JAIRU US THE RULEr. With his flowing robe
Gathered in haste about his loins, he came,
And fixed his eyes on Jesus. Closer drew
'The twelve disciples to their master's side,
And silently the people shrunk away,
And left the haughty Ruler in the midst
Alone. A moment longer on the face
Of the meek Nazarene he kept his gaze,
And as the twelve looked on him, by the light
Of the clear moon they saw a glistening tear
Steal to his silver beard, and drawing nigh
Unto the Savior's feet, he took the hem
Of his coarse mantle, and with trembling hands
Pressed it upon his lips, and murmured low,
"Master! my daughter !"-
"T is so ;—the hoary harper sings aright;
How beautiful is Zion!-Like a queen,
Armed with a helm in virgin loveliness,
Her heaving bosom in a bossy cuirass,
She sits aloft, begirt with battlements
And bulwarks swelling from the rock, to guard
The sacred courts, pavilions, palaces,
Soft gleaming through the umbrage of the woods
Which tuft her summit, and, like raven tresses,
Wave their dark beauty round the tower of David.
Resplendent with a thousand golden bucklers,
The embrazures of alabaster shine;
Hailed by the pilgrims of the desert, bound
To Judah's mart with orient merchandise.
But not, for thou art fair and turret-crowned,
Wet with the choicest dew of heaven, and blessed
With golden fruits, and gales of frankincense,
Dwell I beneath thine ample curtains. Here,
Where saints and prophets teach, where the stern law
Still speaks in thunder, where chief angels watch,
And where the glory hovers, here I war.
GENEVIEVE.-COLERIDGE.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.
The moonshine, stealing o'er the scene,
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!
She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.
Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.
I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face
I told her of the knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand ;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The lady of the land.
I told her how he pined: and ah !
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.
She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes, and modest grace;
And she forgave me, that I gazed
Too fondly on her face.
But when I told the cruel scorn
That crazed that bold and lovely knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;
That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,
There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight!
And that, unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The lady of the land!
And how she wept, and clasped his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate
The scorn that crazed his brain.
And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay.
His dying words-but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guiltless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love, and virgin shame;
And like the murmur of a dream,
Her bosom heaved--she stept aside,
As conscious of my look she stepped-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.
She half inclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head, looked up,
And gazed upon my face.
"T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.
I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous bride.
We watched her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life.
Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seemed to speak-
So slowly moved about-
As we had lent her half our life,
To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears,
Our fears, our hopes belied-
We thought her dying when she slept,
And sleeping when she died
And when the morn rose dim and sad,
And chill with early showers,
Her quiet eye-lids closed-she had
Another morn than ours.
ADDRESS TO THE HOLY SPIRIT.-MILTON.
Of man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat,
Sing, heavenly muse, that on the secret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen seed,
In the beginning, how the heavens and earth
Rose out of chaos: Or, if Sion hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
Fast by the oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventurous song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
And chiefly thou, O, Spirit, that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
Was present, and, with mighty wings out-spread,
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support;
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
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