Lord Byron.

1788-1824.

THE IMMORTAL MIND.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, Ah, whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darkened dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space; A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecayed,

A thought unseen, but seeing all, All, all in earth, or skies displayed, Shall it survey, shall it recall:

Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

Before creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back: And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quenched or system breaks; Fixed in its own eternity.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,

An

It lives all passionless and pure:

age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

B. C. Trench.

COUPLETS.

To halls of heavenly truth admission wouldst thon win? Oft Knowledge stands without, while Love may enter in.

God many a spiritual house has reared, but never one Where lowliness was not laid first, the corner-stone.

Sin, not till it is left, will duly sinful seem;

A man must waken first, ere he can tell his dream.

When thou art fain to trace a map of thine own heart, As undiscovered land set down the largest part.

Wouldst thou do harm, and yet unharmed thyself abide?

None ever struck another, save through his own side.

God's dealings still are love, his chastenings are

alone

Love now compelled to take an altered, louder tone.

From our ill-ordered hearts we oft are fain to roam,
As men go forth who find unquietness at home.

Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face, Nor seen nor loathed until held from us a small space.

Set not thy heart on things given only with intent
To be alleviations of thy banishment.

Ill fares the child of heaven, who will not entertain On earth the stranger's grief, the exile's sense of pain.

Mark how there still has run, enwoven from above, Through thy life's darkest woof, the golden thread of love.

Things earthly we must know ere love them: 'tis alone Things heavenly that must be first loved and after known.

The sinews of Love's arm use makes more firm and

strong,

Which, being left unused, will disappear ere long.

When will the din of earth grate harshly on our ears? When we have once heard plain the music of the

spheres.

Why win we not at once what we in prayer require ? That we may learn great things as greatly to desire.

The tasks, the joys of earth, the same in heaven will be ; Only the little brook has widened to a sea.

SPRING.

WHO was it that so lately said,
All pulses in thine heart were dead,
Old earth, that now in festal robes
Appearest, as a bride new wed?
Oh wrapped so late in winding-sheet,
Thy winding-sheet, oh! where is fled?
Lo! 'tis an emerald carpet now,

Where the young monarch, Spring, may tread,
He comes, and a defeated king,

Old Winter, to the hills is fled.

The warm wind broke his frosty spear,
And loosed the helmet from his head;
And he weak showers of arrowy sleet
From his strong-holds has vainly sped.

All that was sleeping is awake,
And all is living that was dead.
Who listens now can hear the streams
Leap tinkling from their pebbly bed,