 Remembr'ing thus Jerusalem in mirth, 
 
 Sweet Herbert found his very heaven on earth ; 
 
 And Milton tells, as Milton only can, 
 
 What thus he learned, poor, superstitious man ! 
 
196 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 O, on yon slope, may some such towers arise 
 As plumed his wings sublime for paradise ! 
 Where, in our day, due feet might never fail, 
 Like his, to walk the studious cloisters' pale, 
 And love, like him, the high embowed roof 
 Resting on antique pillars, massy proof, 
 And catch through storied windows richly dight 
 A dim, religious, (superstitious) light : 
 There may we hear the pealing organ blow 
 To full-voiced choirs, antiphonal, below, 
 In that same service high, and anthems clear, 
 As oft with sweetness through his charmed ear 
 Dissolved great Milton's self to ecstasies, 
 And brought all heaven before his raptured eyes. 
 
 [He now suggests the building of a Senate-House, on the 
 banks of the Hart, the river which winds about the College 
 grounds.] 
 
 And yet another tabernacle rear 
 For such occasions as have brought us here ! 
 Above the stir and din of mangling mart, 
 Beside the ancient passage of the HART, 
 Let faith and fancy help to give to fame 
 " A local habitation and a name." 
 
 [Next he satirizes the Trinity College processions to 
 Christ Church through the dusty town.] 
 
 Beneath the dog-star and midsummer heat, 
 Let no procession through the burning street, 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 197 
 
 With tasselled cap and academic gown, 
 
 Exposed to the annoyance of the town, 
 
 Like needless alexandrine in the song, 
 
 Or wounded snake, trail its slow length along. 
 
 Pavilioned, if it need be, in a tent, 
 
 Until some WYKEHAM makes it permanent ; 
 
 Or cloistered where o'erarching boughs have made 
 
 Refreshing contiguity of shade ; 
 
 There let us gather, where no sounds intrude 
 
 To break the silence of the solitude 
 
 Save song of native birds, or piercing scream 
 
 Of railroad engine clattering o'er the stream ! 
 
 If we must have processions, let them pass 
 
 When shadows lie the longest on the grass ; 
 
 And for this martial music, let there be 
 
 Such chants as floated down the sylvan Dee, 
 
 The " Miserere mei, Domine." 
 
 And let the bell in yonder humble tower 
 
 Wake dewy silence at an earlier hour, 
 
 And usher in, betimes, the festal day 
 
 With merry peal and changeful roundelay. 
 
 So in the morning, far from Babel's dust, 
 These August days might yet be days august, 
 And words of power the place might glorify, 
 Which willingly the world would not let die. 
 There DANA might, in happiest mood, rehearse 
 Some last great effort of his deathless verse ; 
 
198 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 Or IRVING, like Arcadian, might beguile 
 The golden hours with his melodious style ; 
 Or he who takes no second living rank 
 Among the classics of the Church, VERPLANCK ; 
 Or he whose course " right onward," here begun, 
 Now sheds its brightness over Burlington, 
 Where our young sons like noble saplings grow, 
 And daughters like the polished pillars show. 
 
 [Last of all, he censures the custom of building platforms 
 in churches, and celebrating academic festivals therein.] 
 
 My heart upbraids me, friends, with double wrong, 
 
 While I inflict and you endure the song. 
 
 Were we indeed in earnest, and sincere, 
 
 When we professed that heaven's high gate was here ? 
 
 And set apart forever, day and night, 
 
 These solemn courts for old liturgic rite ? 
 
 Then we must sure be wrong ; we greatly err 
 
 Who use the church worse than the theatre, 
 
 And, like false Israel, our high places raise 
 
 As scaffolds on our sacrificing days ; 
 
 Where one at least, poor victim of his kind, 
 
 If not as strong as Samson, yet as blind, 
 
 Comes sadly forth, to make Philistines sport, 
 
 And immolate himself in Dagon's court ; 
 
 Content if but the sacrifice should tend 
 
 To bring these gross abuses to an end. 
 
CONVOCATION P'OEM. 199 
 
 Pardon thy servant, LORD, if he profane 
 These hallowed walls with his unworthy strain ; 
 Forgive, this once, all that to-day he durst 
 His last transgression, as it is his first 
 In telling truths which everybody knows, 
 But dare not speak them plainly out in prose ; 
 And for the future, hear his solemn pledge 
 To be no party to the sacrilege. 
 
 O, would we teach young scholars reverence, 
 
 Let judgment here begin, "take these things 
 
 hence." 
 
 And doubt it not, His Holy Spirit grieves 
 To see His house made like a den of thieves ; 
 To see a scaffold, by our graduates trod, 
 Erected o'er the altar of our GOD ; 
 And grave divines upon the platform meet, 
 To tread our holiest things beneath their feet. 
 This cannot sure be right : we ask to see, 
 If not perfection, yet consistency. 
 No wonder, where such profanation dwells, 
 If sons emerge precocious infidels. 
 O, better far, if we can find no hall 
 For such assembly, to have none at all ; 
 Or, like the sons of knighthood, take degrees 
 Before the altar, on our bended knees. 
 
 [He censures more severely the gross custom of leasing 
 pews, annually, by an auctioneer.] 
 
200 CONVOCATION POEM. 
 
 Scarce more disgusting 't is, when year by year, 
 
 With his red flag, comes in the auctioneer. 
 
 Abomination, blazoned on his face, 
 
 Stands, where it ought not, in the holy place ; 
 
 Where he who sells combines with him who buys 
 
 To make God's house a house of merchandise. 
 
 Within the sacred altar's rail, or desk, 
 
 He lifts his voice in impudent burlesque ; 
 
 Lays godless hands upon the Bible lid, 
 
 Not to ask blessings, but to ask a bid : 
 
 And voices, never heard in time of prayer, 
 
 Are emulous in loud responses there. 
 
 O, thus, methinks, might Mammon once have stood, 
 
 With that same look, and that same attitude, 
 
 And bent his downward glances to behold 
 
 Heaven's courts inlaid with patines of bright gold, 
 
 And, as the poet tells, admiring more 
 
 The trodden wealth of that resplendent floor 
 
 Than aught enjoyed of holy or divine, 
 
 In vision beatific, at the shrine. 
 
 But had that spirit, " least erect," the gift 
 
 With which our modern Mammon follows thrift, 
 
 He might from his high place have learned to muse 
 
 Of parcelling heaven's pure pavement into pews / 
 
 Seen how to make each consecrated floor 
 
 Productive gold, that was but wood before ; 
 
 Where men have leave in narrow slips to pray, 
 
 (If pray they choose,) provided that they pay / 
 
CONVOCATION POEM. 201 
 
 Yet need not care to worship on their knees, 
 But sit, like rows of meal-sacks, at their ease. 
 
 Unless its title-deeds a falsehood tell, 
 The house of God cannot be man's to sell ; 
 Nor yet to turn, in sight of God and man, 
 Into a kind of college caravan. 
 If insincere our gift, if we retain 
 Part of the price, the gift is worse than vain. 
 We dare to tempt His ancient people's fate, 
 Whose house was left unto them desolate ; 
 And though no gates, like theirs, asunder start, 
 Nor unseen voices cry, " Let us depart," 
 The glory will have vanished, and our God 
 Have written on its portals, ICHABOD. 
 
 [It is due to Trinity College to state that the reforms here 
 indicated have been more than begun, and that no College 
 in New England can be compared with it for the beauty of 
 its grounds, the decent order of its chapel-services, or the 
 propriety of its public ceremonies. Nowhere is a more 
 thorough course of instruction provided for the student, 
 and a bright future is confidently anticipated for the Col- 
 lege by all who regard the influences of the Church as an 
 essential element in the full development of character.] 
 
PSALM I. 
 
 HAPPY the man who never walks 
 Where impious men repair, 
 
 Nor lingers in the sinner's way, 
 Nor takes the scoffer's chair. 
 
 But in Jehovah's ordinance 
 
 He finds a pure delight ; 
 Enriching thus the orisons 
 
 Of every day and night. 
 
 He like a fruitful tree shall be, 
 
 Set by the water's brim ; 
 His leaf shall never fade, and all 
 
 Is prosperous with him. 
 
 Not so the impious ones ; like chaff 
 
 Swept by the wind away, 
 They with the righteous shall not stand 
 
 Upon the judgment day. 
 
PSALM I. 
 
 They hold no place amid the just, 
 Whose way Jehovah knows ; 
 
 And every path of godless men 
 Shall in perdition close. 
 
 203 
 
PSALM CXXXIII. 
 
 BEHOLD, how good it is, 
 
 How beautiful to see, 
 When brethren together dwell 
 
 In perfect unity. 
 
 Like perfume on the head, 
 
 Diffusing fragrance round 
 The high priest's beard, and o'er the robes 
 
 Whose fringes sweep the ground. 
 
 Like Hermon's dews which melt 
 
 Fair Zion's summits o'er ; 
 For there Jehovah's blessing rests, 
 
 And life forevermore. 
 
 204 
 
PSALM CXXXIY. 
 
 O, PRAISE Jehovah, ye 
 Who his true servants be, 
 
 Jehovah praise ! 
 Ye who to stand delight, 
 And worship in his sight, 
 Nor leave his courts by night, 
 
 Jehovah praise ! 
 
 With hands uplifted high, 
 His oracle draw nigh ; 
 
 Jehovah praise ! 
 Till he with holiness 
 His tribes from Zion bless, 
 And heaven and earth confess 
 
 Jehovah's praise ! 
 
PSALM CXXXVIL 
 
 BY the waters of Babel we sat down and wept, 
 As we called our dear Zion to mind ; 
 
 And our harps that in joy we so often had swept 
 Now sighed on the trees to the wind. 
 
 Then they that had carried us captive away. 
 
 In mockery, challenged a song, 
 And wringing out mirth from our sadness, would 
 say, 
 
 " Sing the strains that to Zion belong." 
 
 O how shall we sing the ineffable song 
 
 In a godless and barbarous land ? 
 If the minstrels of Salem could do her such wrong, 
 
 Be palsied each cunning right hand. 
 
 206 
 
PSALM CXXXVII. 207 
 
 Let my tongue to the roof of my mouth ever cling, 
 If aught else should its praises employ, 
 
 Or if Salem's high glories it choose not to sing, 
 Above all terrestrial joy. 
 
 Remember the children of Edom, O Lord, 
 How they cried, in Jerusalem's woe, 
 
 Her ramparts and battlements raze with the sword, 
 Her temples and towers overthrow. 
 
 O daughter of Babel ! thy ruin makes haste ; 
 
 And blessed be he who devours 
 Thy children with famine and misery waste, 
 
 As thou, in thy rapine, served ours. 
 
PSALM CL. 
 
 " Hail ye the Lord ! " 
 
 HAIL him in his sanctitude ! 
 
 Hail him in his highest height ! 
 Hail him for his deeds of good ! 
 
 Hail him for his matchless might ! 
 
 Hail him in the trumpet's strain ! 
 
 Hail him with the lyre and lute ! 
 Hail him with the timbrel train ! 
 
 Hail him with the strings and flute ! 
 
 Hail him with the cymbal's ring ! 
 
 Hail him with their loudest chord ! 
 Hail him, every breathing thing ! 
 
 Hail, all hail, the sovereign Lord ! 
 
 208 
 
ADVENT. 
 
 Rejoice in the Lord alway ; and again I say, Rejoice. The Lord 
 is at hand. Epistle for the Sunday before Christmas. 
 
 Now gird your patient loins again, 
 
 Your wasting torches trim ; 
 The Chief of all the sons of men, 
 
 Who will not welcome Hun ? 
 Rejoice \ the hour is near ; at length 
 
 The Journeyer on his way 
 Comes in the greatness of his strength 
 
 To keep his holy day. 
 
 With cheerful hymns and garlands sweet, 
 
 Along his wintry road, 
 Conduct him to his green retreat, 
 
 His sheltered, safe abode ; 
 
 N 209 
 
210 ADVENT. 
 
 Fill all his courts with sacred songs, 
 And from the temple wall 
 
 Wave verdure o'er the joyful throngs 
 That crowd his festival. 
 
 And still more greenly in the mind 
 
 Store up the hopes sublime 
 Which then were born for all mankind, 
 
 So blessed was the time ; 
 And underneath these hallowed eaves 
 
 A Saviour will be born 
 In every heart that Him receives 
 
 On his triumphal morn. 
 
HYMN FOR ADVENT. 
 
 WHILE the darkness yet hovers, 
 
 The harbinger star 
 Peers through and discovers 
 
 The dawn from afar ; 
 To many an aching 
 
 And watch-wearied eye, 
 The dayspring is breaking 
 
 Once more from on high. 
 
 With lamps trimmed and burning, 
 
 The Church on her way 
 To meet thy returning, 
 
 O bright King of day ! 
 Goes forth and rejoices. 
 
 Exulting and free, 
 And sends from all voices 
 
 Hosannas to thee. 
 211 
 
212 HYMN FOR ADVENT. 
 
 She casts off her sorrows, 
 
 To rise and to shine 
 With the lustre she borrows, 
 
 O Saviour ! from thine. 
 Look down, for thine honour, 
 
 O Lord ! and increase 
 In thy mercy upon her 
 
 The blessing of peace. 
 
 Her children with trembling 
 
 Await, but not fear, 
 Till the time of assembling 
 
 Before thee draws near ; 
 When, freed from all sadness, 
 
 And sorrow, and pain, 
 They shall meet thee in gladness 
 
 And glory again. 
 
CHRISTMAS. 
 
 The glory of Lebanon, etc. ISAIAH 
 
 THE thickly-woven boughs they wreathe 
 
 Through every hallowed fane, 
 A soft, reviving odour breathe 
 
 Of summer's gentle reign ; 
 And rich the ray of mild green light 
 
 Which, like an emerald's glow, 
 Comes struggling through the latticed height 
 
 Upon the crowds below. 
 
 0, let the streams of solemn thought, 
 
 Which in those temples rise, 
 From deeper sources spring than aught 
 
 Dependent on the skies. 
 Then, though the summer's glow departs, 
 
 And winter's withering chill 
 Rests on the cheerless woods, our hearts 
 
 Shall be unchanging still. 
 
 213 
 
VIGIL OF THE CIRCUMCISION. 
 
 THE DYING YEAR. 
 
 HARK to thy last hour's passing knell, 
 
 A startling sound to hear : 
 Eternally we bid farewell 
 
 To thee, departing year ! 
 Go join the long-gone centuries, 
 
 Thy sisters dim and gray ; 
 For soon, with all thy power to please, 
 
 Thou shalt be dim as they. 
 
 'T is o'er thy weight of weal and woe, 
 
 And nearer lies the bourn 
 To which though all life's travellers go, 
 
 No travellers return. 
 O, who can read thy doomsday roll 
 
 Of days and hours misspent, 
 Nor seek a refuge for his soul 
 
 From their just punishment ? 
 
J &2Syk&>5ykXQ5^^ 
 
 |^ -m*l| 
 
 THE EPIPHANY. 
 
 And when they had opened their treasures, they presented unto 
 him gifts; gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. Gospel for the 
 Day. 
 
 WE come not with a costly store, 
 
 O Lord ! like them of old, 
 The masters of the starry lore, 
 
 From Ophir's shores of gold ; 
 No weepings of the incense tree 
 
 Are with the gifts we bring, 
 Nor odorous myrrh of Araby 
 
 Blends with our offering. 
 
 But still our love would bring its best : 
 
 A spirit keenly tried 
 By fierce affliction's fiery test, 
 
 And seven times purified. 
 The fragrant graces of the mind, 
 
 The virtues that delight 
 To give their perfume out, will find 
 
 Acceptance in thy sight. 
 
 215 
 
FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. 
 
 The merchandise of Ethiopia. Lesson for the Day. 
 
 PRINCES shall come from Egypt, and 
 
 The path of life be trod 
 By myriads, when the Morian's land 
 
 Shall stretch her hand to God ; 
 Then Gush, and Ophir, and the sea 
 
 No idle gifts shall bring, 
 But soul and body both shall be 
 
 Their grateful offering. 
 
 The Ethiop may not change his skin, 
 
 Nor leopard change his spot ; 
 But God can work a change within, 
 
 Though man observeth not. 
 A holier dawn shall chase the night, 
 
 And darkness pass away, 
 And these shall also walk in white, 
 
 In Heaven's eternal day. 
 
 216 
 
SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY. 
 
 This beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and 
 manifested forth his glory, and his disciples believed on him 
 Gospel for the Day. 
 
 O HUMBLEST and happiest bridal of earth ! 
 
 O Cana of Galilee, blest 
 With the sanction of Christ for thine innocent mirth, 
 
 That first saw His glory confessed, 
 A glory enlivening the festival board, 
 
 Increasing its generous store, 
 And cheering the hearts that in wonder adored, 
 
 Till the cup of their gladness ran o'er ! 
 
 And who will unbless what the Saviour has blest ? 
 
 What being of arrogant mould 
 Will dare at the bridal where He is a guest, 
 
 The cup of his favour withhold ? 
 And why are thy bounties, O Master ! disdained, 
 
 When thy smile so indulgent will be, 
 If with conscience unwounded, and spirit unstained, 
 
 They remind us of Cana and Thee ? 
 
 217 
 
QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY. 
 
 A certain blind man sat by the wayside. Gospel for the Day. 
 
 POOR, and desolate, and blind, 
 
 Like the wayside wanderer, we 
 (Saviour ! by thy grace inclined) 
 
 Fain would guide our steps to thee. 
 'Mid the tumult of mankind, 
 
 Still in love thou passest by ; 
 Still let those who seek thee find ; 
 
 Hear our never-ceasing cry. 
 
 Darkly through our glass we see ; 
 
 Shadows wrap our loveliest day : 
 Lovelier will the vision be 
 
 When the scales shall fall away. 
 Saviour, though a tenfold night 
 
 O'er the outward sense should roll, 
 Brighter let thy cloudless light 
 
 Shine forever in the soul. 
 
LENT. 
 
 THOU who, for forty days and nights, o'ermastered 
 all the might 
 
 Of Satan, and the fiercest pangs of famished appe- 
 tite, 
 
 O Saviour ! leave us not alone to wrestle with 
 our sin, 
 
 But aid us in these holy hours of solemn disci- 
 pline. 
 
 Let not the tempter tempt us, Lord, beyond our 
 
 strength to bear, 
 Though, in the desert of our woe, he wildly shrieks, 
 
 Despair ! 
 Let not our humble confidence be in thy promise 
 
 stirred, 
 Nor clouds of dark distrust spring up between us 
 
 and thy word. 
 
 219 
 
220 LENT. 
 
 Nor let us yet be lifted up, by him, the prince 
 
 of air, 
 To scale presumption's dizzy height, and left to 
 
 perish there ; 
 Nor on the temple's pinnacle, in our self-righteous 
 
 pride, 
 Be set for thee to frown upon, and demons to deride. 
 
 And O, when pleasure, power, and pomp around 
 
 our vision swim, 
 And, through the soft, enchanting mist, he bids us 
 
 worship him, 
 Assist us from the revelling sense the sorcerer's spell 
 
 to break, 
 And tread the arch apostate down, Redeemer ! for 
 
 thy sake. 
 
HYMN 
 
 FOR THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. 
 
 GREAT Shepherd of our souls ! O, guide 
 Thy wandering flock to feed 
 
 In pastures green, and by the side 
 Of stilly waters lead. 
 
 Do thou our erring footsteps keep, 
 
 Whose life was given for the sheepT 
 
 O, let not us, who fain would cleave 
 
 To thy communion, stray, 
 Nor, tempted into ruin, leave 
 
 The strait and narrow way : 
 Before us thou the path hast trod, 
 And thou canst lead us, Son of God. 
 
 2-21 
 
222 HYMN. 
 
 O, let us hear thy warning voice, 
 
 And see thy arm divine ; 
 Thou know'st the people of thy choice, 
 
 And thou art known of thine. 
 Do thou our erring footsteps keep, 
 Whose life was given for the sheep. 
 
 Then when we pass the vale of death, 
 Though more and more its shade 
 
 Around our journey darkeneth, 
 We will not be afraid, 
 
 If thou art with us, and thy rod 
 
 And staff console us, Son of God. 
 
HYMN FOR WHITSUNDAY. 
 
 CREATOR Spirit ! come and bless us ; 
 Let thy love and fear possess us ; 
 With thy graces meek and lowly 
 Purify our spirits wholly. 
 Paraclete, the name thou bearest, 
 Gift of God the choicest, dearest, 
 Love, and fire, and fountain living, 
 Spiritual unction giving, 
 Shower thy benedictions seven 
 From thy majesty in heaven. 
 
 Be the Saviour's word unbroken, 
 Let thy many tongues be spoken ; 
 In our sense thy light be glowing, 
 Through our souls thy love be flowing ; 
 
 223 
 
224 HYMN FOR WHITSUNDAY. 
 
 Cause the carnal heart to perish, 
 But the strength of virtue cherish, 
 Till, each enemy repelling, 
 And thy peace around us dwelling, 
 We, beneath thy guidance glorious, 
 Stand o'er every ill victorious. 
 
REVEILLE. 
 
 UP ! quit thy bower ; 't is the matin hour ; 
 
 The bell swings slow in the windowed tower, 
 And prayer and psalm, in the soothing calm, 
 
 Steal out, by turns, on the air of balm ; 
 And in solemn awe of a morn so still, 
 E'en the small birds sing with a voice less shrill. 
 
 Up, lady fair ! 't is the hour of prayer, 
 And hie thee forth in the bracing air ; 
 
 Now bow the knee, while land and sea 
 Repose in their bright tranquillity ; 
 
 And the sun as pure a lustre throws 
 
 As the glorious dawn when he first arose. 
 
 O 225 
 
SAINT THOMAS. 
 
 WHEN from their native Palestine 
 
 The twelve spread far and wide, 
 Alone he went from Salem's shrine 
 
 On to the Ganges' side. 
 The greensward was his dying bed, 
 
 And from the crimson sod 
 His blood, which Brahma's children shed, 
 
 Went reeking up to God. 
 
 On that foundation, long unsought, 
 
 For eighteen hundred years, 
 A Middleton and Heber wrought, 
 
 And their successor rears. 
 The Church for which his blood was spilt, 
 
 How can it be o'erthrown, 
 On Prophets and Apostles built, 
 
 With Christ the Corner-stone ? 
 
SAINT PAUL. 
 
 THE holy saints of old, 
 
 On God's commission sent, 
 Their high and heavenly station hold 
 
 Above our measurement ; 
 They shine, each unapproachable, 
 
 A constellated star, 
 And in their glorious beauty dwell, 
 
 Companionless, afar. 
 
 But let us not forget 
 
 That we are kin to these, 
 Men of like passions, and beset 
 
 With like infirmities ; 
 Nor will their spirits emulous 
 
 Our brotherhood contemn ; 
 As erst they have been one with us, 
 
 We may' be one with them. 
 
 227 
 
228 SAINT PAUL. 
 
 Still round our darkling road 
 . Their heavenly light they shed, 
 And guide our feet to their abode, 
 
 And show where we must tread. 
 Then let the souls whom Christ sets free, 
 
 Ere yet that light be dim, 
 Be strong, O Paul, to follow thee, 
 
 As thou hast followed Him. 
 
SAINT STEPHEN. 
 
 WITH awful dread his murderers shook, 
 
 As, radiant and serene, 
 The lustre of his dying look 
 
 Was like an angel's seen, 
 Or Moses' face of paly light, 
 
 When down the mount he trod, 
 All glowing from the glorious sight 
 
 And presence of his God. 
 
 To us, with all his constancy, 
 
 Be his rapt vision given, 
 To look above by faith, and see 
 
 Revealments bright from heaven, 
 And power to speak our triumphs out 
 
 As our last hour draws near, 
 While neither clouds of fear nor doubt 
 
 Before our view appear. 
 
 229 
 
HYMN FOR SAINT MATTHEW'S DAY. 
 
 And as Jesus passed forth, he saw a man named Matthew sit- 
 ting at the receipt of custom, and he saith unto him, Follow me ; 
 and he arose and followed him. Gospel for the Day. 
 
 BY Babel's piles, how heavenly fair 
 
 To see God's light dispel, 
 With beams divine, the stifled air 
 
 Of Mammon's gloomiest cell ! 
 It cheers the soul that even there 
 
 Our holy faith may dwell, 
 Arid thrive amid the dreary glare 
 
 Of this world's citadel. 
 
 There still the Saviour makes his call, 
 Drowned though the accents be : 
 
 O " Lord, make Matthews of us all," 
 To rise and follow thee ; 
 
 230 
 
HYMN FOR SAINT MATTHEW'S DA Y. 231 
 
 To leave whatever we prize as gold ; 
 
 Our treasure and our heart 
 Transfer, where we may safe behold 
 
 Earth and her idols part. 
 
 Thus, as our feet through labyrinths glide, 
 
 O, let thy voice sublime 
 Be heard above the stunning tide 
 
 Of human care and crime ; 
 And as our busy task is plied 
 
 By dusky lane and mart, 
 Its unction ever there abide 
 
 Like music in the heart. 
 
SAINT ANDREWS DAY. 
 
 O SAVIOUR, for whose blessed sake 
 
 Saint Andrew left his all, 
 Beside the Galilean lake, 
 
 As soon as Thou didst call ; 
 Grant us, thy servants, later born, 
 
 That grace which led thee first 
 To bear the cross of shame and scorn, 
 
 And to endure the worst. 
 
 While skiff, and net, and hempen coil, 
 
 The tackle and the oar, 
 Remind us of their patient toil 
 
 The fisher's part who bore, 
 O, teach us what our work must be, 
 
 Their fellowship to win 
 Who follow them and follow thee, 
 
 In holy discipline. 
 
 232 
 
SAINT ANDREW'S DAY. 
 
 And let no follower come alone, 
 
 But each his kindred bring, 
 As Andrew did, to see and own 
 
 One common Lord and King ; 
 To count, like him, all gain but loss, 
 
 To tread temptation down, 
 And, through the triumph of the cross, 
 
 Secure a glorious crown. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMN. 
 
 THE sparrow finds a house, 
 
 The little bird a nest ; 
 Deep in thy dwelling, Lord, they coine, 
 
 And fold their young to rest. 
 And shall we be afraid 
 
 Our little ones to bring 
 Within thine ancient altar's shade, 
 
 And underneath thy wing ? 
 
 There guard them as thine eye, 
 
 There keep them without spot, 
 That when the spoiler passeth by 
 
 Destruction touch them not. 
 There nerve their souls with might, 
 
 There nurse them with thy love, 
 There plume them for their final flight 
 
 To blessedness above. 
 
 234 
 
THE UPPER ROOM, 
 
 IN WHICH A SUNDAY-SCHOOL WAS KEPT. 
 
 THOUGH steep and narrow is the way, 
 
 And perilous each stair, 
 How many little feet to-day 
 
 Have safely clambered there ! 
 And thus, whatever life's trials be, 
 
 Still upward may they press, 
 Till with their angels they shall see 
 
 God's face in righteousness. 
 
 Here be faith's ladder fixed secure 
 
 Whereon their souls may rise, 
 And make, through Christ, their entrance sure 
 
 To mansions in the skies. 
 And on that day when last are first, 
 
 And heaven's high gates draw near, 
 O, be it theirs to hear the burst 
 
 Of welcome, " Come up here I " 
 
 235 
 
FLOWERS. 
 
 ' The lilies of the field, how they grow ! " Sermon on the Mount 
 
 THOU, who hast taught us how to prize 
 
 The truths which nature's fragrant maze, 
 In glories of unnumbered dyes, 
 
 To our enraptured sense conveys, 
 Be with us in the festal hour, 
 
 And, while the clouds of incense swim 
 In homage from each chaliced flower, 
 
 Accept, with these, our grateful hymn. 
 
 Amid the city's stunning din 
 
 Thy mute but radiant power we bless, 
 That, through its dusty depths, pours in 
 
 Such gleams of vernal loveliness ; 
 That here thy odorous blooms impart, 
 
 Above all art or man's device, 
 A spell to soothe pale Labour's heart, 
 
 As with the airs of paradise. 
 
 236 
 
FLOWERS. 237 
 
 Nor let the influence rest, till all 
 
 The dear delights in Eden nursed, 
 Recovered from their primal fall, 
 
 Like these, shine brightly as at first ; 
 Till man himself, redeemed from stain, 
 
 His heaven-taught work in Christ complete, 
 And, through ONE GREATER MAX, regain 
 
 An entrance to the blissful seat. 
 
^^mMsM^ 
 
 ^t --f>-t -f-f4 - ^ pb 
 
 HYMN, 
 
 FOB THE CHAPEL OF A LUNATIC HOSPITAL. 
 
 THE dearest room of all this pile, 
 
 A pile to mercy dear, 
 Lord, hallow with thy gladdening smile, 
 
 And grant thy presence here. 
 To Thee its walls we set apart, 
 
 Who, in our flesh enshrined, 
 Art pledged to heal the broken heart, 
 
 And feel for human kind. 
 
 Be here, our great perpetual Guest, 
 
 O Saviour, night and day, 
 To give the heavy-laden rest, 
 
 And bear their griefs away. 
 With that still voice that melts the soul 
 
 In soothing prayer and psalm, 
 The tumult of our thoughts control 
 
 To thy divinest calm. 
 
 238 
 
HYMN. 
 
 Here tune anew the jarring sense, 
 
 Life's springs uncoiled rewind, 
 And garnish for thy residence 
 
 The mansions of the mind ; 
 Ascend, O Son of God, thy throne, 
 
 Bow reason to thy sway, 
 Till in thy light we find our own, 
 
 And darkness turned to day ! 
 
 239 
 
BAPTISMAL HYMN. 3 
 
 LET the infant soldier now 
 
 With the hallowed cross be signed ; 
 Bind the frontlet on his brow 
 
 Time and death cannot unbind ! 
 Words of earnest faith and prayer, 
 
 Drops of consecrated dew, 
 They can work a wonder there 
 
 Earth's enchantments never knew. 
 
 Happy mother ! sealed and blessed, 
 
 To your arms your treasure take ; 
 With the Saviour's mark impressed, 
 
 Nurse it for the Saviour's sake. 
 So the holy work begins, 
 
 Ever doing, never done, 
 Till, redeemed from all our sins, 
 
 Heaven's eternal crown be won. 
 
 a The reader should be apprised that this Hymn is not original 
 in thought and sentiment, though the versification is the author's 
 own. It may be considered as a paraphrase of two stanzas of 
 Keble's Holy Baptism." 
 
 240 
 
CHARITY HYMN. 
 
 " Freely ye have received, freely give." 
 
 THOU who on earth didst sympathize 
 
 With mortal care and fear, 
 And all the frail and fleshly ties 
 
 That man to man endear, 
 The sorrower's prayer, the sufferer's sighs, 
 
 Still reach Thy gracious ear. 
 
 Though, pierced by many a pang below, 
 
 The heart may sorely ache, 
 Touched with a feeling of our woe, 
 
 A bond no time can break, 
 Thou wilt not leave us, Lord ! we know 
 
 Thou never wilt forsake. 
 
242 CHARITY HYMN. 
 
 Freely Thou givest, and thy word 
 
 Is freely to impart ; 
 And oft as from that law we *ve erred 
 
 With unfraternal heart, 
 The deeper let us now be stirred 
 
 To be even as Thou art. 
 
ODE, 
 
 FOB CHRISTMAS EVE. 
 
 GLAD tidings waft once more, 
 Angels, who hymned of yore 
 
 Messiah's birth ; 
 Sing, voices of the sky, 
 As in those times gone by, 
 Glory to God on high, 
 
 Peace on the earth ! 
 
 O bright and burning star ! 
 Be not from us afar. 
 
 Distant nor dim ; 
 Lead our frail feet aright, 
 Silent, but shining light ; 
 As on that hallowed night, 
 
 Guide us to Him. 
 
 243 
 
244 ODE. 
 
 Give thou thy people grace, 
 Saviour ! who seek thy face 
 
 This favoured day. 
 Incense and odours sweet 
 May not thy coming greet, 
 But hearts are at thy feet ; 
 
 Turn not away. 
 
 For in thy blessed shrine 
 Each garland we intwine 
 
 Incense shall breathe. 
 As each before thee lies, 
 Emblem of souls that rise 
 Heavenwards, where never dies 
 
 Thy fadeless wreath. 
 
.v^i^fe0ai 
 
 ODE, 
 
 FOR THE RE-OPENING OF CHRIST CHURCH, BOSTON. 
 
 AWAKE, O Arm divine ! Awake, 
 
 Eye of the Only Wise ! 
 For Zion and thy Temple's sake, 
 
 Saviour and God, arise ! 
 So shall our hour of gloom be o'er, 
 
 And we, a happy throng, 
 Wake in these hallowed aisles once more 
 
 The breath of sacred song. 
 To Thee we '11 lift our grateful voice, 
 
 To Thee our offerings bring, 
 And with a glowing heart rejoice 
 
 To hail thee God and King. 
 
 God of our fathers ! still be ours ; 
 
 Thy gates wide open set, 
 And fortify the ancient towers 
 
 Where thou with them hast met. 
 
246 ODE. 
 
 Thy guardian fire, thy guiding cloud, 
 
 Still let them gild our wall, 
 Nor be our foes nor thine allowed 
 
 To see us faint and fall. 
 The worship of the glorious past 
 
 Swell on from age to age, 
 And be, while time itself shall last, 
 
 Our children's heritage. 
 
SONG OF FAITH. 
 
 THE lilied fields behold ; 
 
 What king in his array 
 Of purple pall and cloth of gold 
 
 Shines gorgeously as they ? 
 Their pomp, however gay, 
 
 Is brief, alas ! as bright ; 
 It lives but for a summer's day, 
 
 And withers in a night. 
 
 If God so clothe the soil, 
 
 And glorify the dust, 
 Why should the slave of daily toil 
 
 His providence distrust V 
 Will He, whose love has nursed 
 
 The sparrow's brood, do less 
 For those who seek his kingdom first, 
 
 And with it righteousness ? 
 
 247 
 
248 SONG OF FAITH. 
 
 The birds fly forth at will ; 
 
 They neither plough nor sow : 
 Yet theirs the sheaves that crown the hill, 
 
 Or glad the vale below. 
 While through the realms of air 
 
 He guides their trackless way, 
 Will man, in faithlessness, despair ? 
 
 Is he worth less than they ? 
 
PARAPHRASE. 
 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 ALL grow not on one common stem, 
 
 But separate and alone, 
 And by its own peculiar fruit 
 
 The good or ill is known. 
 How blest are they whom grace inclines 
 
 To bear the grafted good, 
 So grateful to the longing taste, 
 
 And delicate for food ! 
 
 A plant set by the river-side, 
 
 It spreadeth out its roots, 
 And in due season bringeth forth 
 
 Abundantly its fruits. 
 Its thick and verdant boughs are like 
 
 The goodly cedar-tree, 
 Whose shadow covereth the hills, 
 
 Whose branches reach the sea. 
 
250 PARAPHRASE. 
 
 But God shall dry up from beneath 
 
 The wicked and unjust ; 
 Their root shall be as rottenness, 
 
 Their blossoming as dust ; 
 Their grapes are Sodom's grapes of gall, 
 
 And bitter as their sin ; 
 Their clusters, though all fair without, 
 
 Are ashes all within. 
 
 The good shall flourish as the branch 
 
 Which God for strength hath made ; 
 Its shady and refreshing leaves 
 
 Shall never fall or fade ; 
 But withered shall the godless be 
 
 In premature decay, 
 And with a fire unquenchable 
 
 At last consume away. 
 
THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 O, SAY not that I am unkind 
 To friends so warm and true ; 
 
 I weep o'er all I leave behind, 
 I sigh to bid adieu. 
 
 But woe for my eternal lot, 
 
 If my untiring love 
 For Him who died for me, be not 
 
 All other things above. 
 
 Such is the law of Christ, and such 
 
 The Saviour we adore, 
 I could not love you all so much, 
 
 Did I not love Him more. 
 
SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMN. 
 
 ' Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid then! not." 
 
 SAVIOUR ! thy precept is not hid, 
 
 Nor is thy love forgot ; 
 We come, whom thou didst not forbid, 
 
 And man forbids us not ; 
 To Thee we come, the Guide that brings 
 
 The erring strays of sin 
 Back from their early wanderings 
 
 Thy fold to enter in. 
 
 To us thy heavenly grace impart, 
 
 And let the words of truth 
 Be inly grafted in our heart, 
 
 And nurtured in our youth ; 
 So shall its strong and thrifty shoots 
 
 From year to year increase, 
 And, with thy blessing, yield the fruits 
 
 Of righteousness and peace. 
 
 252 
 
A SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMN. 253 
 
 O, with the seed thy sowers sow 
 
 That timely dew distil 
 By which we may not only know, 
 
 But love and do thy will. 
 So shall its rooted strength defy 
 
 The storms of life, and spring, 
 With ever-lifted head, on high, 
 
 In ceaseless blossoming. 
 
 Though feeble is our strength and weak, 
 
 Yet do not thou repress 
 Their near approach who early seek 
 
 Thy love and holiness. 
 O, hear us, as with one accord 
 
 Our grateful song we raise ; 
 And out of children's mouths, O Lord, 
 
 Again perfect thy praise. 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 WHEN Thou, the vineyard's Visitant, 
 To look on thy degenerate plant, 
 
 Shalt hither take thy way, 
 And find it green and flourishing, 
 Curse not the unproductive thing, 
 
 Nor to the dresser say, 
 
 " How long shall I, from year to year, 
 Come seeking heavenly fruitage here, 
 
 And none, alas ! be found V 
 In vain it rears its leafy crown 
 In barren pomp. Cut, cut it down : 
 
 Why cumbereth it the ground ? " 
 
 Lord, listen to my earnest prayer, 
 And yet a little longer spare 
 
 The blighting of thy frown. 
 But let the gardener prune and dress, 
 And dig around its barrenness, 
 
 Before thou cut it down. 
 
TRAVELLER'S HYMN. 
 
 " In journey ings often. '' 
 
 LORD ! go with us, and we go 
 
 Safely through the weariest length, 
 Travelling, if thou wilPst it so, 
 
 In the greatness of thy strength ; 
 Through the day, and through the dark, 
 
 O'er the land, and o'er the sea, 
 Speed the wheel, and steer the bark, 
 
 Bring us where we fain would be. 
 
 In the self-controlling car, 
 
 'Mid the engine's iron din, 
 Waging elemental war, 
 
 Flood without, and fire within, 
 Through the day, and through the dark, 
 
 O'er the land, and o'er the sea, 
 Speed the wheel, and steer the bark, 
 
 Bring us where we fain would be. 
 
 255 
 
HYMN, 
 
 FOR SISTERS OF MERCY. 
 
 LORD, lead the way the Saviour went, 
 
 By lane and cell obscure, 
 And let love's treasures still be spent, 
 
 Like His, upon the Poor ; 
 Like Him through scenes of deep distress, 
 
 Who bore the world's sad weight, 
 We, in their crowded loneliness, 
 
 Would seek the desolate. 
 
 For Thou hasfe placed us side by side, 
 
 In this wide world of ill, 
 And that thy followers may be tried, 
 
 The Poor are with us still. 
 Mean are all offerings we can make, 
 
 But Thou hast taught us, Lord, 
 If given for the Saviour's sake, 
 
 They lose not their reward. 
 
 266 
 
HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 
 
 " No m&n having drunk old wine, straightway desireth new ; for 
 he saith, The old is better." 
 
 HOROLOGY, OR DIAL OF PRAYER. 
 
 Thou who hast put the times and seasons in thine own power : 
 Acts I 1. 
 
 Grant that we may pray unto thee in a fit and acceptable time. 
 Psalm Ixix. 13. 
 
 O SAVIOUR ! I would spend the hours 
 
 Canonical with Thee, 
 As tolls the clock from yonder towers 
 
 At nine, and twelve, and three ; 
 At primes, and lauds, and matin-bell, 
 
 And compline, rise and pray, 
 And tell my blessed rosary 
 
 At the decline of day. 
 
 Q 257 
 
258 HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 
 
 At vespers, and at nocturns late, 
 
 When suns have ceased to shine. 
 On my devotion's dial-plate 
 
 Still shed thy light divine ; 
 And as the holy vigil yields 
 
 In turn to holy dream, 
 O, let my Saviour be through all 
 
 My glory and my theme. 
 
 I. 
 
 MIDNIGHT HYMN. 
 
 At midnight 1 will rise to give thanks unto thee. King 
 David. 
 
 And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises 
 unto God ; and the prisoners heard them. Acts of the Holy 
 Apostles. 
 
 THY praises, Lord, at midnight broke 
 Through chambers where a monarch woke ; 
 Thy midnight praise, with choral swell, 
 Rang through the chained Apostles' cell ; 
 Alike to thee each place was made, 
 In palace or in prison laid ; 
 The royal pomps, the grated door, 
 The captive and the conqueror. 
 
 So grant us, Lord, a song of power 
 To charm away the midnight hour ; 
 
HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 259 
 
 In prosperous state be ours to sing 
 In spirit with the Minstrel King ; 
 And cheer us, when our hopes are dim, 
 As with thy servants' dungeon hymn ; 
 And when our watch, like theirs, is done, 
 May worlds, without a night, be won. 
 
 II. 
 
 COCK-CROWING. 
 
 And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew; and the 
 Lord turued and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the 
 word of the Lord, how he had said unto him. Before the cock crow, 
 thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter went out and wept bit- 
 terly . a Gospel. 
 
 THE Eye that softened as it smote, 
 
 While crew the cock, with mighty spell, 
 
 Far through the maddening crowd remote, 
 Upon his shrinking servant fell ; 
 
 a " It appears, from a passage of the Talmud, that domestic 
 fowls were not tolerated in Jerusalem ; and admitting its author- 
 ity to be indisputable, it will not be difficult to reconcile this fact 
 with the record of the Evangelists. For as the palace of Caiaphas 
 was at no great distance from the suburbs, the crowing of a cock 
 without the walls might be clearly heard in the stillness of the 
 evening. Unusual as it may have been, the scream of an eagle 
 would not have more startled the ear of the apostate Apostle." 
 MIDDLETON, Greek Article, p. 143. 
 
260 HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 
 
 Then woke the guilty shame within, 
 
 And conscience, which so long had slept ; 
 
 And He alone who knew the sin 
 Could know how bitterly he wept. 
 
 If, Master, we thy cause betray, 
 
 Oft as the cock repeats its call, 
 Turn not thy piercing eye away 
 
 Till we are conscious of our fall. 
 Like Peter, let us weep alone 
 
 In sorrow, secret as sincere, 
 Till Thou, to whom our griefs are known, 
 
 Shalt dry the penitential tear ! 
 
 III. 
 
 NOONDAY. 
 
 Now Jacob's well was there: Jesus, therefore, being wearied 
 with his journey, sat thus on the well, and it was about the sixth 
 hour. a Gospel. 
 
 O THOU, who, in the languid noon, 
 By Sychar's well didst open wide 
 
 To wandering eyes a better boon 
 
 Than e'er their fathers' fount supplied ; 
 
 a In the time of our Saviour, the day was divided into twelve 
 hours, equal to each other, but unequal with respect to the differ- 
 ent seasons of the year. The sixth, of course, was at all tunes an- 
 swerable to noon. 
 
HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 261 
 
 Up, where thy brightest glories burn, 
 Our fainting souls, at every stage, 
 
 For thy celestial succour turn, 
 In this, our weary pilgrimage ! 
 
 When, from the sun's meridian glow, 
 
 We seek refreshment and repose, 
 Do Thou thy heavenly gifts bestow, 
 
 And all the stores of life unclose ; 
 Thence, quench the fervid spirit's thirst, 
 
 Thence, fill us as with angel's food, 
 Till, day by day, our souls are nursed 
 
 For their divine beatitude. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ANOTHER FOR NOONDAY. 
 
 Peter went up upon the house-top to pray, about the sixth 
 hour ; and he became very hungry, and would have eaten ; but 
 while they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven 
 opened and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been 
 a great sheet, knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth. 
 Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 THOUGH on the house-top, Lord, unseen, 
 How oft, at noon, I fain would rise, 
 
 Where naught of earth could come between 
 My lifted spirit and the skies ! 
 
262 HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 
 
 But short the conquest over sense ; 
 
 On rapture's wing though high we soar, 
 Too soon the fleshly influence 
 
 Resumes its reign, and dreams are o'er. 
 
 Yet still the Church, let down to earth, 
 
 Without a trance, 't is ours to see, 
 Where, cleansed from stain of mortal birth, 
 
 In Jesus' blood we all may be. 
 There may the soul its work complete, 
 
 And with the hosts of men forgiven, 
 Enveloped in that mighty sheet, 
 
 Be safely taken up to Heaven. 
 
 V. 
 
 NINTH HOUR, THREE O'CLOCK P. M. 
 
 TIME OF DAILY EVENING SERVICE. 
 
 Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the 
 hour of prayer, being the ninth hour ; and a certain man, lame 
 from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the 
 gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them 
 that entered into the temple. Acts of the Apostles. 
 
 How dear to those on God who wait 
 The paths which to his dwelling lead ! 
 
 And every Christian temple gate, 
 Is it not Beautiful indeed ? 
 
HYMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 263 
 
 For there our holiest joys unfold, 
 
 And trains of lovelier graces fill 
 These lowly courts, than when of old 
 
 His sole abode was Zion's Hill. 
 
 O, as thou enterest in, be sure 
 
 To try the spirit of thy mind ; 
 Ask if its love to God be pure, 
 
 And true its love to humankind. 
 Bring Faith, and Hope ; and be Thou nigh, 
 
 The best and greatest of the three, 
 Binding in one delightful tie 
 
 All heaven and earth, sweet Charity ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 EVENTIDE. 
 
 " And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at the eventide ; 
 and he lifted up his eyes, and saw, and behold, the camels were 
 coming." 
 
 BENEATH the shade of pensive eve, 
 
 By Heaven impelled, the patriarch's mind 
 
 Could wander from itself, and leave 
 The grovelling cares of life behind. 
 
 Led by the same almighty love, 
 When all below is dark and dull, 
 
264 HFMNS OF THE ANCIENT TIME. 
 
 We still may rise to scenes above, 
 Where all is bright and beautiful. 
 
 Our souls may go as Isaac went, 
 And find, each eve, a lovelier field 
 
 Than e'en the gorgeous Orient 
 
 To his enraptured sense could yield. 
 
 And while, in meditation sweet, 
 
 We seem to breathe a heavenlier air, 
 
 All that we most desire to meet 
 
 Shall bless our longing vision there. 
 

 NOTES. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 THE SONNETS. 
 
 These were chiefly the product of the author's pen in 
 1827-8, while he was editing The Watchman. It is not 
 thought necessary to preserve the dates of their several 
 appearances, except where the verse requires the aid of 
 such information for its full comprehension. In the Son- 
 nets and other poems, quotations from other poets are 
 often indicated by italics, as preferable, in such cases, to 
 the ordinary marks. For minute information with respect 
 to the poet and his works the reader is referred to the 
 " Memoir of the late Rev. Wm. CrosweU, D. D., by his 
 Father," published by the Appletons, New York, 1853. 
 
 THE FIFTH SONNET. Page 7. 
 
 The warm missionary and philanthropic spirit of the 
 author is beautifully exhibited in this Sonnet, in which 
 the ordination of the Rev. Jacob Oson, a coloured man, 
 as the first missionary to Liberia, is celebrated. It was 
 written in 1827. See the twenty-ninth Sonnet. 
 267 
 
268 NOTES. 
 
 THE SIXTH SONNET. Page 8. 
 
 The labors of the Kev. Mr. Breck, and others, among the 
 Indians of Wisconsin, seem to be here anticipated, by the 
 fervent spirit of Croswell. 
 
 THE NINTH SONNET. Page 11. 
 This Sonnet was suggested by Dunlap's picture, which 
 at the time attracted considerable attention. This paint- 
 ing lacks originality, but is a composition of some merit. 
 
 THE TWELFTH SONNET. Page 14. 
 This Sonnet was originally published as an imitation 
 of the antique, and in the old orthography. This is 
 a natural resource sometimes in setting forth thoughts 
 quaintly conceived, and to which the ancient spelling 
 seems to add something, by suggesting the epoch in the 
 spirit of which the author writes ; but as it is generally 
 felt to be a blemish, or an affectation, and nothing is 
 sacrificed in consequence, the modern spelling is here 
 restored. 
 
 THE TWENTY-FOURTH SONNET. Page 26. 
 Addressed to Mrs. Sigourney, as see the Memoir. 
 
 THE TWENTY-FIFTH SONNET. Page 27. 
 This was the first of the Sonnets, and it appeared in the 
 first number of The Watchman, March 26, 1827. 
 
 THE TWENTY-SEVENTH SONNET. Page 29. 
 The Kev. Henry J. Feltus, D. D., Kector of St. Ste- 
 phens, New York, was the subject of these beautiful 
 verses. He died, aged 53, in 1828. 
 
NOTES. 269 
 
 THE TWENTY-EIGHTH SONNET. Page 30. 
 The lamented Governor of Liberia, J. Ashnmn, Esq., 
 died at New Haven, August 25, 1828. The Sonnet relates 
 a real incident; his mother having reached New Haven 
 ignorant of his decease, entered the church, as here de- 
 scribed, during the funeral services. 
 
 THE TWENTY-NINTH SONNET. Page 31. 
 The Rev. Jacob Oson (of whom see the Fifth Sonnet) 
 sickened and died before he could embark for Liberia, 
 to which port he was the first missionary ordained and 
 commissioned. His dying prayers that GOD would raise 
 up other labourers for the land of his forefathers have 
 been answered, by GOD'S goodness, and who shall say 
 that he was ordained in vain ? 
 
 THE THIRTIETH SONNET. Page 32. 
 Bishop Doane was consecrated to the Episcopate of 
 New Jersey, in St. Paul's Chapel, New York, October 31, 
 1832. On this occasion Croswell was very near his friend, 
 and, all unconsciously, the editor of these poems was at 
 the side of Croswell; for the crowd being immense, and 
 pressing upon the chancel, the writer, then a boy of four- 
 teen, was pushed so far forward as to be close to the ven- 
 erable Bishop White, when he, with the assisting prelates, 
 laid hands on the four who received the Episcopate that 
 day. 
 
 THE THIRTY-THIRD SONNET. Page 35. 
 This Sonnet has all the beauty of a mosaic, and every- 
 body will at once recognize one of the little cherubs 
 in the Sistine Madonna, now in the gallery at Dresden. 
 
270 NOTES. 
 
 THE THIRTY-FOURTH SONNET. Page 36. 
 The death of the Rev. Abiel Carter, Rector of Christ 
 Church, Savannah, seems to have suggested this Sonnet; 
 so prophetical of the poet's own demise. 
 
 THE ROBIN'S NEST. Page 45. 
 
 This little poem was written at Auburn, and the author 
 gives this account of it : "A pair of robins have made 
 our mornings lively all this Spring with their cheerful 
 notes. A few days since the female was missing (our cat 
 probably best knows how) and it has been perfectly dis- 
 tressing to hear the perpetual lament of the survivor." 
 His letters and poems written at Auburn generally betray 
 a pensive, though never a repining spirit, and it cannot 
 be doubted that his residence in that place was a sort of 
 exile, which he felt severely, though he made the best of 
 it, as he did of everything. 
 
 A NIGHT THOUGHT. Page 47. 
 An example of the poet's readiness to cast into a novel 
 and original form something read elsewhere. This is a 
 mere rhyming (and condensation) of Young's apostrophe. 
 
 GREECE. Page 48. 
 
 This poem seems to have reference to the founding of 
 the Mission at Athens, under the Rev. J. H. Hill, D. D., 
 who, for thirty years, has been doing a work for Greece 
 which, by the blessing of GOD, will in the end regenerate 
 that ancient seat of poetry and heroism. What Wiclif 
 did for England, when he translated the Scriptures, has 
 been virtually done for Greece by this patient and faith- 
 ful missionary. Its Ridleys and Latimers will come here- 
 after. 
 
NOTES. 271 
 
 THE SYNAGOGUE. Page 61. 
 
 This was written January 2, 1832, and seldom has an 
 American poet produced anything of the lighter kind 
 which can equal it for the undoubted tokens of poetical 
 inspiration and the power of poetical expression. How 
 many have gone, with curious eyes, into the Jewish Syn- 
 agogues of our cities; but how few have been able to in- 
 vest the scene with such Oriental beauty, and to derive 
 from it such deep impressions of Divine Truth, and of the 
 Evangelical blessings yet in store for Israel ! 
 
 AFRICA. Page 59. 
 
 This poem is another evidence of the great heart for 
 missionary enterprise which the author had in him, long 
 before others were awakened to a spirit for missions, 
 which is the spirit of all that is good, including civiliza- 
 tion and letters. It was written in 1828. 
 
 SOUTH-SEA MISSIONARIES. Page 61. 
 This also was written in 1828. It proves how deeply 
 he could sympathize in the good done by others, for it 
 celebrates a mission undertaken and carried out to glori- 
 ous ends by our Christian brethren of the Congregational 
 Board. Doubtless it would have rejoiced the heart of 
 Dr. Croswell had he foreseen the action of our own Board 
 of Missions, at New Haven, in October, 1860, establishing 
 a mission in the Sandwich Islands, which we may believe 
 is destined to teach the Islanders " the way of GOD more 
 perfectly," and to carry on the work among the myriad 
 isles of the South Pacific. 
 
 THE MEETING OF THE TRIBES. Page 64. 
 This is supposed to celebrate the opening of the Gen- 
 
272 NOTES. 
 
 eral Convention of the American Clmrcl in Philadelphia, 
 October, 1835. It is framed in the spirit of " an Israelite 
 indeed," the idioms of Palestine being accommodated to 
 America. u The Lion of Jndah" is supposed to refer to 
 Bishop Doane, and nobody can fail to perceive Bishop 
 White in " the aged High-Priest." There is a reference, 
 too, to the work of Western Missions undertaken at this 
 convention, by the appointment of a Missionary Bishop, 
 now the venerable Bishop of Wisconsin. 
 
 The application to modern dignitaries of Hebrew epi- 
 thets, now almost wholly restricted to the Redeemer, is 
 infelicitous; but is involved in the very nature of the 
 conception, if it be resolved to carry out into details the 
 analogies between the modern and the ancient Israel 
 of GOD. 
 
 THE MISSIONARY'S FAREWELL. Page 66. 
 It is presumed by the author's father that these verses 
 may be those presented to Bishop Boone, on the occasion 
 of his sailing for China (as a presbyter) in 1837. 
 
 THE ORDINAL. Page 69. 
 
 This poem contains the poet's recollections of his own 
 ordination to the deaconate, in Trinity Church, New Ha- 
 ven, St. Paul's Day, 1828, by Bishop Brownell. The 
 monument of Bishop Jarvis, near the chancel, is referred 
 to in the fourth stanza. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF ST. PAUL'S DAY. Page 72. 
 
 In Christ Church, Boston, in holy meditation on the 
 event celebrated in the verses on " the Ordinal," the au- 
 thor produced this poem. In a letter to his father, he 
 says of the expected anniversary : " Next Sunday, St. 
 
NOTES. 273 
 
 Paul's Day, is the anniversary of my being set apart to 
 the ministry, six years ago ; an interval that seems like a 
 
 dream, but full of the momentous items upon 
 
 which stands our account for eternity Let me 
 
 have the benefit of your especial prayer on the noon of 
 that day, and let our spirits meet before the throne of 
 grace." 
 
 CHRIST CHURCH. Pages 74, 77. 
 
 In these poems the author enumerates some of those 
 things which were the charms of his appointed place, and 
 to which his references are frequent in his poetry. In 
 particular he loved it for its fidelity to the truth, during a 
 long century which had seen the Calvinistic congrega- 
 tions of Boston declining into the secondary and tertiary 
 stages of Puritanism, and denying the Atonement and the 
 Trinity. The power to maintain an unchanging faith 
 from age to age he regarded as given only to the Apostolic 
 Church, though no one more cheerfully than he recog- 
 nized and loved the Christian graces of thousands of in- 
 dividuals who belong to other communions. 
 
 Long after his connection with this old church had 
 ceased, he took me to see it. As we stood together in its 
 solemn aisles he narrated to me many anecdotes of its 
 past, and incidentally owned, that, while he was rector, he 
 often passed hours of the night within its walls, in prayer 
 for himself and others, and in sacred meditation. He then 
 asked me to go out and look at the spire from the neigh- 
 bouring churchyard, and while I did so the bells began to 
 play a favourite psalm-tune. Returning, I found him han- 
 dling the keys, with the musical score before him, which 
 he had copied and brought with him from home in order 
 to give me this surprise. The almost childlike delight he 
 
274 NOTES. 
 
 seemed to take in thus awakening the old bells, gave him 
 a beauty, as he stood playing, which I cannot soon forget. 
 He then climbed with me to see the bells, and to take the 
 surrounding view from the tower. 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVENING PASTORAL. Page 79. 
 A lively description of the scene in Christ Church, 
 when it is decorated for the feast of Christmas! The 
 " angelic row " over the organ-loft (here poetically changed 
 into the rooc?-loft), will be remembered by those who have 
 visited the church as quite an important part of the old 
 fabric. The little figures are set round the organ (with 
 red cheeks, and not very ethereal features), blowing and 
 chanting with all their might. 
 
 ST. JOHN BAPTIST'S DAY. Page 83. 
 
 These verses were written in the vestry of Christ 
 Church (on the anniversary of his Institution) in the 
 solemn prospect of retirement from that beloved charge. 
 The allusions throughout may be better understood by 
 referring to the " Office of Institution," in the Prayer- 
 book. 
 
 Dr. Croswell's sensitive feelings had been deeply 
 wounded by occurrences in the parish, and he had re- 
 signed the rectorship, in the truly primitive resolve rather 
 to suffer wrong than to avenge himself. He felt it to be 
 the privilege of a Christian priest to forgive what the 
 world would resent. 
 
 FROM THE ANTIQUE. Page 86. 
 In this poem we have an instance of Croswell's fond- 
 ness for that peculiar face which the old orthography 
 puts on a poetical production. It is a beautiful rebus of 
 
NOTES. 275 
 
 his family name, with which he amused himself by send- 
 ing it to his father (as if it were taken from some old 
 black-letter volume) with the inquiry, "By what art 
 do you think I have recovered it? " 
 
 To MY FATHEK. Page 88. 
 
 To the old friends of Dr. Croswell, the Senior, these 
 verses will supply the place of a portrait. He was one 
 of the noblest looking old men that the editor remembers 
 to have seen, erect, of commanding height, of dignified 
 address, with a patriarchal sweetness of expression which 
 would have made him a man of mark among thousands 
 of his brethren. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM. Page 92. 
 
 Written in anticipation of his own marriage. He was 
 married to Amanda, daughter of Silas P. Tarbell, Esq., 
 October 1, 1840. The second stanza is an acknowledged 
 versification of Jeremy Taylor's beautiful peroration in 
 his sermon on " The Marriage Ring." 
 
 LONELINESS. 1 
 
 One is often lonely in a crowd ; and it is worthy of note 
 that this tribute to a romantic and holy friendship was 
 written on the noisy anniversary, July 4, 1833. He broke 
 away from some of its festive scenes, and produced it in 
 his retirement. 
 
 STANZAS. Page 104. 
 
 The death of Col. Putnam, of Brooklyn, in Connecti- 
 cut, in 1831, inspired these stanzas. He was a son of 
 Gen. Putnam of Revolutionary memory; and his daugh- 
 ters, Mrs. Grosvenor and Mrs. Simmer, of Hartford, were 
 
276 NOTES. 
 
 always among the poet's most cherished friends and cor- 
 respondents. It is almost needless to say that among the 
 ladies mentioned in the Memoir, as adding to the attrac- 
 tions of Hartford, in 1827 - 8, these sisters were con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 IN MEMORY OF D. W. Page 106. 
 Daniel Whiting, one of the poet's classmates, died in 
 1832. He seems to have loved him dearly. The words 
 in italics are quoted from the Prayer-book, and by the 
 play on the word haven, New Haven is indicated as the 
 fair city which he so extols. 
 
 To MY NAMESAKE. Page 108. 
 
 The Rev. William Croswell Doane, now Rector of St. 
 Mary's, Burlington, in New Jersey. The stanzas are 
 dated, Boston, Whitsun-Tuesday, June 12, 1832. The 
 editor well remembers the mingling of paternal pride 
 and delighted friendship with which Bishop Doane read 
 them to him, when he was visiting the Bishop, at River- 
 side, several years afterwards. 
 
 To A FRIEND. Page 110. 
 
 Addressed to Joseph P. Couthoy, Esq., embarking for 
 the Mediterranean, in 1833. 
 
 To MY GODSON. Page 111. 
 
 Addressed to W. C. D. aged three years, March 2, 1834. 
 The beautiful lines of W. C. D. in response, dated July 
 31, 1851, may be seen in Dr. Croswell's Memoir, by his 
 father, p. 137. 
 
 LAMENT. Page 113. 
 The Rev. Dr. Montgomery, Rector of St. Stephen's, 
 
NOTES. 277 
 
 Philadelphia, died March 16, 1834. The poet says of these 
 verses : " They seemed to arrange themselves almost spon- 
 taneously, and have received little or no correction." 
 
 To THE REV. DR. COIT. Page 115. 
 These stanzas are dated March 1, 1835. Dr. Croswell 
 adopts the reading " thirsty arms," now generally dis- 
 carded for thirty. The river Trent is said to receive its 
 name from its thirty branches. Warton says there were 
 said to be also thirty religious houses along its banks, and 
 as many varieties of fish in its waters. 
 
 ELEGIAC. Page 117. 
 
 The Rev. Benjamin Davis Winslow, a young divine and 
 poet of high promise, died at Burlington, in November, 
 1839. See Croswell's Memoir, p. 231. His poems should 
 be collected and published. 
 
 BISHOP WHITE. Page 119. 
 
 These stanzas seem to commemorate the scene in St. 
 Paul's Chapel, New York, when the four bishops were 
 consecrated, Oct. 31, 1832. See above, note on the Thir- 
 tieth Sonnet. 
 
 BISHOP GKISWOLD. Page 121. 
 
 This tribute to Bishop Griswold, followed by another to 
 Bishop Hobart, reminds the editor that these two prelates 
 were consecrated to the Episcopate, kneeling side by side, 
 in 1811. How unconsciously Croswell paints his own por- 
 trait in the tributes he offers to departed friends ! How 
 large his heart, and how superior to party; appreciating 
 alike Bishop Griswold and Bishop Hobart, different as 
 
278 NOTES. 
 
 they were, and claimed though they are by different 
 schools in the Church. 
 
 LINP:S. Page 124. 
 
 The Kectory and Church of St. Peter's, Auburn, are 
 here accurately described. That justly distinguished 
 prelate, Bishop Hobart, died there, while on a visitation of 
 his diocese, September 12, 1830. These stanzas, beauti- 
 fully engrossed and illuminated, and handsomely framed, 
 were hanging on the wall of the parsonage a few years 
 ago, when I visited it, in the drawing-room of the worthy 
 clergyman who had succeeded to the rectorship. 
 
 MEMORIAL. Page 127. 
 
 This memorial was written in the Rectory of St. Peter's, 
 Auburn, August 27, 1840. I well remember the Eev. 
 William Lucas, whom it celebrates, as a man of pleasing 
 manners, and a clergyman of pure and consistent char- 
 acter. 
 
 AD AMICUM. Page 128. 
 
 Addressed to the poet's schoolfellow and friend of 
 youth, Henry Edward Peck, Esq., (March 12, 1846,) on 
 hearing of his affliction in the loss of his eldest son. 
 Croswell had officiated as groomsman at Mr. Peck's mar- 
 riage. 
 
 STANZAS. Page 131. 
 
 These stanzas (the last written in the Rectory at 
 Auburn) were occasioned by the death of the Rev. E. G. 
 Prescott, which occurred at sea, April 11, 1844. In a 
 letter, the poet thus expresses himself: " Prescott' s death 
 shocked me greatly. We were intimate and nearly of 
 the same age; and I have some similar warnings to remind 
 me that the house of my tabernacle is not too strong to be 
 dissolved." 
 
NOTES. 279 
 
 To A CHILD. Page 135. 
 
 The " little musical prodigy " to whom these lines were 
 addressed is more fully spoken of in Dr. Croswell's " Me- 
 moir," p. 99; where may be found a very characteristic 
 letter, richly illustrative of the poet's happy way of deal- 
 ing with children. 
 
 HOME. Page 141. 
 
 This is one of the author's earliest productions. The 
 two following poems are also of a domestic character, and 
 one of them, if not both, belongs to his Juvenilia. 
 
 NEW YEAR THOUGHTS. Page 148. 
 From " the first rough draft, among loose manuscripts, 
 without any date," first published by Dr. Croswell, Se- 
 nior, in " The Memoir." The " New Year's Thoughts," 
 on p. 152, were a contribution to the columns of a friend's 
 newspaper, January 1, 1842. 
 
 VALENTINE. Page 157. 
 
 For the playful history of what the poet calls his " Silly 
 Valentines," the reader who takes an interest in such 
 literature is referred to the "Memoir" by Dr. Croswell, 
 Senior, pp. 161, 162, etc. 
 
 THE CHAPEL-BELL. Page 161. 
 
 The last stanza in this sportive little college satire is 
 credited by the author as follows: 
 
 " Ithuriel's whisper in the breakfast bell." JV. P. Willis. 
 But query this word whisper ? The poem is dated Feb- 
 ruary, 1820, a and the author pretends to ascribe it to 
 ' Mister Peter Pattieson, a late lamented classmate,' add- 
 ing, ' The Rowley papers are not more genuine.' " 
 
280 NOTES. 
 
 AN APOLOGY. -Page 165. 
 
 A projecting rock in the hills, near Greenfield, in Mas- 
 sachusetts, is known as ''the poet's seat," and a little 
 hollow in said rock is called " the poet's inkstand." 
 Visiting this rock, in 1849, with some of his friends, the 
 ladies of the party enthroned the poet accordingly, and 
 called on him for an effusion of verse. This Apology is 
 the result ; but the rock should ever, hereafter, be sacred 
 to the memory of Croswell. 
 
 ARCHITECTURAL. Page 166. 
 
 In this, and other satirical verses, if the author seems 
 to be severe on others, it must be borne in mind, that in 
 " the Convocation Poem " he is far more so on the incon- 
 sistencies of his own co-religionists. In neither instance 
 is "aught set down in malice;" but material for sober 
 reflection is supplied in both, albeit under a sportive 
 mask. 
 
 THE OLD NORTH COCK. Page 170. 
 Of this Jew d 1 esprit Dr. Croswell, Senior, says, " It refers 
 to the weathercock on the spire of the place of worship 
 at the North End, in Boston, then occupied by a Unita- 
 rian society." Apparently, it was one of the many, in 
 that city, which have " met with a change " from Calvin- 
 ism to the views of Priestley and others. 
 
 NEW HAVEN. Page 172. 
 
 This is the mere fragment of a college satire, in which 
 there is, nevertheless, much beauty. It is a picture of 
 the " City of Elms," and of Yale College, which cannot 
 be read without pleasure by any one who has visited it. 
 
NOTES. 281 
 
 Trinity Church of which the author's father was rector 
 is very felicitously introduced; as also is the allusion 
 to its material, in contrast with the brick and timber 
 meeting-houses of New-England, where stone churches, 
 as well as pointed windows, were for a long time iden- 
 tified with "Episcopacy." 
 
 The editor cannot but direct attention to the poetic 
 license in the last stanza, in which New Haven is cele- 
 brated as the native place of the author. In a classic 
 poet, how many theories such a liberty would have sug- 
 gested to critics anxious to reconcile it with known 
 facts ! 
 
 LAKE OWASCO. Page 176. 
 
 This beautiful lake, near Auburn, is gracefully celebrated 
 in these stanzas, first for its natural charms, and then 
 for the dignity it was supposed to derive from the residence 
 on its banks of several eminent public men. But in the 
 third stanza the poet pays a warmer tribute to a young 
 gentleman, Mr. Myers, a parishioner of St. Peters, and the 
 Superintendent of its Sunday School, who had wrought 
 up into a creditable poem the Indian legend " Ensenore," 
 which he associates with the lake. 
 
 The editor cannot forbear to say that this lake was the 
 scene of some of the most cheerful of his own sports in 
 early youth, and that these stanzas are peculiarly pleasing 
 to him by the pleasant images they recall of bygone 
 days. 
 
 ALBANY. Page 178. 
 
 Lord Byron speaks of " Albany, near Washington," evi- 
 dently mistaking some reference to its Capitol, or State- 
 House. Lest anybody should not know that Albany is 
 
282 NOTES. 
 
 the capital of the State of New York, it may be proper to 
 say that the allusions of the poem are only intelligible to 
 those who understand that fact, and the local traditions 
 and histories therewith connected. 
 
 PSALMS. Page 202. 
 
 These specimens of a projected Metrical Version of the 
 Psalter are dated " St. Peter's Parsonage, Auburn, 1840." 
 
 VIGIL, OF THE CIRCUMCISION. Page 214. 
 Written apparently in 1828, when it appeared in The 
 Watchman. 
 
 HYMN FOR WHITSUNDAY. Page 223. 
 From the Latin of St. Ambrose. 
 
 FLOWERS. Page 236. 
 
 Written for " the dedication of the Hall of the Massa- 
 chusetts Horticultural Society," in 1845. 
 
 TRAVELLER'S HYMN. Page 255. 
 
 This beautiful hymn (incorrectly printed in Dr. Cros- 
 well's volume) was first published in 1833. Something 
 like it occurs in the poet's letter to his father, after his 
 voyage on the Long Island Sound, in 1826, when steamers 
 were a novelty. " I felt grateful to Him who is the Pre- 
 server, as well as the Maker of men," he says. " for the 
 tremendous and incessant rumble of the engine made me 
 aware of my own insignificance, and of the awful agency 
 within whose reach I lay. I could hear the waves gush 
 and gurgle against the side of the boat" 
 
 These early impressions may have had their effect in 
 producing the hymn, but the editor is under the impres- 
 
NOTES. 283 
 
 sion that it was written on the journey from Boston to 
 New York, when the poet was going to attend the conse- 
 cration of his friend Dr. Donne. The late Bishop Wain- 
 wright greatly admired this hymn, and marvelled at the 
 facility with which it was produced, for, unless the 
 editor is mistaken, he was .with the poet at the time. In 
 1850 the editor travelled with Croswell, and while they 
 were together in Washington, obtained from him a copy 
 of these verses in his own handwriting. At the same 
 time he learned the history of its composition. In the 
 following year, during two Atlantic voyages, he derived 
 great pleasure from often repeating it to himself, amid 
 the noise of the machinery and the tumult of the storm. 
 
 HYMN. Page 256. 
 
 This was written in 1831, for the Howard Benevolent 
 Society of Boston. The editor has ventured to give it a 
 name suited to the present state of the Church, in which 
 deaconesses and Sisters of Mercy are among other realiza- 
 tions of the poet's ardent hopes. Perhaps we owe them 
 to his faithful prayers. 
 
 HOROLOGY. Page 257. 
 
 This series of hymns was begun in 1834; a very im- 
 portant fact to those who would form a correct estimate 
 of Dr. Croswell's character as a divine. Long before the 
 " Oxford Movement " was known or heard of in America, 
 his mind had received its cast from the old doctors of 
 Anglican Theology, and it was never changed. 
 The lines, 
 
 " And tell my blessed rosary, 
 At the decline of day," 
 
 might justly give offence to any one who should not per- 
 
284 NOTES. 
 
 ceive that the word rosnry is here used by a poetical 
 license only, or as contrasting a blessed system of prayer 
 with a superstitions one. Since these hymns were writ- 
 ten, the reactionary follies of certain perverts have made 
 such words less tolerable ; but nobody could have dreamed 
 in 1834 that any rational being- would ever betake himself 
 to beads and aves ! It is curious to observe in The Lny 
 of the Last Minstrel that Sir Walter Scott uses architec- 
 tural terms merely for their beauty, as the word *' rosary " 
 is introduced here. He little dreamed of the revival of 
 Art which has made ridiculous, for glaring inaccuracy, 
 terms which, when he wrote, were simply sounding dec- 
 orations of his verse. Sir Walter created a taste for 
 architectural study which has made his comparative 
 knowledge look very much like ignorance. 
 
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