Lo! from yon argent field,

To him and us reveal'd,

One gentle Star glides down, on earth to dwell.
Chain'd as they are below

Our eyes may see it glow,

And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well.

To him it glared afar,

A token of wild war,

The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath:

But close to us it gleams,

Its soothing lustre streams

Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way path.

We in the tents abide

Which he at distance eyed,

Like goodly cedars by the waters spread,

While seven red altar-fires

Rose up in wavy spires,

Where on the mount he watch'd his sorceries dark and dread.

He watch'd till morning's ray

On lake and meadow lay,

And willow-shaded streams, that silent sweep

Around the banner'd lines,

Where by their several signs

The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep.

He watch'd till knowledge came

Upon his soul like flame,

Not of those magic fires at random caught:

But true prophetic light

Flash'd o'er him, high and bright,

1

And can he choose but fear,
Who feels his God so near,

That when he fain would curse, his powerless tongue
In blessing only moves ?—

Alas! the world he loves

Too close around his heart her tangling veil hath flung.

Sceptre and Star divine,

Who in Thine inmost shrine

Hast made us worshippers, O claim Thine own!
More than Thy seers we know-

O teach our love to grow

Up to Thy heavenly light, and reap what Thou hast sown.

31.

RE

November

ED o'er the forest peers the setting sun;
The line of yellow light dies fast away

That crown'd the eastern copse; and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.

Now the tired hunter winds a parting note,
And Echo bids good-night from every glade;
Yet wait awhile and see the calm leaves float
Each to his rest beneath their parent shade.

How like decaying life they seem to glide
And yet no second spring have they in store;
But where they fall, forgotten to abide

Is all their portion, and they ask no more.

Soon o'er their heads blithe April airs shall sing,
A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold,
The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring,
And all be vernal rapture as of old.

21

Unconscious

Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,
In all the world of busy life around

No thought of them-in all the bounteous sky
No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.

Man's portion is to die and rise again :

Yet he complains, while these unmurmuring part With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain As his when Eden held his virgin heart.

32.

JOHN CLARE

Graves of Infants

1793-1864

[NFANTS' gravemounds are steps of angels, where Earth's brightest gems of innocence repose.

God is their parent, so they need no tear ;

He takes them to his bosom from earth's woes-
A bud their lifetime and a flower their close.

Their spirits are the Iris of the skies,

Needing no prayer; a sunset's happy close. Gone are the bright rays of their soft blue eyes; Flow'rs weep in dew-drops o'er them, and the gale gently

sighs.

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower,
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye.

Each death

Was toll'd on flowers as summer gales went by: They bow'd and trembled, yet they heaved no sigh; And the sun smiled to show the end was well.

Infants have naught to weep for ere they die, All prayers are needless, beads they need not tell; White flowers their mourners are, Nature their passing

bell.

"Tis heard in Spring;

When light and sunbeams, warm and kind,

On angel's wing

Bring love and music to the mind.

And where's the voice

So young, so beautiful, and sweet,
As Nature's choice

Where Spring and lovers meet?

Love lives beyond the tomb
And earth, which fades like dew:
I love the fond,

The faithful, and the true.

34. Written in Northampton County Asylum

I

AM! yet

what I am who cares, or knows? My friends forsake me like a memory lost. I am the self-consumer of my woes;

They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost,
And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,

Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange-nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod—
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept-
There to abide with my Creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,-
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.

35.

JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART

WH

Lines

7HEN youthful faith hath fled,
Of loving take thy leave;

Be constant to the dead

The dead cannot deceive.

Sweet modest flowers of Spring,
How fleet your balmy day!
And Man's brief life can bring
No secondary May:

1794-1854