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To the neat mansion, where, his Flock among,
The learned Pastor dwells, their watchful Lord.
Though meek and patient as a sheathed sword,
Though pride's least lurking thought appear a wrong
To human kind; though peace be on his tongue,
Gentleness in his heart; can earth afford
Such genuine state, pre-eminence so free,
As when, arrayed in Christ's authority,
He from the Pulpit lifts his awful hand;
Conjures, implores, and labours all he can
For re-subjecting to divine command
The stubborn spirit of rebellious Man?

The sinful product of a bed of Weeds!
Fitliest beneath the sacred roof proceeds
The ministration; while parental Love
Looks on, and Grace descendeth from above
As the high service pledges now, now pleads.
There, should vain thoughts outspread their wings and fly

To meet the coming hours of festal mirth,
The tombs which hear and answer that brief cry,
The Infant's notice of his second birth,

Recal the wandering soul to sympathy

With what Man hopes from Heaven, yet fears from Earth

THE LITURGY.

YES, if the intensities of hope and fear
Attract us still, and passionate exercise
Of lofty thoughts, the way before us lies

Distinct with signs-through which, in fixed career,
As through a zodiac, moves the ritual year
Of England's Church-stupendous mysteries!
Which whoso travels in her bosom, eyes
As he approaches them, with solemn cheer.
Enough for us to cast a transient glance
The circle through; relinquishing its story
For those whom Heaven hath fitted to advance,
And, harp in hand, rehearse the King of Glory-
From his mild advent till his countenance
Shall dissipate the seas and mountains hoary.

CATECHISING.

FROM Little down to Least-in due degree,
Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest,
Each with a vernal posy at his breast,
We stood, a trembling, earnest Company!
With low soft murmur, like a distant bee,
Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed;
And some a bold unerring answer made;
How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand

Hlad bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie:
Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear:
O lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill requited by this heart-felt sigh!

BAPTISM.

BLEST be the Church, that, watching o'er the needs
Of Infancy, provides a timely shower,
Whose virtue changes to a Christian Flower

Among the benefits arising, as Mr Coleridge has well observed from a Church Establishment of endowments corresponding with the wealth of the country to which it belongs, may be reckoned, as eminently important, the examples of civility and refinement which the Clergy, stationed at intervals, afford to the whole people. The established Clergy in many parts of England have long been, as they continue to be, the principal bulwark against barbarism, and the link which unites the sequestered Peasantry with the intellectual

CONFIRMATION.

THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale,
With holiday delight on every brow:
'Tis passed away; far other thoughts prevail;
For they are taking the baptismal Vow
Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak
The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail,
And many a blooming, many a lovely cheek
Under the holy fear of God turns pale,
While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays
An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals
The Covenant. The Omnipotent will raise
Their feeble Souls; and bear with his regrets,
Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels
That ere the Sun goes down their childhood sets.

CONFIRMATION CONTINUED.

advancement of the age. Nor is it below the dignity of the subject to observe that their Taste, as acting upon rural Residences and scenery, often furnishes models which Country Gentlemen, who are more at liberty to follow the caprices of Fashion, might profit by. The precincts of an old residence must be treated by Ecclesiastics with respect, both from prudence and necessity. 1 remember being much pleased, some years ago, at Rose Castle, the Rural Seat of the See of Carlisle, with a style of Garden and Architecture, which, if the Place had belonged to a wealthy Layman, would no doubt have been swept away. A Parsonage-house generally stands not far from I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent the Church; this proximity imposes favourable restraints, and Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt; sometimes suggests an affecting union of the accommodations and In and for whom the pious Mother felt elegancies of life with the outward signs of piety and mortality.With pleasure I recal to mind a happy instance of this in the Resi-Things that we judge of by a light too faint, dence of an old and much-valued friend in Oxfordshire. The House Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint! and Church stand parallel to each other, at a small distance; a cir- Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved-cular lawn, or rather grass-plot, spreads between them; shrubs and Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received, trees curve from each side of the Dwelling, veiling, but not hiding the Church. From the front of this Dwelling, no part of the BurialAnd such vibration to the Mother went ground is seen; but, as you wind by the side of the Shrubs towards That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear, the Steeple end of the Church, the eye catches a single, small, low, Opened a vision of that blissful place monumental head-stone, moss-grown, sinking into, and gently in- Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given clining towards, the earth. Advance, and the Churchyard, populous Part of her lost One's glory back to trace and gay with glittering Tombstones, opens upon the view. This humble and beautiful Parsonage called forth a tribute, for which see Even to this Rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere A Parsonage in Oxfordshire, in Miscellaneous Sonnets. The Summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.

SACRAMENT.

By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied:
One duty more, last stage of this ascent,
Brings to thy food, memorial Sacrament!
The Offspring, haply at the Parents' side;
But not till They, with all that do abide
In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud
And magnify the glorious name of God,
Fountain of Grace, whose Son for Sinners died.
Here must my Song in timid reverence pause:
But shrink not ye whom to the saving rite
The Altar calls; come early under laws

That can secure for you a path of light

The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear

Its crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

OLD ABBEYS.

MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way, Untouched by due regret I marked your fall! Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all

Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor dread its weight) Dispose to judgments temperate as we lay

Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!

RURAL CEREMONY.'

CONTENT With calmer scenes around us spread
And humbler objects, give we to a day
Of annual joy one tributary lay;
This day when, forth by rustic music led,
The village Children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still Church-yard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o'ertops the head
Of the proud Bearer. To the wide Church-door,
Charged with these offerings which their Fathers bore
For decoration in the Papal time,

The innocent procession softly moves:

The spirit of Laud is pleased in Heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves!

REGRETS.

WOULD that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;
Giving the Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope! I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,
Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek when Christmas snows discomfort bring
The counter Spirit, found in some gay Church
Green with fresh Holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud, and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.

MUTABILITY.

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sinks from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear

This is still continued in many Churches in Westmorland. It takes place in the month of July, when the floor of the Stalls is strewn with fresh rushes; and bence it is called the Rusb-bearing..

On our past selves in life's declining day:
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others, gently as he may
Towards our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive.
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill
Why should we break Time's charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink and live!

EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY. EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled From Altars threatened, levelled, or defiled, Wander the Ministers of God, as chance Opens a way for life, or consonance Of Faith invites. More welcome to no land The fugitives than to the British strand, Where Priest and Layman with the vigilance Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test Vanish before the unreserved embrace Of Catholic humanity:-distrest They came, and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a dreadless resting-place.

CONGRATULATION.

2

Taus all things lead to Charity-secured
By THEM who blessed the soft and happy gale
That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail,
Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored!
Propitious hour! had we, like them, endured
Sore stress of apprehension, with a mind
Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed,
From month to month trembling and unassured,
How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt,
As a loved substance, their futurity;
Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen;
A State whose generous will through earth is dealt;
A State-which, balancing herself between
Licence and slavish order, dares be free.

This is borrowed from an affecting passage in Mr George Dyer's History of Cambridge.

* See Burnet, who is unusually animated on this subject: the east wind, so anxiously expected and prayed for, was called the Protestant wind..

NEW CHURCHES.

Bur liberty, and triumphs on the Main,
And laurelled Armies-not to be withstood,
What serve they? if, on transitory good
Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,

The state (ah surely not preserved in vain!)
Forbear to shape due channels which the Flood
Of sacred Truth may enter-till it brood
O'er the wide realm, as o'er the Egyptian Plain
The all-sustaining Nile. No more—the time

Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds,
In rival haste, the wished-for Temples rise!
I hear their sabbath bells' harmonious chime
Float on the breeze-the heavenliest of all sounds
That hill or vale prolongs or multiplies!

CHURCH TO BE ERECTED.

BE this the chosen site;-the virgin sod,
Moistened from age to age by dewy eve,
Shall disappear-and grateful earth receive
The corner-stone from hands that build to God.
Yon reverend hawthorns, hardened to the rod
Of winter storms, yet budding cheerfully;
Those forest oaks of Druid memory,
Shall long survive, to shelter the Abode

Of genuine Faith. Where, haply, 'mid this band
Of daisies, Shepherds sate of
and wove
yore
May-garlands, let the holy Altar stand
For kneeling adoration; while-above,
Broods, visibly pourtrayed, the mystic Dove,
That shall protect from Blasphemy the land.

CONTINUED.

MINE ear has rung, my spirit sunk subdued,
Sharing the strong emotion of the crowd,
When each pale brow to dread hosannas bowed
While clouds of incense mounting veiled the rood,
That glimmered like a pine-tree dimly viewed
Through Alpine vapours. Such appalling rite
Our Church prepares not, trusting to the might
Of simple truth with grace divine imbued;
Yet will we not conceal the precious Cross,
Like Men ashamed: the Sun with his first smile
Shall greet that symbol crowning the low Pile;
And the fresh air of « incense-breathing morn"
Shall wooingly embrace it; and green moss
Creep round its arms through centuries unborn.

NEW CHURCH-YARD.

THE encircling ground, in native turf arrayed,
Is now by solemn consecration given

To social interests, and to favouring Heaven;
And where the rugged Colts their gambols played,
And wild Deer bounded through the forest glade,
Unchecked as when by merry Outlaw driven,
Shall hymns of praise resound at morn and even;
And soon, full soon, the lonely Sexton's spade
Shall wound the tender sod. Encincture small,

The Lutherans have retained the Cross within their Churches; it is to be regrested that we have not done the same.

But infinite its grasp of joy and woe!
Hopes, fears, in never-ending ebb and flow-
The spousal trembling-and the « dust to dust »>—
The prayers, the contrite struggle, and the trust
That to the Almighty Father looks through all!

CATHEDRALS, ETC.

OPEN your Gates, ye everlasting Piles!

Types of the Spiritual Church which God hath reared;
Not loth we quit the newly-hallowed sward
And humble altar, mid your sumptuous aisles
To kneel-or thrid your intricate defiles—
Or down the nave to pace in motion slow;
Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow
And mount, at every step, with living wiles
Instinct to rouse the heart and lead the will
By a bright ladder to the world above.
Open your Gates, ye Monuments of love
Divine! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill!

Thou, stately York! and Ye, whose splendours cheer
Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear!

INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAN-
BRIDGE.

TAX not the royal Saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned,
Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only, this immense
And glorious Work of fine Intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely-calculated less or more;

So deemed the Man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loth to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.

THE SAME.

WHAT awful perspective! while from our sight
With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide
Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed
In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light,
Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite,
Whoe'er ye be, that thus-yourselves unseen—
Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen,
Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!
But, from the arms of silence-list! O list!
The music bursteth into second life;-
The notes luxuriate-every stone is kissed
By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;
Heart-thrilling strains, that cast before the eye
Of the Devout a veil of ecstasy!

CONTINUED.

THEY dreamt not of a perishable home

Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear Or groveling thought, to seek a refuge here;

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Along the nether region's rugged frame!
Earth prompts-Heaven urges; let us seek the light
Studious of that pure intercourse begun
When first our infant brows their lustre won;
So, like the Mountain, may we grow more bright
From unimpeded commerce with the Sun,
At the approach of all-involving night.

CONCLUSION.

WHY sleeps the future, as a snake enrolled,
Coil within coil, at noon-tide? For the WORD
Yields, if with unpresumptuous faith explored,
Power at whose touch the sluggard shall unfold
His drowsy rings. Look forth! that stream behold,
THAT STREAM upon whose bosom we have passed
Floating at ease while nations have effaced
Nations, and Death has gathered to his fold
Long lines of mighty Kings- look forth, my Soul!
(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust)
The living Waters, less and less by guilt
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll,
Till they have reached the Eternal City-built
For the perfected Spirits of the just!

The White Doe of Rylstone; ()
OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS.

They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man is of kinn to the Beasts by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God by his Spirit, he is a base ignoble Creature. It destroys likewise Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage be will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a man, who to him is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than his own could never attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human Nature in itself LORD BACON.

could not obtain.

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It soothed us-it beguiled us-then, to hear
Once more of troubles wrought by magic spell;
And griefs whose aery motion comes not near
The pangs that tempt the Spirit to rebel;
Then, with mild Una in her sober cheer,
High over hill and low adown the dell
Again we wandered, willing to partake

All that she suffered for her dear Lord's sake.

Then, too, this Song of mine once more could please,
Where anguish, strange as dreams of restless sleep,
Is tempered and allayed by sympathies
Aloft ascending, and descending deep,

Even to the inferior Kinds; whom forest trees
Protect from beating sunbeams, and the sweep

Of the sharp winds;-fair Creatures!-to whom Heaven
A calm and sinless life, with love, hath given.

This tragic Story cheered us: for it speaks
Of female patience winning firm repose;
And of the recompense which conscience seeks
A bright, encouraging example shows;

Needful when o'er wide realms the tempest breaks,
Needful amid life's ordinary woes;

Hence, not for them unfitted who would bless
A happy hour with holier happiness.

He serves the Muses erringly and ill,
Whose aim is pleasure light and fugitive:
O, that my mind were equal to fulfil

The comprehensive mandate which they give-
Vain aspiration of an earnest will!

Yet in this moral Strain a power may live,
Beloved Wife! such solace to impart
As it hath yielded to thy tender heart.

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORLAND, April 20, 1815.

CANTO I.

FROM Bolton's old monastic tower (2)
The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun is bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf,
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company!
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.

What would they there?-Full fifty years
That sumptuous Pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste:
Its courts are ravaged; but the tower
Is standing with a voice of power,

That ancient voice which wont to call

To mass or some high festival;
And in the shattered fabric's heart
Remaineth one protected part;
A rural Chapel, neatly drest, (3)
In covert like a little nest;
And thither young and old repair,
This Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer.

Fast the church-yard fills;-anon
Look again, and they all are gone;

The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak! (4)
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard :-
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel:
For 't is the sun-rise now of zeal,
And faith and hope are in their prime,
In great Eliza's golden time.

A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,

The only voice which you can hear

Is the river murmuring near.

-When soft!-the dusky trees between,

And down the path through the open green, Where is no living thing to be seen;

And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,

Free entrance to the church-yard ground;
And right across the verdant sod
Towards the very house of God;
-Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary Doe!

White she is as lily of June,

And beauteous as the silver moon

When out of sight the clouds are driven,

And she is left alone in heaven;

Or like a ship some gentle day

In sunshine sailing far away,

A glittering ship, that hath the plain

Of ocean for her own domain.

Lie silent in your graves, ye dead! Lie quiet in your church-yard bed! Ye living, tend your holy cares; Ye multitude, pursue your prayers; And blame not me if my heart and sight Are occupied with one delight! "T is a work for sabbath hours If I with this bright Creature go, Whether she be of forest bowers, From the bowers of earth below; Or a Spirit, for one day given, A gift of grace from purest heaven.

What harmonious pensive changes

Wait upon her as she ranges

Round and through this Pile of state,

Overthrown and desolate!

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