RESIGNATION.

THERE is no flock, however watched and tended,

But one dead lamb is there!

There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended,

But has one vacant chair!

The air is full of farewells to the dying,
And mournings for the dead;

The heart of Rachel, for her children crying,
Will not be comforted!

Let us be patient! These severe afflictions
Not from the ground arise,

But oftentimes celestial benedictions
Assume this dark disguise.

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors Amid these earthly damps;

What seems to us but sad, funereal tapers

May be heaven's distant lamps.

There is no Death!

What seems so is transition.

This life of mortal breath

Is but a suburb of the life elysian,

Whose portal we call Death.

She is not dead, the child of our affection,But gone unto that school

Where she no longer needs our poor protection, And Christ himself doth rule.

In that great cloister's stillness and seclusion,
By guardian angels led,

Safe from temptation, safe from sin's pollution,
She lives, whom we call dead.

Day after day we think what she is doing
In those bright realms of air;

Year after year, her tender steps pursuing,

Behold her grown more fair.

Thus do we walk with her, and keep unbroken
The bond which nature gives,

Thinking that our remembrance, though unspoken,
May reach her where she lives.

Not as a child shall we again behold her;

For when with raptures wild

In our embraces we again enfold her,

She will not be a child;

But a fair maiden, in her Father's mansion,
Clothed with celestial grace;

And beautiful with all the soul's expansion
Shall we behold her face.

And though at times impetuous with emotion
And anguish long suppressed,

The swelling heart heaves moaning like the ocean,
That cannot be at rest,-

We will be patient, and assuage the feeling

We may not wholly stay;

By silence sanctifying, not concealing,

The grief that must have way.

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

121

THE LADDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE.

SAINT AUGUSTINE! well hast thou said,

That of our vices we can frame A ladder, if we will but tread

Beneath our feet each deed of shame!

All common things, each day's events,
That with the hour begin and end,
Our pleasures and our discontents,
Are rounds by which we may ascend.

The low desire, the base design,

That makes another's virtues less; The revel of the ruddy wine,

And all occasions of excess;

The longing for ignoble things;

The strife for triumph more than truth; The hardening of the heart, that brings Irreverence for the dreams of youth;

All thoughts of ill; all evil deeds,

That have their root in thoughts of ill; Whatever hinders or impedes

The action of the nobler will;—

All these must first be trampled down
Beneath our feet, if we would gain
In the bright fields of fair renown
The right of eminent domain.

We have not wings, we cannot soar;
But we have feet to scale and climb
By slow degrees, by more and more,
The cloudy summits of our time.

122

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

The mighty pyramids of stone

That wedge-like cleave the desert airs,
When nearer seen, and better known,
Are but gigantic flights of stairs.

The distant mountains, that uprear
Their solid bastions to the skies,
Are crossed by pathways, that appear
As we to higher levels rise.

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

Standing on what too long we bore
With shoulders bent and downcast eyes,
We may discern-unseen before-
A path to higher destinies.

Nor deem the irrevocable Past,
As wholly wasted, wholly vain,

If, rising on its wrecks, at last

To something nobler we attain.

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

A MIST was driving down the British Channel,
The day was just begun,

And through the window-panes, on floor and panel,
Streamed the red autumn sun.

It glanced on flowing flag and rippling pennon,
And the white sails of ships;

And from the frowning rampart, the black cannon
Hailed it with feverish lips.

123

THE WARDEN OF THE CINQUE PORTS.

Sandwich and Romney, Hastings, Hithe, and Dover

Were all alert that day,

To see the French war-steamers speeding over,

When the fog cleared away.

Sullen and silent, and like couchant lions,

Their cannon, through the night,

Holding their breath, had watched, in grim defiance,
The sea-coast opposite.

And now they roared at drum-beat from their stations
On every citadel;

Each answering each, with morning salutations,
That all was well.

And down the coast, all taking up the burden,
Replied the distant forts,

As if to summon from his sleep the Warden
And Lord of the Cinque Ports.

Him shall no sunshine from the fields of azure,
No drum-beat from the wall,

No morning gun from the black fort's embrasure,
Awaken with its call!

No more, surveying with an eye impartial
The long line of the coast,

Shall the gaunt figure of the old Field Marshal
Be seen upon his post!

For in the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,

Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall had scaled.