VOL. IV. But cheerful and unchanged the while Your first and perfect form ye show, The stars of heaven a course are taught Ye dwell beside our paths and homes, Ye fearless in your nests abide Nor may we scorn, too proudly wise, Your silent lessons, undescried By all but lowly eyes: For ye could draw th' admiring gaze Ye felt your Maker's smile that hour, As when He paused and owned you good His blessing on earth's primal bower, Ye felt it all renewed. What care ye now, if winter's storm Alas! of thousand bosoms kind, That daily court you and caress, How few the happy secret find LI Live for to-day! to-morrow's light ALL SAINTS' DAY. Why blow'st thou not, thou wintry wind, How quiet shews the woodland scene! Like weary men when age is won, Sure if our eyes were purged to trace The four strong winds of Heaven fast bound So in Thine awful armoury, Lord, Till willing hearts wear quite away Their earthly stains; and spotless shine The Cross by angel hands impressed, The seal of glory won and pledge of promised rest. Little they dream, those haughty souls. Together linked by Heaven's decree ;- So Famine waits, and War with greedy eyes, Think ye the spires that glow so bright But sure from many a hidden dell, From many a rural nook unthought of there, Rises for that proud world the saints' prevailing prayer. On Champions blest, in Jesus' name, Short be your strife, your triumph full, Your prayers and struggles o'er, your task all praise and joy UNITED STATES. [From Lyra Apostolica.] Tyre of the farther West! be thou too warned, Why lies the Cross unhonoured on thy ground Except, disrobed of thy vain earthly vaunt, Thou bring it to be blessed where Saints and Angels haunt! The holy seed, by Heaven's peculiar grace, Is rooted here and there in thy dark wcods; But many a rank weed round it grows apace, And Mammon builds beside thy mighty floods, O'ertopping Nature, braving Nature's God; O while thou yet hast room, fair fruitful land, Ere war and want have stained thy virgin sod, Mark thee a place on high, a glorious stand, Whence Truth her sign may make o'er forest, lake, and strand Eastward, this hour, perchance thou turn'st thine ear, Listening if haply with the surging sea, Blend sounds of Ruin from a land once dear To thee and Heaven. O trying hour for thee! Her towers, and lone sands heap her crowned merchants' graves. [Lyra Innocentium.] Go where the waters fall, Sheer from the mountain's height Mark how a thousand streams in one,- Now flashing to the sun, Now still as beast in lair. Now round the rock, now mounting der, To swell as we survey, They rush and roar, they whirl and leap, Not wilder drives the wintry storm. Yet a strong law they keep, Strange powers their course inform. Even so the mighty skyborn stream All marred and broken seem, Yet in dim caves they softly blend One their ur failing Guide |