Hard-handed, cruel,

He heaps the fuel,

Around the erring, and dooms to death;

While I have often,

With tears that soften,

Bedewed and baffled the fierce flame's breath.

Oh, what is sinning?

From the beginning,

Virtue ever with power hath run;

Bereft of glory,

On sharp cross gory,

He once tormented God's guiltless Son.

LIFE.

I am everywhere, and the thrilling glow

Of my hot strong hand from the coldest snow

Has power to stir from its silent tomb

Each germ that lies hid in the Earth's wide womb.

I call thee, O Man, to action and strife;
For when I am with thee the air is rife
With busy sound of daring and doing,
With shout of battle or whisper of wooing.

I touch, and I breathe, and the inert mass
Upheaves and throbs, and through blue veins pass
The impulsive torrent of blood's red flame;
I call to thee, Man, in thy Maker's name.

Awake, and arise, for I give thee power,
To work to thy will, and to grasp the hour;

But beware, beware, shouldst thou treat me ill,
With sorrow and pain that short hour I fill.

I illume the taper with fire divine,

I bear it to thee, its care is thine;

So gird up thy loins and husband thy breath,
For Life, O Man, is the portal of Death.

DEATH.

Why dost thou fear me? Than Life more kind
I calm thee, mortal, and free thy mind

From sorrow;

I hush thee, soothe thee, bear thee away,
The glorious dawn of a fairer day
To borrow.

I come in mercy and not in ire;
The boldest fail and the strongest tire

In battle;

I bring thee rest, though I purge with pain,
As the air grows clear with thunder's rain
And rattle.

From gloom of darkness doth spring the light,
So do I guide thee to realms more bright

For ever;

Ah! couldst thou know, thou wouldst crave to die, And, without regret, each earthly tie

Wouldst sever.

But God, in His wisdom, gives to Life
A garb of beauty, to hide the strife
He beareth;

While Death is decked in a foul array,

Yet, beneath her shroud, the robes of day
She weareth.

So ceased, with Death, the sound of simple song : And Nature's voice, in mingled harmony,

Rang as a glorious chorus round the world.

O blame not, Earth, thy noblest offspring, Man; His discontent was sown in him by God,

To raise him higher as the cycles wane ;

For when he plucked from that forbidden tree,
'Twas One All-wise who willed that he should taste
The fruit of knowledge, ere 'twas fully ripe,
To try him to the end, that he might rise
Triumphant, tested, sanctified by strife.
Shadow of hell and sunlight of His throne,

Joy, Pain, and Vice and Virtue, from one source
Spring, subtle essences, at war in Man.

For wert thou, Earth, at rest, thy teeming womb,
Like to some stagnant pool, would putrefy.
So sent He, as thou knowest, Peace and War,
Antagonists, yet working for thy weal.
And so shall all things battle to the end,
Till Man arise, supreme in awful power
Of perfect knowledge gained, not balancing
The weight of Good and Evil in false scale,
But seeing God in all that God bestows.

The Argument.

SPACE is the body of God, and life is the spirit,
Having neither beginning nor end, from ever for ever.
The soul of man is life; the body, decaying,

Dissolves again into space and engenders existence.
Death is renewal of life and a step of progression.

Form is developed, through time, by the will of the spirit.
Man, co-existing with God, was never created.

Flash then spontaneous fire, arouse the lethargic
Matter from void; make solid the vapoury masses;
Stream on the riven crag and people each crevice,
With infinitesimal forms, and wake from its slumber
The self-creative power which is dormant within them.

Atoms, centre and cling, begetting the lichen;
Lichens, expand your cells and move as the insect;
Insects, adapt your powers, till animal instinct
Shall flow from the fire within, to develop a being
Gifted with physical strength and the dawnings of reason,
Being of brain, arise, the will of the spirit.

Prepare, O world, for a race supreme of its order,
Holding the essence of God, perfected, and destined
To fall again into dust, and through life of corruption
To pass again into space the potential life-giver.

THE MAN OF THE PAST.

Life on the earth had blossomed and decayed,
To breed increasing life; the mouldering moss
Spread food on barren steeps for giant stems :
The harmless eft had reared a ravenous brood
Of winged dragons: fearful forms were rife
In air and water, and the forests teemed
With mighty monsters battling 'mongst themselves.
Still life flowed on, as cycles ebbed away,
The force of brutes was heavy on the earth,
When, in the growing chain of rising race,
Another link was wanted-one to bind
The various species by a stronger tie;

To hold a sway by something more than power
Of bone and sinew; and the link appeared:
For earth was ready for its monarch-Man.
A man! a swarthy ape-from crown to heel,
A mass of bristling hair. Strong-fanged of mouth,
Though innocent of blood, for fruit or herbs
His only nutriment. Of keen quick eye,
Of supple spine, and ready with the foot-
A grasping hand, to scale the arching bough