Nor those alone, the present train,
Their present king adored;
An earlier, and a later strain,
Extoll'd the self-same Lord.
Obedient to His Father's will;
He came, He lived, He died;
And gratulating voices still
Before and after cried,

"All hail the Prince of David's line!
Hosanna to the Man divine!

He came to earth :-from eldest years,
A long and bright array

Of Prophet-bards, and Patriarch-seers
Proclaim'd the glorious day:

The light of heaven in every breast,
Its fire on every lip,

In tuneful chorus on they press'd,
A goodly fellowship;

And still their pealing anthems ran,
"Hosanna to the Son of Man!"

He came to earth: through life He pass'd
A man of griefs: and, lo,

A noble army following fast

His track of pain and woe:

All deck'd with palms and strangely bright,
That suffering host appears;

And stainless are their robes of white,
Though steep'd in blood and tears;
And sweet their martyr-anthem flows,
"Hosanna to the Man of Woes!"

From ages past descends the lay

To ages yet to be,

Till far its echoes roll away
Into Eternity.

But O! while saints and angels high,
Thy final triumph share,
Amidst Thy followers, Lord, shall I,
Though last and meanest there,
Receive a place, and feebly raise
A faint Hosanna to Thy praise?

A PARABLE.

By JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL.

SAID Christ our Lord, "I will

go

and see

How the men, my brethren, believe in me."
He pass'd not again through the gate of birth,
But made himself known to the children of earth.

Then said the chief priests, and rulers, and kings,
"Behold, now, the Giver of all good things;
Go to, let us welcome with pomp and state
Him who alone is mighty and great."

With carpets of gold the ground they spread
Wherever the Son of Man should tread,
And in palace-chambers lofty and rare

They lodged him, and served him with kingly fare.

Great organs surged through arches dim
Their jubilant floods in praise of him,
And in church and palace, and judgment-hall,
He saw his image high over all.

But still, wherever his steps they led,
The Lord in sorrow bent down his head,
And from under the heavy foundation-stones,
The son of Mary heard bitter groans.

And in church and palace, and judgment-hall,
He mark'd great fissures that rent the wall,
And open'd wider and yet more wide
As the living foundation heaved and sigh’d.

"Have ye founded your thrones and altars, then,
On the bodies and souls of living men?
And think ye that building shall endure,
Which shelters the noble and crushes the poor?

"With gates of silver and bars of gold,

Ye have fenced my sheep from their Father's fold: I have heard the dropping of their tears

In heaven, these eighteen hundred years."

"O Lord and Master, not ours the guilt,
We build but as our fathers built;
Behold thine images, how they stand,
Sovereign and sole, through all our land.

"Our task is hard,-with sword and flame
To hold thy earth for ever the same,
And with sharp crooks of steel to keep
Still, as thou leftest them, thy sheep."

Then Christ sought out an artisan,
A low-brow'd stunted, haggard man,
And a motherless girl, whose fingers thin
Push'd from her faintly want and sin.

These set he in the midst of them,
And as they drew back their garment-hem,
For fear of defilement, "Lo, here," said he,
"The images ye have made of me!"

FAREWELL.

By BARTON.

NAY, shrink not from that word "Farewell!" As if 'twere Friendship's final knell ;

Such fears may prove but vain: So changeful is Life's fleeting day, Whene'er we sever-Hope may say We part, to meet again !

E'en the last parting Earth can know,
Brings not unutterable woe,

To souls that heavenward soar;
For humble Faith, with stedfast eye,
Points to a brighter world on high,
Where hearts, that here at parting sigh,
May meet-to part no more!