3189. SOUL. Dissatisfaction of the

THE Soul on earth is an immortal guest
Condemn'd to starve at an unreal feast;

A spark, which upwards tends by nature's force;
A stream, diverted from its parent source;
A drop, dissever'd from the boundless sea;
A moment, parted from eternity;

A pilgrim, panting for the rest to come;
An exile, anxious for his native home.
Hannah More.

3190. SOUL. Efforts for the
KNOW'ST thou the importance of a soul immortal?
Behold this midnight glory-worlds on worlds!
Amazing pomp! Redouble this amaze;

Ten thousand add, and twice ten thousand more; Then, weigh the whole! One soul outweighs them all,

And calls th' astonishing magnificence

Of unintelligent creation poor.

For this, believe not me; no man believe. Trust not in words, but deeds; and deeds no less Than those of the Supreme.-Young.

3191. SOUL. Freedom of the

NOR Stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,
Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,
Can be retentive to the strength of spirit.
Shakespeare.

3192. SOUL. Ideas about the
MUSICIANS think our souls are harmonies;
Physicians hold that they complexions be;
Epicures make them swarms of atomies,
Which do by chance into our bodies flee.

One thinks the soul is air; another fire,
Another blood, diffused about the heart;
Another saith the elements conspire,

And to her essence each doth yield a part.

Some think one general soul fills every brain,

As the bright sun sheds lights in every star; And others think the name of soul is vain,

And that we only well-mix'd bodies are.

Thus these great clerks their little wisdom show, While with their doctrines they at hazard play; Tossing their light opinions to and fro,

To mock the lewd, as learn'd in this as they;

For no crazed brain could ever yet propound,

Touching the soul, so vain and fond a thought, But some among these masters have been found, Which, in their schools, the self-same thing have taught.—Davies,

3193. SOUL. Mistakes of the

POOR Soul, the centre of my sinful earth,

Fool'd by those rebel powers that thee array, Why dost thou pine within, and suffer dearth,

Painting thy outward walls so costly gay? Why so large cost, having so short a lease,

Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend? Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,

Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body's end? Then, soul, live thou upon thy servant's loss,

And let that pine to aggravate thy store; Buy terms divine in selling hours of dross;

Within be fed, without be rich no more; So shalt thou feed on death, that feeds on men; And, death once dead, there's no more dying then. Shakespeare.

3194. SOUL. Mystery of the Sour, dwelling oft in God's infinitude,

And sometimes seeming no more part of meThis me, worms' heritage-than that sun can be Part of the earth he has with warmth imbued,—

subdued

With awe of mine own being, thus sit still, Dumb, on the summit of this lonely hill, Whose dry November-grasses dew-bestrew'd

Mirror a million suns. That sun, so bright, Passes, as thou must pass, Soul, into night! Art thou afraid, who solitary hast trod

A path I know not, from a source to a bourn Both which I know not? fear'st thou to return Alone, even as thou camest alone, to God? D. M. Muloch.

3195. SOUL. Joys of the

WITH stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
The music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound,
And inly answering all the senses round

With octaves of a mystic depth and height,
Which step out grandly to the infinite

From the dark edges of the sensual ground!
This song of soul I struggle to outbear

Through portals of the sense, sublime and whole, And utter all myself into the air.

But if I did it, -as the thunder-roll Breaks its own cloud,-my flesh would perish there, Before that dread apocalypse of soul.

Mrs Browning. 3197. SOUL. The: a Bird of Passage. 'My soul is like some eager-born bird, that hath A restless prescience-howsoever wonOf a broad pathway leading to the sun, With promptings of an oft-reproved faith

'In sunward yearnings. Stricken though her breast, And faint her wing, with beating at the bars Of sense, she looks beyond outlying stars,

And only in the Infinite sees rest.

Sad soul! if ever thy desire be bent

Or broken to thy doom, and made to share

Chewing the cud of knowledge, with no care For germs of life within-then will I say: 'Thou art not caged, but fitly stall'd in clay!' Emily Pfeiffer.

3198. SOUL. The: a prisoner.

In the body's prison so she lies,

As through the body's prison she must look, Her divers powers of sense to exercise

By gath'ring notes out of the world's great book.
Davies.

Even so the soul in this contracted state,
Confined to these strait instruments of sense,
More dull and narrowly doth operate:

At this hole hears, the sight may ray from thence, Here tastes, there smells; but when she's gone from hence,

Like naked lamp, she is one shining sphere,
And round about hath perfect cognizance
Whatever in the horizon doth appear:

She is one orb of sense; all eye, all touch, all ear.

Henry More.

Where is the home of that which is gone—
Out in the regions of boundless blank space,
Floating and floating, no shape, no place?
Or did it gather its wealth and remove
To the home up above?—
All's still in the house.

Gone from its home,
And none knoweth where;

Unseen it pass'd the invisible air.
Nothing to mark that the dweller is reft
Out of our midst, but the house that is left.
God grant that the soul that wander'd away
Be not homeless to-day:

But here is the house.

Out of its house

How strange it must be!

Now to itself, the great mystery,

"The intangible thing, that's like nothing we know
That we should shudder at, come to us so-
Here with us yesterday, gone with a touch,
How strange to be such

And away from its house!
Ah! the desolate house-

And a voice cometh low,

Murmuring, Some day thou, too, must go.'
Ah, me! Thrust forth to the world outside,
Shall I not find it dreary and wide?

This is grown to be home-from the near and known
I must go forth alone-

Out of this house.

Low as it is,

From its windows I bound,

All I can measure of what is beyond.
Here has been written all of my past—
It is dear by memories first and last ;
Old as life to me! What shall I do

When I must go too

Out of my house?

Can I miss the new house

In the city impearl'd?—

Dreadful abysses past world from world,

Valleys of nothingness 'twixt height and height, Terrible blanks in the great Infinite.

Think it a birth: and when thou go'st to die, Sing like a swan, as if thou went'st to bliss.

Davies.

Time, that changes all, yet changes us in vain,
The body, not the mind; nor can control
Th' immortal vigour, or abate the soul.

Dryden.

The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point ;
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and nature sink in years;
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amidst the war of elements,
The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds!
Addison.

It must be so! Plato, thou reason'st well:
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread and inward horror
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction?
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
"Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man.-Addison.

Her ceaseless flight, though devious, speaks her

nature

Of subtler essence than the trodden clod;

be toss'd

With its anchorage lost,

So far from its home!

Into Thy house,

Lord, take us straight,

Lest we be left in the darkness to wait;
Lest we be lost in realms without sun,
And wander for ever where mansion is none,
Crying without: Let us in! Let us in,—
When the feast shall begin,
And the door shall be shut!
Carl Spencer.

3201. SOUL. The immortal.

HEAVEN waxeth old, and all the spheres above
Shall one day faint, and their swift motion stay;
And time itself, in time, shall cease to move;
But the soul still survives, and lives for aye.
Davies.

If she the body's nature did partake,

Her strength would with the body's strength decay; But when the body's strongest sinews slake, Then is the soul most active, quick, and gay.

Davies.

And when thou think'st of her eternity,
Think not that death against her nature is ;

Dull sleep instructs, nor sport vain dreams in vain.

Young.

Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail,

Our souls immortal, though our limbs dec1y;
Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil
Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way
To Heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll;
The temple of the Power whom all obey,
That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.
Percival.

The soul, of origin Divine,
God's glorious image, freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine,
A star of day.

The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky;
The soul, immortal as its Sire,

Shall never die.

James Montgomery.

3202. SOUL. The slumbering.

WHO is sure he hath a soul, unless It see and judge and follow worthiness,

That which was lost in paradise,
That which in Christ is found,—
The soul of man—Jehovah's breath!
That keeps two worlds at strife;
Hell moves beneath to work its death,
Heaven stoops to give it life.

God to reclaim it did not spare

His well-beloved Son;
Jesus, to save it, deign'd to bear

The sins of all in one.

The Holy Spirit seal'd the plan,
And pledged the blood Divine
To ransom every soul of man ;
That blood was shed for mine.
And is this treasure borne below
In earthly vessels frail ?
Can none its utmost value know

Till flesh and spirit fail?

Then let us gather round the cross,
This knowledge to obtain,
Not by the soul's eternal loss,
But everlasting gain.-Montgomery.

3205. SOWER. The

'SUCH as I have I sow, it is not much,'

Said one who loved the Master of the field; Only a quiet word, a gentle touch

Upon the hidden harp-strings, which may yield

No quick response; I tremble, yet I speak
For Him who knows the heart so loving, yet so weak.

And so the words were spoken, soft and low,
Or traced with timid pen; yet oft they fell
On soil prepared, which she would never know,
Until the tender blade sprang up to tell
That not in vain her labour had been spent ;
Then with new faith and hope more bravely on she
went.-Frances Ridley Havergal.

3206. SOWING. Fruits of

ARE we sowing seeds of goodness?
They shall blossom bright ere long.
Are we sowing seeds of discord?

They shall ripen into wrong.
Are we sowing seeds of honour?

They shall bring forth golden grain.
Are we sowing seeds of falsehood?
We shall yet reap bitter pain.
Whatsoe'er our sowing be,
Reaping, we its fruit must see.

We can never be too careful

What the seed our hands shall sow;
Love from love is sure to ripen,

Hate from hate is sure to grow.
Seeds of good or ill we scatter
Heedlessly along our way;
But a glad or grievous fruitage
Waits us at the harvest day.

3207. SPEECH. Eloquence of

How shall we learn to sway the minds of men
By eloquence? to rule them, or persuade?
Do you seek genuine and worthy fame?
Reason and honest feeling want no arts
Of utterance, ask no toil of elocution!
And, when you speak in earnest, do you need
To search for words? Oh! these fine holiday

phrases,

In which you robe your worn-out commonplaces,
These scraps of paper which you crimp and curl,
And twist into a thousand idle shapes,

These filigree ornaments, are good for nothing,
Cost time and pains, please few, impose on no one;
Are unrefreshing, as the wind that whistles
In autumn 'mong the dry and wrinkled leaves.
If feeling does not prompt, in vain you strive.
If from the soul the language does not come,
By its own impulse, to impel the hearts
Of hearers with communicated power,
In vain you strive, in vain you study earnestly,
Toil on for ever, piece together fragments,
Cook up your broken scraps of sentences,

THEY miss the truth who meditate that death,
Or that which follows after death, can change
The native idealities of men.

These in the saved and lost alike remain
Immutable for ever. There is nought
In the unloosing of the mortal tent
To alter or transform immortal minds.
The gentle still are gentle, and the strong
Are ever strong. Innumerable traits
Each from the rest distinguish. It is true
There lies a gulf impassable betwixt
Salvation and perdition, heaven and hell;
But oh! the almost infinite degrees
Betwixt the lost and lost.-Bickersteth.

3210. SPLENDOUR.

CAN wealth give happiness? look around and see
What gay distress! what splendid misery!
I envy none their pageantry and show,
I envy none the gilding of their woe.-Young.

The splendours of our rank and state
Are shadows, not substantial things.-Young.

3211. STARS. Invocation to the

SHINE, ye stars of heaven,

On a world of pain! See old Time destroying All our hoarded grain; All our sweetest flowers, Every stately shrine, All our hard-earn'd glory, Every dream divine!

Shine, ye stars of heaven, On the rolling years!

THE sad and solemn night

Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires;
The glorious host of light

Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires :
All through her silent watches, gliding slow,
Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and

go.

Day, too, hath many a star

To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they :
Through the blue fields afar,

Unseen, they follow in his flaming way:
Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim,
Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him.
Bryant.

3215. STARS. Shining forth of the

THEY are all up-the innumerable stars

That hold their place in heaven. My eyes have been Searching the pearly depths through which they

spring

Like beautiful creations.-Willis.

3216. STARS. Suggestiveness of the

OH what a confluence of ethereal fires,
From urns unnumber'd, down the steep of heaven,
Streams to a point, and centres in my sight!
Nor tarries there; I feel it at my heart.-Young.