A passage from POLLOK's Course of Time.
Most wondrous book! bright candle of the Lord!
Star of eternity! the only star
By which the bark of man could navigate
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss
Securely; only star which rose in time
And on its dark and troubled billows still,
As generation driving swiftly by.
Succeeding generation, threw a ray
Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God-
The everlasting hills-pointed the sinner's eye.
By prophets, seers, and priests, and sacred bards,
Evangelists, apostles, men inspired,
And by the Holy Ghost anointed, set
Apart, and consecrated to declare
On earth the counsels of the Eternal One,
This book-this holiest, this sublimest book
Was sent. Heaven's will, Heaven's code of laws entire
To man, this book contain'd; defined the bounds
Of vice and virtue, and of life and death;
And what was shadow, what was substance taught.
This book-this holy book, in every
line
Marked with the seal of high divinity,
On every leaf bedew'd with drops of love
Divine, and with the eternal heraldry
And signature of God Almighty stamp'd,
From first to last; this ray of sacred light,
This lamp from off the everlasting throne,
Mercy brought down, and in the night of time
Stands casting on the dark her gracious bow,
And evermore beseeching men, with tears
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live.
Hast thou ever heard
Of such a book? The author God Himself;
The subject, God and man, salvation, life,
And death-eternal life-eternal death.
Taken from an old Number of the New Monthly Magazine.
OH! there is a dream of early youth,
And it never comes again:
'Tis a vision of light, and life, and truth,
That flits across the brain:
And love is the theme of that early dream,
So wild, so warm, so new,
That in all our after years I deem
That early dream we rue.
Oh! there is a dream of maturer years,
More turbulent by far:
'Tis a vision of blood, and of women's tears,
For the theme of that dream is war:
And we toil in the field of danger and death
And shout in the battle array,
Till we find that fame is a bodyless breath,
Which vanishes away.
Oh! there is a dream of hoary age,
'Tis a vision of gold in store-
Of sums noted down on the figured page,
To be counted o'er and o'er :
And we fondly trust in our glittering dust,
As a refuge from grief and pain,
Till our limbs are laid on the last dark bed,
Where the wealth of the world is vain.
And is it thus, from man's birth to his grave-
In the path which all are treading?
Is there nought in that long career to save
From remorse and self-upbraiding?
Oh yes! there's a dream so pure, so bright,
That the being to whom it is given,
Hath bathed in a sea of living light,-
And the theme of that dream is heaven.
There is in life no blessing like affection;
It soothes, it hallows, elevates, subdues,
And bringeth down to earth its native heaven;
It sits beside the cradle patient hours,
Whose sole contentment is to watch and love;
It bendeth o'er the death-bed, and conceals
Its own despair with words of faith and hope.
Life hath nought else that may supply its place;
Void is ambition, cold is vanity,
And wealth an empty glitter without love.
Heaven but tries our virtue by affliction;
As oft the cloud that wraps the present hour
Serves but to lighten all our future days.
Let no one judge the worth of life, save he
Whose head is white with time. The youthful spirit,
Set on the edge o' the world, hath but one sight,
And looks for beauty in the years to come;
But age, like double-fronted Janus, looks
All ways, and ponders wisely on the past.
Who is the happy warrior? who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
--It is the generous spirit who hath wrought
Among the plans of real life;
'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on his best of friends;
Who, if he rise to stations of command,
Rises by open means;
-Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful, with a singleness of aim.
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
That man descends into the vale of
Yet have I thought that we might also speak,
And not presumptuously, I trust, of age,
As of a final eminence, though bare
In aspect and forbidding, yet a point
On which 'tis not impossible to sit
In awful sovereignty-a place of power—
A throne.
In alms regard thy means, and others' merit;
Think heaven a better bargain, than to give
Only thy single market-money for it.
Join hands with God to make a man to live.
Give to all something, to a good poor man,
Till thou change names and be where he began.
Man is God's image; but a poor man is
Christ's stamp to boot: both images regard:
God reckons for him, counts the favour his;
Write so much given to God. Thou shalt be heard; Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven's gate Open for thee; or both may come too late.
How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succour us that succour want?
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivant,
Against foul fiends to aid us militant?
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,
And their bright squadrons round about us plant; And all for love and nothing for reward:
Oh why should heavenly love to man have such regard.
Let he who will climb ambition's glibbery rounds,
And lean upon the vulgar's rotten love,
I'll not corrival him. The sun will give
As great a shadow to my trunk as his;
And after death, like chessmen, having stood
In play for bishops some, for knights, and pawns,
We all together shall be tumbled up
How sweet it were, if without feeble fright
Or dying of the dreadful beauteous sight,
An angel came to us, aad we could bear
To see him issue from the silent air
At evening in our room, and bend on ours
His divine eyes, and bring us from his bowers
News of dear friends, and children who have never
Been dead indeed; as we shall know for ever.
Alas! we think not that we daily see
About our hearths angels that are to be,
Or may be if they will, and we prepare
Their souls and ours to meet in happy air,-
A child, a friend, a wife, whose soft heart sings
In unison with ours, brooding its future wings.
LEIGH HUNT.
Be calm in arguing; for fierceness makes
Error a fault, and truth discourtesy:
Why should I feel another man's mistakes,
More than his sickness or his poverty?
In love I should, but anger is not love,
Nor wisdom either; therefore gently move.
Adversity misunderstood
Becomes a double curse:
Her chastening hand improves the good,
But makes the wicked worse.
Thus clay more obdurate becomes,
To the fierce flame consign'd;
While gold in the red ordeal melts,
But melts to be refined.
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