years for his great piety, and constant works of charity to the poor. After he had reigned fourteen years, an invasion of the Danes under Inguar and Hubba desolated his kingdom. An indecisive battle took place at Thetford. S. Edmund, however, would not shed his people's blood any more in a hopeless resistance, and retired into a church; whence the Danes dragged him, and having tried in vain to persuade him to accept their offers, they tied him to a tree, scourged him, pierced him with arrows, and cut off his head. His body was afterwards buried at Edmonstone, near Bury S. Edmunds.
How sweet to watch the early ray,
At the first blush of opening day,
Which breaks across the Eastern sky,
Ere yet one cloud be seen on high,-
While all below, above, around,
In one sweet harmony is bound;
And early songs of birds arise
In thousand blended melodies,
As then with full unclouded light
The sun begins his journey bright,—
No cloud to dim his onward way,
Or hide from earth his strengthened ray.
So brightly in life's tender morn,
The infant at the font new-born,
Begins, from Satan's empire won,
His holy course of hope to run;
While, all unseen by mortal eye,
His Angel guardian watches nigh,
And scares away each thought of sin
If e'er it strive to enter in
And mar the robes of stainless white
That deck the child of Life and Light.
But what though all be pure and clear,
Such joy is mingled still with fear-
Fear for each coming day and hour,
For the world's wiles and Satan's power,
For all the sights and sounds of ill
That lure and snare th' unguarded will.
Full many a bright unclouded sun
Is darkened ere the day be done,
And many a cloud, scarce visible
To careless eyes, anon will swell
And hang upon the burthened air,
Till all be dark where all was fair.-
And so in life's advancing day
The soul's first fervour may decay,
And Love wax cold, till thoughts of sin,
As Faith grows weaker, enter in ;
The Cross, once marked upon the brow,
Beams with a fainter lustre now;
And the white robe, so fair before,
Is stainless now and pure no more.
Then heavy seems the Cross to bear,
Life's onward path is fraught with care,
And hard the struggle is and sore,
Ere yet the strife with sin be o'er,
In penitence, and toil, and prayer,
To wash their robes again as fair
And bright, as they were wont to be,
Fresh with Baptismal purity.
But some there are (and happy they!)
Whose Cross hath never lost its ray,
Whose robes of light are stainless still,
And souls unhurt by touch of ill.
From strength to strength these journey on,
Till Faith and Love the shrine have won!
And bright their memories are and dear,
A star of hope in time of fear,
As beacons kindled on the strand
To guide the wandering bark to land.-
Blest Martyr, thou a crown didst wear,
O, early taught to know its care;
And in a dark and dreary age
Was cast thy heavenly pilgrimage.
But soon thine earthly toil was done,
When manhood had but scarce begun ;
And pure as in thy life's first spring,
Thy soul in heaven-ward flight took wing.
With robe unstained and Cross as bright,
As when, awakening heavenly light,
O'er thee the solemn words were said
And the all-holy lustre shed.
We have still the shrine to win;
We have still to strive with sin;
Then be thy name to memory dear,
As now we toil and labour here;
And be thy light to us a star
To guide our wandering feet afar ;
Till in faith our journey cease,
And with thee we rest in peace.
NOVEMBER 22.-S. CECILIA, VIRGIN AND MARTYR.-A.D. 230.
All accounts agree in considering S. Cæcilia as a holy virgin, but it is doubtful whether she was ever married or not. One statement says that she was forced by her parents to become the wife of
a noble Roman, named Valerian, with whom she lived as a sister, and who afterwards with her suffered martyrdom for the Faith. She is generally considered as the Patroness of Church Music, and is represented playing on an instrument.
Ay, it is hard to quit the busy crowd,
To tear us from the showy world away,
To turn from golden hopes and longings proud
And the brief revelling of yesterday,-
To trample name and fame and fortune high,
And flee unto the Cross and daily die!
But harder far life's simple joys to leave,
The quiet homestead and the pasture field,
With pleasant sounds that float anear at eve,
The jasmine-scented lattice half revealed,
The merry flickering of the nightly flame,
And laughing eyes that throng around the same.
Yet at God's call we leave them. There was one,
Who to His service vowed her maiden life,
And chose her cold lot in the world alone,
Scorning to wear the joyous name of wife
On that sad earth, where He had deigned to roam,
A weary wanderer far from house or home.
Fair youths had sought her love; but evermore
She sang sweet praises to her LORD most High,
Plying with hand and voice the tuneful score
In ceaseless adoration; and still nigh,
With fiery sword and flame-encircled brow,
Stood the celestial guardian of her vow.
When the old wily world doth drag us down
Entangled in the chain ourselves have made,—
When we would flee, but cannot,-and the crown
Hangs high above the reach of mortal aid,—
When hope, and joy, and peace seem far away,
And nought is round us but the drear to-day ;-
Then surely it is good to stand aloof,
And silently to seek the holy fane,
The high-drawn pillar and the springing roof
And window various; while the choral strain
Sweet incense wafts of prayer and praise to Heaven
For blessings daily wrought and sins forgiven ;-
To hear the quick tumultuous waves of sound
Borne fitfully the hollow aisle along,
While fretted vault and leafy niche around
Return their deep and thrilling undersong:
They sink,-they pause; and now we strive in vain
To catch the death-notes of the fading strain.
Again the music loud and louder swells,
Again it eddies round in heavenly wise;
It loiters in the dim fantastic cells,
It couches 'neath the frowning canopies,
Then shoots afar for ever onward driven,
And soars aloft, and dies away to Heaven.
For we may deem that Angels linger near
And listen to the silver founts of song,
That glide adown to chasten us or cheer,
To nerve the languid and abate the strong,―
That bear strange shadows from we know not whence,
Dark recollections of lost innocence,-
Stray notes of everlasting harmonies,
Forms unsubstantial, memorials dim,
Faint flittings of the gales of Paradise,
And echoes from the songs of Cherubim :
To aid us are they wafted from on high ;-
Sure we may deem that Angels linger by!
But most they love the simple virgin-heart
That humbly strives, advancing day by day,
In their eternal choirs to learn its part;
Till, from these troubled waters borne away,
It finds sure refuge in the realms of rest,
And swells the deathless anthems of the blest.
NOVEMBER 23.-S. CLEMENT, BISHOP AND MARTYR.-A.D. 100.
S. Clement was the companion and fellow-labourer of S. Paul. (Phil. iv. 3.) He was consecrated Bishop by S. Peter himself, but was fourth in actual succession to the episcopal chair of Rome. He wrote an Epistle to the Corinthians rebuking their dissensions, which is very celebrated among ecclesiastical writings. The labours of S. Clement were finished in the year 100. He probably suffered in the persecution which Trajan inflicted on the Church, but the circumstances of his martyrdom are not known.
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