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My GOD! the great guard, the good ruler, and friend,
Who made me, and guides as He will;

My Right! which His government helps to defend,
And bids me stand up for it still :

The heart that has trusted Him well does He love,
And fills it with heavenly light,

Rejoiced upon earth with all peace from above,
And resting on "GOD and my Right!"

My Right-the right way, and my Right-the right arm,
And my Right-the true rights of the case,—
Strong, honest, deserving, the triple-tied charm
That keeps a man firm in his place;

With these well about us, and GOD overhead,
We fear not whatever we fight,

There never was mortal who fail'd or who fled,
Whose motto was "GOD and my Right!"

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!

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"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,
Stretches wide the tent of heaven,
Blue, begemm'd with golden buds,-
Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear,
Glory's hollow hemisphere

Arch'd above these frothing floods,
Right and left asunder riven,

As our cutter madly scuds,
By the fitful breezes driven,
When exultingly she sweeps
Like a dolphin through the deeps,
And from wave to wave she leaps,
Rolling in this yeasty leaven,-
Ragingly that never sleeps,
Like the wicked unforgiven!

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A Night-sail in the Race of Alderney.

Midnight, soft and fair above,

Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,—
All on high the smile of love,

All below the frown of death:
Waves that whirl in angry spite
With a phosphorescent light
Gleaming ghastly on the night,-
Like the pallid sneer of Doom,
So malicious, cold, and white,
Luring to this watery tomb,
Where in fury and in fright
Winds and waves together fight
Hideously amid the gloom,-
As our cutter gladly scuds,
Dipping deep her sheeted boom
Madly to the boiling sea,
Lighted in these furious floods
By that blaze of brilliant studs,
Glistening down like glory-buds
On the Race of Alderney!

Peel.

Struck down at noon amid the startled throng,
An eagle shot while soaring to the sun;

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
Thine acolyte, would crowd to hear and see
Their intellectual Athlete, their high name
For eloquence and prudence, gifts and powers:
But lo! that starry mind, a heavenly flame,
Is well enfranchised from this earth of ours,
Translated in the zenith of its fame!

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,
Than now in honest sorrow fills her breast;

For he was worthy; full of kindliness,
A man of peace, and charity, and truth;

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!

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Wordsworth.

We will not sorrow for the glorious dead,-
Death is The Life to glory's hallow'd sons!
Above this body, in its prison-bed,

Soar the free spirits of those blessèd ones,
Waiting in hope, on heavenly manna fed :
To such rich feast in beauteous raiment led,
Why should we wail for him, as those who wept
Some Lycidas or Bion of old time,

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.

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