DEATH.

FROM death the strongest spirit shrinks, For mystery veils the last dread strife: None loves to die. And yet methinks We have been dying all our life.

When first thy childhood sang its hymn Above the opening bud, that hour Thine Infancy with eyelids dim

Lay cold in death a faded flower!

When Youth in turn its place had won,
What whispered Childhood's ebbing breath?
Sad words it sighed o'er bright things gone,
And that First Sin, true Childhood's death.

And Youth was dead ere Manhood came: And Wisdom's fruits of bitter taste Were rooted in a soil of shame,

Poor funeral fruits of manhood's waste.

O Life, long-dying, wholly die,
That Death not less may die at last :
And live, thou great Eternity

That Present art at once and Past!

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And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter
still;

And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A nearer good to cure an older ill;

And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them

Not for their sake, but His who grants them or denies them!

The half-seen memories of childish days,
When pains and pleasures lightly came and
went;

The sympathies of boyhood rashly spent
In fearful wand'rings through forbidden ways;
The vague but manly wish to tread the maze
Of life to noble ends-whereon intent,
Asking to know for what man here is sent,
The bravest heart must often pause, and gaze-
The firm resolve to seek the chosen end
Of manhood's judgment, cautious and mature-
Each of these viewless bonds binds friend to
friend

With strength no selfish purpose can secure:
My happy lot is this, that all attend

That friendship which first came, and which shail last endure.

HER SHADOW.

BENDING between me and the taper,

While o'er the harp her white hands strayed, The shadows of her waving tresses

Above my hand were gently swayed.

With every graceful movement waving,
I marked their undulating swell:

I watched them while they met and parted,
Curled close or widened, rose or fell.

I laughed in triumph and in pleasure-
So strange the sport, so undesigned!
Her mother turned and asked me, gravely,
"What thought was passing through my mind?"

"T is Love that blinds the eyes of mothers;

"T is Love that makes the young maids fair! She touched my hand; my rings she counted; Yet never felt the shadows there.

Keep, gamesome Love, beloved Infant,
Keep ever thus all mothers blind;
And make thy dedicated virgins,
In substance as in shadow, kind!

SONNETS.

SAD is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing
In current unperceived, because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sow-
ing-

But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat; Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing

WHY, if he loves you, lady, doth he hide
His love? So humble is he that his heart
Exults not in some sense of new desert
With all thy grace and goodness at his side?
Ah, trust not thou the love that hath no pride,
The pride wherein compunction claims no part,
The callous calm no doubts confuse or thwart,
The untrembling hope, and joy unsanctified.
He of your beauty prates without remorse:
You dropped last night a lily; on the sod
He let it lie, and fade in Nature's course:
He looks not on the ground your feet have

trod;

He smiles but with the lips, your form in view; And he will kiss one day your lips, not you.

Lo! as an eagle battling through a cloud,
That from his neck all night the vapor flings,
And ploughs the dark, till downward from his
wings

Fierce sunrise smites with light some shipwrecked crowd

Beneath a blind sea-cavern beat and bowedThus through the storm of men, the night of things,

That principle to which the issue clings
Makes fateful way, and spurns at last its shroud.
There were that saw it with a skeptic ken:
There were that saw it not, through hate or
pride;

But, conquering and to conquer, on it came,
No tool of man, but making tools of men,
Till nations shook beneath its advent wide,
And they that loosed the portent rued the

same.

preacher. He wrote voluminously, and pub. lished, besides devotional works in prose, "The Cherwell Water-Lily, and other Poems," 1840; "The Styrian Lake, and other Poems," 1842; "Sir Lancelot, a Poem," 1844 (rewritten in 1858); "The Rosary, and other Poems," 1845; and "Catholic Hymns," 1848. His hymns were increased in number in successive editions, until the last, 1861, contained one hundred and fifty. An edition was published in New York in 1875.

THE ETERNITY OF GOD.

O LORD! my heart is sick,

Sick of this everlasting change;

And life runs tediously quick

Without an end or bound

Thy life lies all outspread in light;

Our lives feel Thy life all around, Making our weakness strong, our darkness bright;

Yet is it neither wilderness nor sea,

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THE GOD OF MY CHILDHOOD.

O GOD! who wert my childhood's love,
My boyhood's pure delight,
A presence felt the livelong day,
A welcome fear at night-

Oh, let me speak to Thee, dear God!
Of those old mercies past,
O'er which new mercies day by day
Such lengthening shadows cast.

They bade me call Thee Father, Lord!
Sweet was the freedom deemed,
And yet more like a mother's ways

Thy quiet mercies seemed.

At school Thou wert a kindly Face
Which I could almost see;
But home and holyday appeared
Somehow more full of Thee.

I could not sleep unless Thy Hand

Were underneath my head,
That I might kiss it, if I lay
Wakeful upon my bed.

And quite alone I never felt,-
I knew that Thou wert near,
A silence tingling in the room,
A strangely pleasant fear.

And to home-Sundays long since past
How fondly memory clings!
For then my mother told of Thee

Such sweet, such wondrous things.

I know not what I thought of Thee,
What picture I had made

Of that eternal Majesty

To whom my childhood prayed.

I know I used to lie awake,

And tremble at the shape

Of my own thoughts, yet did not wish Thy terrors to escape.

I had no secrets as a child,

Yet never spoke of Thee;

The nights we spent together, Lord!
Were only known to me.

I lived two lives, which seemed distinct,
Yet which did intertwine:
One was my mother's-it is gone-
The other, Lord! was Thine.

I never wandered from Thee, Lord!
But sinned before Thy Face;
Yet now on looking back, my sins
Seem all beset with grace.

With age Thou grewest more divine,
More glorious than before;

I feared Thee with a deeper fear,
Because I loved Thee more.

Thou broadenest out with every year,
Each breadth of life to meet :

I scarce can think Thou art the same, Thou art so much more sweet.

The very least of faith's dim rays beamed on them from afar,

And that same hour they rose from off their thrones to track the Star;

They cared not for the cruel scorn of those who called them mad;

Messias' Star was shining, and their royal hearts were glad.

But a speck was in the midnight sky, uncertain, dim, and far,

And their hearts were pure, and heard a voice proclaim Messias' Star:

And in its golden twinkling they saw more than common light,

The Mother and the Child they saw in Bethlehem by night!

And what were crowns, and what were thrones, to such a sight as that?

So straight away they left their tents, and bade not grace to wait;

They hardly stop to slake their thirst at the desert's limpid springs,

Nor note how fair the landscape is, how sweet the skylark sings!

Whole cities have turned out to meet their royal cavalcade,

Wise colleges and doctors all their wisdom have displayed;

And when the Star was dim, they knocked at Herod's palace gate,

And troubled with the news of faith his politic

estate.

And they have knelt in Bethlehem! The Everlasting Child

They saw upon His mother's lap, earth's monarch meek and mild;

His little feet, with Mary's leave, they pressed with loving kiss

Oh what were thrones, oh what were crowns, to such a joy as this?

One little sight of Jesus was enough for many

years,

One look at Him their stay and staff in the dismal vale of tears:

Their people for that sight of Him they gallantly withstood,

They taught His faith, they preached His word, and for Him shed their blood.

Ah me! what broad daylight of faith our thankless souls receive,

How much we know of Jesus, and how easy to believe;

'Tis the noonday of His sunshine, of His sun that setteth never:

Faith gives us crowns, and makes us kings, and our kingdom is for ever!

Oh, glory be to God on high for these Arabian kings,

These miracles of royal faith, with Eastern offerings:

For Gaspar and for Melchior and Balthazzar who from far

Found Mary out and Jesus by the shining of a Star!

LONGING FOR GOD.

How gently flow the silent years,
The seasons one by one;
How sweet to feel, each month that goes,
That life must soon be done!

O weary ways of earth and men !
O self more weary still!
How vainly do you vex the heart
That none but God can fill!

It is not weariness of life

That makes us wish to die;
But we are drawn by cords which come
From out eternity.

Eye has not seen, ear has not heard,
No heart of man can tell,

The store of joys God has prepared
For those who love Him well.

Oh, may those joys one day be ours, Upon that happy-shore!

And yet those joys are not enough— We crave for something more.

The world's unkindness grows with life, And troubles never cease;

'T were lawful then to wish to die, Simply to be at peace.

Yes! peace is something more than joy,
Even the joys above;

For peace, of all created things,
Is likest Him we love.

But not for joy nor yet for peace,
Dare we desire to die;
God's will on earth is always joy,
Always tranquillity.

To die, that we might sin no more,
Were scarce a hero's prayer;
And glory grows as grace matures,
And patience loves to bear.

And yet we long and long to die,
We covet to be free,
Not for Thy great rewards, O God!
Not for Thy peace-but Thee.

But call not this a selfish love,
A turning from the fight;
And tell us not for others' sakes,
To doubt if this be right.

THE thought of God, the thought of Thee,
Who liest in my heart,
And yet beyond imagined space

Outstretched and present art

The thought of Thee, above, below,
Around me and within,

Is more to me than health and wealth,
Or love of kith and kin.

The thought of God is like the tree
Beneath whose shade I lie,

And watch the fleets of snowy clouds
Sail o'er the silent sky.

'T is like that soft invading light,
Which in all darkness shines,

The thread that through life's sombre web In golden pattern twines.

It is a thought which ever makes
Life's sweetest smiles from tears,
And is a daybreak to our hopes,
A sunset to our fears:

One while it bids the tears to flow,
Then wipes them from the eyes,
Most often fills our souls with joy,
And always sanctifies.

Within a thought so great, our souls
Little and modest grow,
And, by its vastness awed, we learn
The art of walking slow.

The wild flower on the mossy ground
Scarce bends its pliant form,
When overhead the autumnal wood
Is thundering like a storm.

So is it with our humbled souls
Down in the thought of God,
Scarce conscious in their sober peace
Of the wild storms abroad.

To think of Thee is almost prayer,
And is outspoken praise;
And pain can even passive thoughts
To actual worship raise.

O Lord! I live always in pain,
My life's sad undersong,
Pain in itself not hard to bear,
But hard to bear so long.

Little sometimes weighs more than much,
When it has no relief;

A joyless life is worse to bear
Than one of active grief.

And yet, O Lord! a suffering life
One grand ascent may care;
Penance, not self-imposed, can make
The whole of life a prayer.

All murmurs lie inside Thy Will
Which are to Thee addressed;
To suffer for Thee is our work,
To think of Thee our rest.

COME TO JESUS.

SOULS of men! why will ye scatter
Like a crowd of frightened sheep?
Foolish hearts! why will ye wander
From a love so true and deep?

Was there ever kindest shepherd
Half so gentle, half so sweet
As the Saviour who would have us
Come and gather round His Feet?

It is God: His love looks mighty,
But is mightier than it seems:
'Tis our Father: and His fondness
Goes far out beyond our dreams.
There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea:
There's a kindness in His justice,
Which is more than liberty.

There is no place where earth's sorrows Are more felt than up in heaven; There is no place where earth's failings Have such kindly judgment given.

There is welcome for the sinner,

And more graces for the good;
There is mercy with the Saviour;
There is healing in His Blood.

There is grace enough for thousands
Of new worlds as great as this;
There is room for fresh creations
In that upper home of bliss.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measures of man's mind; And the Heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

But we make His love too narrow
By false limits of our own;
And we magnify His strictness
With a zeal He will not own.

There is plentiful redemption

In the Blood that has been shed; There is joy for all the members

In the sorrows of the Head. 'Tis not all we owe to Jesus;

It is something more than all; Greater good because of evil,

Larger mercy through the fall.

Pining Souls! come nearer Jesus,

And, oh, come not doubting thus, But with faith that trusts more bravely His huge tenderness for us.

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