The desultory numbers-let them stand,
The record of an idle revery.
By PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
THE pale, the cold, and the moony smile
Which the meteor beam of a starless night
Sheds on a lonely and sea-girt isle,
Ere the dawning of morn's undoubted light,
Is the flame of life so fickle and wan
That flits round our steps till their strength is gone.
O man! hold thee on in courage of soul
Through the stormy shades of thy worldly way, And the billows of cloud that around thee roll Shall sleep in the light of a wondrous day, Where hell and heaven shall leave thee free To the universe of destiny.
This world is the nurse of all we know,
This world is the mother of all we feel, And the coming of death is a fearful blow
To a brain unencompass'd with nerves of steel; When all that we know, or feel, or see,
Shall pass like an unreal mystery.
The secret things of the grave are there,
Where all but this frame must surely be,
Though the fine-wrought eye and the wondrous ear
No longer will live to hear or to see
All that is great and all that is strange
In the boundless realm of unending change.
Who telleth a tale of unspeaking death?
Who lifteth the veil of what is to come?
Who painteth the shadows that are beneath
The wide winding caves of the peopled tomb?
Or uniteth the hopes of what shall be
With the fears and the love for that which we see?
Taken many years ago from the columns of a newspaper, where it appeared anonymously.
WHAT shall I wish thee?-that the rose
Upon thy sunny cheek may stay,
Thy mild blue eyes may long retain
Úndimm'd their liquid ray?
This may not be, my gentle maid,-
The fairest things are first to fade.
That thou may'st tread the mazy round
Of pleasure's path all strew'd with flowers,-
While crown'd with song and dance fly on,
Too swift, the laughing hours?
Not so, not so. Alas! we see
Where roses are, the thorns must be !
That thou may'st prove sweet friendship's power,
Best solace on life's weary way,
While hope's bright visions cheer thy soul,
That basks beneath love's sunny ray
?
May these be thine!-but better things,
For love and hope have fairy wings.
The bright, the beautiful of life
Too soon will pass away;
The lovely promise of thy spring
May in the bud decay;
Then let thy gentle heart be given,
With sweet affections all-to heaven.
THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.
By JOHN G. WHITTIER, one of the living poets of America.
A CHRISTIAN! going, gone!
Who bids for God's own image ?-for His grace
Which that poor victim of the market-place
Hath in her suffering one?
My God! can such things be?
Hast thou not said that whatsoe'er is done
Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one,
Is even done to Thee?
In that sad victim, then,
Child of thy pitying love, I see Thee stand-
Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
Bound, sold, and scourged again!
A Christian up for sale!
Wet with her blood your whips-o'ertask her frame, Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame,Her patience shall not fail!
A heathen hand might deal
Back on your heads the gather'd wrong of years;
But her low broken prayer and nightly tears
Ye neither heed nor feel.
Con well thy lesson o'er,
Thou prudent teacher-tell the toiling slave
No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
The outcast and the
poor.
But wisely shut the ray
Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart,
And to her darken'd mind alone impart
One stern command-" OBEY!"
So shalt thou deftly raise
The market price of human flesh; and while
On thee, their pamper'd guest, the planters smile,
Thy church shall praise.
Grave, reverend men shall tell
From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest,
While in that vile South Sodom, first and best,
Thy poor disciples sell.
Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall,
Who, with his master, to the Prophet kneels,
While turning to the sacred Kebla feels
His fetters break and fall.
Cheers for the turban'd Bey
Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn
The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne
Their inmates into day:
But our poor slave in vain
Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes-
Its rites will only swell his market price,
And rivet on his chain.
God of all right! how long
Shall priestly robbers at Thine altar stand,
Lifting in prayer to Thee the bloody hand
And haughty brow of wrong?
Oh, from the fields of cane,
From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cellFrom the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain,—
Hoarse, horrible, and strong,
Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry,
Filling the arches of the hollow sky,
How LONG, O GOD, HOW LONG?
THE CHARACTER OF A GOOD PARSON.
Abridged from an imitation of Chaucer, by DRYDEN.
A PARISH priest was of the pilgrim train ;
An awful, reverend, and religious man.
His eyes diffused a venerable grace,
And charity itself was in his face.
Rich was his soul, though his attire was poor
(As God had clothed his own ambassador),
For such on earth his blest Redeemer bore.
Of sixty years he seem'd; and well might last
To sixty more, but that he lived too fast;
Refined himself to soul, to curb the sense;
And made almost a sin of abstinence.
Yet had his aspect nothing of severe,
But such a face as promised him sincere:
Nothing reserved or sullen was to see,
But sweet regards and pleasing sanctity;
Mild was his accent, and his action free.
With eloquence innate his tongue was arm'd,
Though arch the precept, yet the preacher charm'd,
For, letting down the golden chain from high,
He drew his audience upward to the sky.
He bore his great commission in his look;
But sweetly temper'd awe, and soften'd all he spoke.
He preach'd the joys of heaven, and pains of hell,
And warn'd the sinner with becoming zeal;
But on eternal mercy loved to dwell.
He taught the Gospel rather than the Law,
And forced himself to drive, but loved to draw:
For fear but freezes minds; but love, like heat,
Exhales the soul sublime to seek her native seat.
To threats the stubborn sinner oft is hard;
Wrapp'd in his crimes, against the storm prepared;
But when the milder beams of mercy play,
He melts, and throws his cumbrous cloak
Lightning and thunder (Heaven's artillery)
As harbingers before the Almighty fly;
Those but proclaim his style, and disappear;
The stiller sound succeeds, and God is there!
The tithes his parish freely paid, he took,
But never sued, or cursed with bell and book:
With patience bearing wrong, but offering none,
Since every man is free to lose his own,
The country churls, according to their kind
(Who grudge their dues, and love to be behind),
The less he sought his offerings, pinch'd the more;
And praised a priest contented to be poor.
Yet of his little he had some to spare,
To feed the famish'd, and to clothe the bare:
For mortified he was to that degree,
poorer than himself he would not see.
"True priests," he said, "and preachers of the word,
Were only stewards of their Sovereign Lord;
Nothing was theirs, but all the public store,
Entrusted riches, to relieve the poor;
Who, should they steal for want of his relief,
He judged himself accomplice with the thief.”
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