Among the thorns that girt Thy brow,
Wounding Thy soul.-That even now,
In this extremest misery

Of ignorance, I should require
A sign and if a bolt of fire
Would rive the slumbrous summer

noon

While I do pray to Thee alone,
Think my belief would stronger grow:
Is not my human pride brought low?
The boastings of my spirit still?
The joy I had in my freewill

All cold, and dead, and corpse-like grown?

And what is left to me, but Thou And faith in Thee? Men pass me by; Christians with happy countenancesAnd children all seem full of Thee! And women smile with saint-like glances

Like Thine own mother's when she bow'd

Above Thee, on that happy morn
When angels spake to men aloud,
And Thou and peace to earth were
born,

Goodwill to me as well as all-
I one of them: my brothers they :
Brothers in Christ- a world of peace
And confidence, day after day;
And trust and hope till things should

cease,

And then one Heaven receive us all.

How sweet to have a common faith! To hold a common scorn of death! And at a burial to hear

The creaking cords which wound and eat

Into my human heart, whene'er Earth goes to earth, with grief, not fear,

With hopeful grief, were passing sweet!

Thrice happy state again to be
The trustful infant on the knee!
Who lets his rosy fingers play
About his mother's neck, and knows
Nothing beyond his mother's eyes.
They comfort him by night and day;
They light his little life alway;

5

He hath no thought of coming woes;
He hath no care of life or death;
Scarce outward signs of joy arise,
Because the Spirit of happiness
And perfect rest so inward is;
And loveth so his innocent heart,
Her temple and her place of birth,
Where she would ever wish to dwell,
Life of the fountain there, beneath
Its salient springs, and far apart,
Hating to wander out on earth,
Or breathe into the hollow air,
Whose chillness would make visible
Her subtil, warm, and golden breath,
Which mixing with the infant's blood,
Fulfils him with beatitude.
Oh! sure it is a special care
Of God, to fortify from doubt,
To arm in proof, and guard about
With triple-mailèd trust, and clear
Delight, the infant's dawning year.
Would that my gloomed fancy were
As thine, my mother, when with brows
Propt on thy knees, my hands upheld
In thine, I listen'd to thy vows,
For me outpour'd in holiest prayer-
For me unworthy! - and beheld
Thy mild deep eyes upraised, that knew
The beauty and repose of faith,
And the clear spirit shining thro'.
Oh! wherefore do we grow awry
From roots which strike so deep? why
dare

Paths in the desert? Could not I
Bow myself down, where thou hast
knelt,
To the earth
melt

until the ice would

Here, and I feel as thou hast felt? What Devil had the heart to scathe Flowers thou hadst rear'd to brush

the dew

From thine own lily, when thy grave Was deep, my mother, in the clay? Myself? Is it thus? Myself? Had I So little love for thee? But why Prevail'd not thy pure prayers? Why

pray

To one who heeds not, who can save But will not? Great in faith, and strong

The other? I am too forlorn,
Too shaken: my own weakness fools
My judgment, and my spirit whirls,
Moved from beneath with doubt and
fear.

"Yet," said I in my morn of youth,
The unsunn'd freshness of my strength,
When I went forth in quest of truth,
"It is man's privilege to doubt,
If so be that from doubt at length,
Truth may stand forth unmoved of
change,

An image with profulgent brows,
And perfect limbs, as from the storm
Of running fires and fluid range
Of lawless airs, at last stood out
This excellence and solid form
Of constant beauty. For the Ox
Feeds in the herb, and sleeps, or fills
The horned vaileys all about,
And hollows of the fringed hills
In summer heats, with placid lows
Unfearing, till his own blood flows

About his hoof. And in the flocks
The lamb rejoiceth in the year,
And raceth freely with his fere,
And answers to his mother's calls
From the flower'd furrow. In a time,
Of which he wots not, run short pains
Thro' his warm heart; and then, from

whence

He knows not, on his light there falls
A shadow; and his native slope,
Where he was wont to leap and climb,
Floats from his sick and filmed eyes,
And something in the darkness draws
His forehead earthward, and he dies..
Shall man live thus, in joy and hope
As a young lamb, who cannot dream,
Living, but that he shall live on?
Shall we not look into the laws
Of life and death, and things that

seem,

And things that be, and analyze
Our double nature, and compare
All creeds till we have found the one,

If one there be ?" Ay me! I fear
All may not doubt, but everywhere
Some must clasp Idols. Yet, my God,
Whom call I Idol ? Let Thy dove
Shadow me over, and my sins

Clothing the stem, which else had fallen quite

With cluster'd flower-bells and ambrosial orbs

Of rich fruit-bunches leaning on each other

Shadow forth thee: the world hath not another

(Tho' all her fairest forms are types of thee,

And thou of God in thy great charity) Of such a finish'd chasten'd purity.

MARIANA.

"Mariana in the moated grange." Measure for Measure. WITH blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gablewall.

The broken sheds look'd sad and strange:

Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange.

She only said, "My life is dreary,

He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Her tears fell with the dews at even; Her tears fell ere the dews were dried;

She could not look on the sweet heaven, Either at morn or eventide.

After the flitting of the bats,

When thickest dark did trance the sky,

She drew her casement-curtain by,
And glancedathwart the glooming flats.
She only said, "The night is dreary,
He cometh not," she said;
She said, "I am aweary, aweary,
I would that I were dead!"

Upon the middle of the night,
Waking she heard the night-fowl

crow:

The cock sung out an hour ere light: From the dark fen the oxen's low