My GOD! the great guard, the good ruler, and friend, My Right! which His government helps to defend, The heart that has trusted Him well does He love, Rejoiced upon earth with all peace from above, My Right-the right way, and my Right-the right arm, With these well about us, and GOD overhead, There never was mortal who fail'd or who fled, Bow much worse it might have been! A TEXT FOR THE DISCONTENTED. Honest fellow, sore beset, Vext by troubles quick and keen, Thankfully consider yet "How much worse it might have been!' Worthily thy faults deserve More than all thine eyes have seen, Think thou then with sterner nerve, "How much worse it might have been! "How much worse it might have been!" 81 Though the night be dark and long, Morning soon shall break serene, And the burden of thy song, "How much worse it might have been!" GOD, the Good one, calls to us On His Providence to lean, Shout then out devoutly thus, "How much worse it might have been!" A Light-sail in the Race of Alderney, SEPT. 6, 1850. Sprinkled thick with shining studs, Arch'd above these frothing floods, As our cutter madly scuds, G 82 A Night-sail in the Race of Alderney. Midnight, soft and fair above, Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,— All below the frown of death: Peel. Struck down at noon amid the startled throng, A wounded gladiator dying strong As loth to leave the glories he had won; A life-long patriot, with his work half done,Of thee, great Statesman, shall my mourning song Arise in due solemnity!—of thee, Whom the wide world, so lately and so long Cambridge. Another of thy chiefs, O Israel, Gone to a good man's rest, and high reward, As full of years as honours; it is well Thus timely to be call'd to meet the LORD! O death, how oft Britannia tolls the knell For those she loves, a mother for her sons! Yet is it seldom that her tongue can tell More truly how she mourns her mighty ones, For he was worthy; full of kindliness, For ever doing good, and feeling blest (Though nurtur'd as a warrior from his youth) In finding what a joy it is to bless! Wordsworth. We will not sorrow for the glorious dead,- Soar the free spirits of those blessèd ones, Mourning as dead the soul that only slept? No! rather, let the pæan rise sublime For nature's poet-priest from nature's voice,Let sea and sky be glad, and field, and fen, And pastoral vale, and thunder-riven glen, And dewy Rydal in her bard rejoice! For there, by hill and dale, in sun or shade, He "communed with the universe" in love; "The deep foundations of his mind' were laid, Sphered in their midst, on all around, above: He read GOD's heart in all His hand hath made : Then, in the majesty of simple truth, To man's dim mind he show'd the mind of GOD Lustrous and lovely, "full of pity and ruth,” For high and low, the sunbeam-and the sod! So did he teach in age, as erst in youth,— To turn away from passion's lurid light, And yearn on purer things of lowlier birth, Pure because lowly,—which, in God's own sight, As in his servants', are the pearls of earth. |