Not in the world of light alone,
Where God has built his blazing throne,
Nor yet alone in earth below,
With belted seas that come and go,
And endless isles of sunlit green,
Is all thy Maker's glory seen:
Look in upon thy wondrous frame, -
Eternal wisdom still the same!

The smooth, soft air with pulse-like waves
Flows murmuring through its hidden caves,
Whose streams of brightening purple rush,
Fired with a new and livelier blush,
While all their burden of decay
The ebbing current steals away,
And red with Nature's flame they start
From the warm fountains of the heart.

No rest that throbbing slave may ask,
Forever quivering o'er his task,
While far and wide a crimson jet
Leaps forth to fill the woven net
Which in unnumbered cross...

The Shadow

Who art thou, O Glory,
    In flame from the deep,
Where stars chant their story,
    Why trouble my sleep?

I hardly had rested,
    My dreams wither now:
Why comest thou crested
    And gemmed on they brow?


The Glory

Up, Shadow, and follow
    The way I will show;
The blue gleaming hollow
    To-night we will know,

And rise mid the vast to
    The fountain of days;
From whence we had pass to
    The parting of ways.


The Shadow

I know thee, O Glory:
    Thine eyes and thy brow
With white fire all hoary
    Come back to me now.

Together we wandered
    In ages agone;
Our thoughts as we pondered
    Were stars at the dawn.

The glory...

While, bending at thy honour'd shrine, the Muse
    Pours, MONTAGU, to thee her votive strain,
Thy heart will not her simple notes refuse,
    Or chill her timid soul with cold disdain.

O might a transient spark of genius fire
    The fond effusions of her fearful youth;
Then should thy virtues live upon her lyre,
    And give to harmony the charm of truth.

Vain wish! they ask not the imperfect lay,
    The weak applause her trembling accents breathe;
With whose pure radiance glory blends her ray,
    Whom fame has circled with her fairest wreathe.

Thou, who while seen with graceful step to tread
    Grandeur's enchanted round, can'st meekly pause
To rend the veil obscurity had spread
    Where his lone sigh deserted Genius draws;

To le...

Excuse is needless when with love sincere
Of occupation, not by fashion led,
Thou turn'st the Wheel that slept with dust o'erspread;
'My' nerves from no such murmur shrink, tho' near,
Soft as the Dorhawk's to a distant ear,
When twilight shades darken the mountain's head.
Even She who toils to spin our vital thread
Might smile on work, O Lady, once so dear
To household virtues. Venerable Art,
Torn from the Poor! yet shall kind Heaven protect
Its own; though Rulers, with undue respect,
Trusting to crowded factory and mart
And proud discoveries of the intellect,
Heed not the pillage of man's ancient heart.

("Un Ange vit un jour.")

[LA PITIÉ SUPREME VIII., 1881.]


When an angel of kindness
Saw, doomed to the dark,
Men framed in his likeness,
He sought for a spark -
Stray gem of God's glory
    That shines so serene -
And, falling like lark,
To brighten our story,
    Pure Pity was seen.

Dread Mother of Forgetfulness
Who, when Thy reign begins,
Wipest away the Soul's distress,
And memory of her sins.

The trusty Worm that dieth not,
The steadfast Fire also,
By Thy contrivance are forgot
In a completer woe.

Thine are the lidless eyes of night
That stare upon our tears,
Through certain hours which in our sight
Exceed a thousand years:

Thine is the thickness of the Dark
That presses in our pain,
As Thine the Dawn that bids us mark
Life's grinning face again.

Thine is the weariness outworn
No promise shall relieve,
That says at eve, "Would God 'twere morn"
At morn, "Would God 'twere eve!"

And when Thy tender mercies cease
And life unvexed is due,
Instant upon the false release
The Wor...

        By Mr. Doddington, Afterwards Lord Melcombe.


        --Quæ censet amiculus, ut si
        Cæcus iter monstrare velit

                    HOR.


Though strength of genius, by experience taught,
Gives thee to sound the depths of human thought,
To trace the various workings of the mind,
And rule the secret springs, that rule mankind;
(Rare gift!) yet, Walpole, wilt thou condescend
To listen, if thy unexperienc'd friend
Can aught of use impart, though void of skill,
And win attention by sincere good-will;
For friendship, sometimes, want of parts supplies,
The heart may furnish what the head denies.
    As when the rapid Rhone, o'er swelling tides,
To grace old ocean's court, in triumph rides,
Tho' rich his source, he drains a th...

Dear Jenny, if fortun should favour mi lot,
Mi own bonny wife tha shall be;
For trubbles an worries we'll care net a jot,
For we'll rout 'em wi' frolic an glee.

We'll have a snug cot wi' a garden at th' back,
An aw'll fix peearks i'th' cellar for hens;
Then a fresh egg for braikfast tha nivver need lack,
When thi fancy to sich a thing tends.

Some cheers an a table, an two-o'-three pans,
Some pots an a kettle for tea;
A bed an a creddle an smart kist o' drawers,
An a rockin-cheer, lass, - that's for thee.

Some books, an some picters to hing up o'th' wall,
To mak th' place luk nobby an neat;
An a rug up o'th' harstun to keep thi tooas warm,
An some slippers to put on thi feet.

An when Sundy comes, - off to th' chapel or church,
An wh...

Helen’s tower, here I stand,
Dominant over sea and land.
Son’s love built me, and I hold
Mother’s love in letter’d gold.
Love is in and out of time,
I am mortal stone and lime.
Would my granite girth were strong
As either love, to last as long
I should wear my crown entire
To and thro’ the Doomsday fire,
And be found of angel eyes
In earth’s recurring Paradise.

Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head
    A lamp that well might pharos all the lands;
Anon the light will neither rise nor spread:
    Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands!

A pharos? Oh dull brain! poor dying lamp
    Under a bushel with an earthy smell!
Mouldering it stands, in rust and eating damp,
    While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell!

For me it were enough to be a flower
    Knowing its root in thee, the Living, hid,
Ordained to blossom at the appointed hour,
    And wake or sleep as thou, my Nature, bid;

But hear my brethren in their darkling fright!
    Hearten my lamp that it may shine abroad
Then will they cry--Lo, there is something bright!
    Who kindled it if not the shining God?

We now, held in captivity,
Spring to our labours nor greive!
See now, how it is a blesseder,
Brothers, to give than to receive!
Keep trust, wherefore ye were made,
Paying the duty ye owe;
For a clean thrust and the sheer of the blade
Shall carry us where we should go.

To appease the Gods; or public thanks to yield;
Or to solicit knowledge of events,
Which in her breast Futurity concealed;
And that the past might have its true intents
Feelingly told by living monuments
Mankind of yore were prompted to devise
Rites such as yet Persepolis presents
Graven on her cankered walls, solemnities
That moved in long array before admiring eyes.

The Hebrews thus, carrying in joyful state
Thick boughs of palm, and willows from the brook,
Marched round the altar to commemorate
How, when their course they through the desert took,
Guided by signs which ne'er the sky forsook,
They lodged in leafy tents and cabins low;
Green boughs were borne, while, for the blast that shook
Down to the earth the walls of Jericho,
Shouts rise, and s...

Spirit of a Great Control,
    Gird me with thy strength and might,
Essence of the Over-Soul -
    Fill me, thrill me with thy light;
Though the waves of sorrow beat
    Madly at my very feet,
Though the night and storm are near,
    Teach me that I need not fear.

Though the clouds obscure the sky,
    When the tempest sweeps the lands,
Still about, below, on high,
    God's great solar system stands.
Never yet a star went out.
    What have I to fear or doubt? -
I, a part of this great whole,
    Governed by the Over-Soul.

Like the great eternal hills,
    Like the rock that fronts the wave,
Let me meet all earthly ills
    With a fearless heart and brave;
Like the earth that drinks the rain,
    Let me welcome floods of p...

I cried, 'Dear Angel, lead me to the heights,
    And spur me to the top.'
    The Angel answered, 'Stop
And set thy house in order; make it fair
For absent ones who may be speeding there.
    Then will we talk of heights.'

I put my house in order.    'Now lead on!'
    The Angel said, 'Not yet;
    Thy garden is beset
By thorns and tares; go weed it, so all those
Who come to gaze may find the unvexed rose;
    Then will we journey on.'

I weeded well my garden.    'All is done.'
    The Angel shook his head.
    'A beggar stands,' he said,
'Outside thy gates; till thou hast given heed
And soothed his sorrow, and supplied his need,
    Say not that all is done.'

The beggar left me singing.    'Now at last -
    At last the path ...

Read At The Two Hundredth Anniversary

Is it a weanling's weakness for the past
That in the stormy, rebel-breeding town,
Swept clean of relics by the levelling blast,

Still keeps our gray old chapel's name of "King's,"
Still to its outworn symbols fondly clings, -
Its unchurched mitres and its empty crown?

Poor harmless emblems! All has shrunk away
That made them gorgons in the patriot's eyes;
The priestly plaything harms us not to-day;
The gilded crown is but a pleasing show,
An old-world heirloom, left from long ago,
Wreck of the past that memory bids us prize,

Lightly we glance the fresh-cut marbles o'er;
Those two of earlier date our eyes enthrall:
The proud old Briton's by the western door,
And hers, the Lady of Colonial days,
...

What shall I do with all the days and hours
    That must be counted ere I see thy face?
How shall I charm the interval that lowers
    Between this time and that sweet time of grace?

Shall I in slumber steep each weary sense,
    Weary with longing? - shall I flee away
Into past days, and with some fond pretence
    Cheat myself to forget the present day?

Shall love for thee lay on my soul the sin
    Of casting from me God's great gift of time;
Shall I these mists of memory locked within,
    Leave, and forget, life's purposes sublime?

Oh! how, or by what means, may I contrive
    To bring the hour that brings thee back more near?
How may I teach my drooping hope to live
    Until that blessed time, and thou art here?

I'll tell thee: ...

When the rough storm roars round the peasant's cot,
And bursting thunders roll their awful din;
While shrieks the frighted night-bird o'er the spot,
Oh! what serenity remains within!
For there contentment, health, and peace, abide,
And pillow'd age, with calm eye fix'd above;
Labour's bold son, his blithe and blooming bride,
And lisping innocence, and filial love.
To such a scene let proud Ambition turn,
Whose aching breast conceals its secret woe;
Then shall his fireful spirit melt, and mourn
The mild enjoyments it can never know;
Then shall he feel the littleness of state,
And sigh that fortune e'er had made him great.

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason...