Splendid with portals twelve in golden vapours descending.
There enraptured she wanders, and looks at the figures majestic,
Fears not the winged crowd, in the midst of them all is her home-
Therefore love and believe; for works will follow spontaneous,
Even as day does the sun; the Right from the Good is an offspring,
Love in a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than
Animate Love and Faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide.
Works to follow us all unto God; there stand and bear witness
Not what they seemed,—but what they were only. Blessed is he who
Hears their confession secure; they are mute upon earth until Death's
hand
Opens the mouth of the silent. Ye children, does Death e'er alarm you?
Death is the brother of Love, twin-brother is he, and is only
More austere to behold. With a kiss upon lips that are fading
Takes he the soul and departs, and rocked in the arm of affection,
Places the ransomed child, new born, 'fore the face of its Father.
Sounds of his coming already I hear,-see dimly his pinions,
Swart as the night, but with stars strewn upon them! I fear not before
Death is only release, and in mercy is mute. On his bosom
Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast; and face to face standing,
Look I on God as He is, a sun unpolluted by vapours;
Look on the light of the ages I loved, the spirits majestic,
Nobler, better than I; they stand by the throne all transfigured,
Vested in white, and with harps of gold, and are singing an anthem,
Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels.
You, in like manner, ye children beloved, He one day shall gather,
Never forgets He the weary;-then welcome, ye loved ones, hereafter!
Meanwhile forget not the keeping of vows, forget not the promise,
Wander from holiness onward to holiness; earth shall ye heed not;
Earth is but dust and heaven is light; I have pledged you to heaven.
God of the Universe, hear me; thou fountain of Love everlasting,
Hark to the voice of thy servant! I send up my prayer to thy heaven!
Let me hereafter not miss at thy throne one spirit of all these,
Whom thou hast given me here! I have loved them all like a father.
May they bear witness for me, that I taught them the way of salva-
Faithful, so far as I knew of thy word; again may they know me,
Fall on their Teacher's breast, and before thy face may I place them,
Pure as they now are, but only more tried, and exclaiming with gladness,
Father, lo! I am here, and the children, whom thou hast given me!"
Weeping he spake in these words; and now at the beck of the old man
Knee against knee they knitted a wreath round the altar's enclosure.
Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly
With him the children read; at the close, with tremulous accents,
Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon them.
Now should have ended his task for the day; the following Sunday
Was for the young appointed to eat of the Lord's holy Supper. Sudden, as struck from the clouds, stood the Teacher silent and laid his Hand on his forehead, and cast his looks upward; while thoughts high and holy
Flew through the midst of his soul, and his eyes glanced with wonderful brightness.
"On the next Sunday, who knows! perhaps I shall rest in the graveyard!
Some one perhaps of yourselves, a lily broken untimely,
Bow down his head to the earth; why delay I? the hour is accomplished.
Warm is the heart;-I will! for to-day grows the harvest of heaven.
What I began accomplish I now; for what failing therein is,
I, the old man, will answer to God and the reverend father.
Say to me only, ye children, ye denizens new-come in heaven,
Are ye ready this day to eat of the bread of Atonement?
What it denoteth, that know ye full well, I have told it you often.
Of the new covenant a symbol it is, of Atonement a token,
Stablished between earth and heaven. Man by his sins and transgres
Far has wandered from God, from his essence. "Twas in the beginning
Fast by the Tree of Knowledge he fell, and it hangs its crown o'er the
Fall to this day; in the Thought is the Fall; in the Heart the Atonement.
Infinite is the Fall, the Atonement infinite likewise.
See! behind me, as far as the old man remembers, and forward,
Far as Hope in her flight can reach with her wearied pinions,
Sin and Atonement incessant go through the life-time of mortals.
Sin is brought forth full-grown; but Atonement sleeps in our bosoms
Still as the cradled babe; and dreams of heaven and of angels,
Cannot awake to sensation; is like the tones in the harp's strings,
Spirits imprisoned, that wait evermore the deliverer's finger.
Therefore, ye children beloved, descended the Prince of Atonement,
Woke the slumberer from sleep, and she stands now with eyes
Bright as the vault of the sky, and battles with Sin and o'ercomes her.
Downward to earth He came and transfigured, thence reascended.
Not from the heart in likewise, for there He still lives in the Spirit,
Loves and atones evermore. So long as Time is, is Atonement.
Therefore with reverence take this day her visible token.
Tokens are dead if the things live not. The light everlasting
Unto the blind is not, but is born of the eye that has vision.
Neither in bread nor in wine, but in the heart that is hallowed
Lieth forgiveness enshrined; the intention alone of amendment
Fruits of the earth ennobles to heavenly things, and removes all
Sin and the guerdon of sin. Only Love with his arm wide extended,
Penitence weeping and praying; the Will that is tried, and whose gold
flows
Purified forth from the flames; in a word, mankind by Atonement
Breaketh Atonement's bread, and drinketh Atonement's wine-cup.
But he who cometh up hither, unworthy, with hate in his bosom,
Scoffing at men and at God, is guilty of Christ's blessed body,
And the Redeemer's blood! To himself he eateth and drinketh Death and doom! And from this, preserve us, thou heavenly Father! Are ye ready, ye children, to eat of the bread of Atonement?' Thus with emotion he asked, and together answered the children "Yes!" with deep sobs interrupted. Then read he the due supplications,
Read the Form of Communion, and in chimed the organ and anthem; "0! Holy Lamb of God, who takest away our transgressions, Hear us! give us thy peace! have mercy, have mercy upon us!" Th' old man, with trembling hand, and heavenly pearls on his eyelids, Filled now the chalice and paten, and dealt round the mystical symbols, 0 then seemed it to me, as if God, with the broad eye of mid-day, Clearer looked in at the windows, and all the trees in the churchyard Bowed down their summits of green, and the grass on the graves 'gan to shiver.
But in the children (I noted it well; I knew it) there ran a
Tremor of holy rapture along through their icy-cold members.
Decked like an altar before them, there stood the green earth, and
above it
Heaven opened itself, as of old before Stephen; they saw there
Radiant in glory the Father, and on his right hand the Redeemer.
Under them hear they the clang of harpstrings, and angels from gold
Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with their pinions of purple. Closed was the Teacher's task, and with heaven in their hearts and
Up rose the children all, and each bowed him, weeping full sorely, Downward to kiss that reverend hand, but all of them pressed he Moved to his bosom, and laid, with a prayer, his hands full of blessings, Now on the holy breast, and now on the innocent tresses.
TRANSLATIONS FROM THE GERMAN.
THE STATUE OVER THE CATHEDRAL DOOR.
FORMS of saints and kings are standing
The cathedral door above;
Yet I saw but one among them
Who hath soothed my soul with love.
In his mantle,-wound about him,·
As their robes the sowers wind,—
Bore he swallows and their fledglings,
Flowers and weeds of every kind.
And so stands he calm and childlike!
High in wind and tempest wild;
O, were I like him exalted,
I would be like him, a child!
And my songs, green leaves and blossoms,
To the doors of heaven would bear,
Calling, even in storm and tempest,
Round me still these birds of air.
O HEMLOCK-TREE! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time,
But in the winter's frost and rime!
O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!
O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is the bosom !
To love me in prosperity,
And leave me in adversity!
O maiden fair! O maiden fair! how faithless is thy bosom!
The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example! So long as summer laughs she sings,
But in the autumn spreads her wings!
The nightingale, the nightingale, thou tak'st for thine example!
The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood! It flows so long as falls the rain,
In drought its springs soon dry again.
The meadow brook, the meadow brook, is mirror of thy falsehood!
FROM THE LOW GERMAN OF SIMON DACH.
ANNIE of Tharaw, my true love of old,
She is my life, and my goods, and my gold.
Annie of Tharaw, her heart once again
To me has surrendered in joy and in pain.
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