THE BURMANS AND THEIR MISSIONARY.

Inquiring for a stranger. There he stands;
The mark of foreign climes is on his brow;
He hath no power, no costly gifts to deal
Among the people, and his lore perchance
The earth-bowed worldling with his scales of gold,
Accounteth folly. Yet to him is raised

Each straining eye-ball, "Tell us of the Christ!"
And like the far-off murmur of the sea

Lashed by the tempest, swells their blended tone,
"Yea. Tell us of the Christ. Give us a scroll
Bearing his name."

And there the teacher stood,

Far from his native land—amid the graves

Of his lost infants, and of her he loved
More than his life.-Yes, there he stood alone,
And with a simple, saint-like eloquence
Spake his Redeemer's word. Forgot were all-
Home, boyhood, christian-fellowship—the tone
Of his sweet babes-his partner's dying strife-
Chains, perils, Burman dungeons, all forgot,
Save the deep danger of the heathen's soul,
And God's salvation. And methought that earth
In all she vaunts of majesty, or tricks
With silk and purple, or the baubled pride
Of throne and sceptre, or the blood-red pomp,
Of the stern hero, had not aught to boast
So truly great, so touching, so sublime,

165

166

THE BURMANS AND THEIR MISSIONARY.

As that lone Missionary, shaking off

All links and films and trappings of the world, And in his chastened nakedness of soul

Rising to bear the embassy of Heaven.

THE DEAD HORSEMAN.

Occasioned by reading the manner of conveying a young man to burial, in the mountainous region about Vettie's Giel, in Norway.

WHO's riding o'er the Giel so fast,

'Mid the crags of Utledale?

He heeds not cold, nor storm, nor blast;
But his cheek is deadly pale.

A fringe of pearl from his eye-lash long,
Stern Winter's hand hath hung;

And his sinewy arm looks bold and strong,
Though his brow is smooth and young.

Round his marble forehead, in clusters bright,

Is wreathed his golden hair;

His robe is of linen, long and white,

Though a mantle of fur scarce could 'bide the blight

Of his keen and frosty air.

God speed thee now, thou horseman bold!

For the tempest awakes in wrath; And thy stony eye is fixed and cold As the glass of thine icy path.

Down, down the precipice wild he breaks,

Where the foaming waters roar;

And his way up the cliff of the mountain takes, Where man never trod before.

No checking hand to the rein he lends,
On slippery summits sheen;

But ever and aye his head he bends

At the plunge in some dark ravine.

Dost thou bow in prayer, to the God who guides Thy course o'er such pavement frail?

Or nod in thy dream on the steep, where glides The curdling brook, with its slippery tides, Thou horseman, so young and pale?

Swift, swift o'er the breast of the frozen streams, Toward Lyster-Church he hies

Whose holy spire 'mid the glaciers gleams,

Like a star in troubled skies.

Now stay, thou ghostly traveller-stay,

Why haste in such mad career?

Be the guilt of thy bosom as dark as it may, "Twere better to purge it here.

On, on! like the winged blast he wends,

Where moulder the bones of the dead

Wilt thou stir the sleep of thy buried friends,
With thy courser's tramping tread ?

At a yawning pit, whose narrow brink, 'Mid the swollen snow was grooved,

He paused. The steed from that chasm did shrink But the rider sate unmoved.

Then down at once, from his lonely seat,

They lifted the horseman pale,

And laid him low in that drear retreat

And poured in dirge-like measure sweet,

The mournful funeral wail.

Bold youth! whose bosom with pride had glowed

In a life of toil severe

Didst thou scorn to pass to thy last abode

In the ease of the slothful bier ?

Must thy own good steed, which thy hands had drest,

In the fulness of boyhood's bliss,

By the load of thy lifeless limbs be prest,

On a journey so strange as this?