With fancied roses, than the unblemished moon
Before her wane begins on heaven's blue coast,
Thy image falls to earth. Yet some, I ween,
Not unforgiven, the suppliant knee might bend,
As to a visible power, in which did blend
All that was mixed and reconciled in thee
Of mother's love with maiden purity,
Of high with low, celestial with terrene.
THOSE feet that to music could gracefully move
Now bear her alone on the mission of love;
Those hands that once dangled the perfume and gem
Are tending the helpless, or lifted for them;
The voice that once echoed the song of the vain
Now whispers relief to the bosom of pain;
And the hair that was shining with diamond and pearl
Is wet with the tears of the penitent girl.
Her down-bed a pallet, her trinkets a bead;
Her lustre one taper that serves her to read;
Her sculpture the crucifix nailed by her bed;
Her paintings one print of the thorn-crowned head;
Her cushion the pavement that wearies her knees;
Her music the psalm, or the sigh of disease:
The delicate lady lives mortified there,
And the feast is forsaken for fasting and prayer.
Yet not to the service of heart and of mind
Are the cares of that heaven-minded virgin confined;
Like Him whom she loves, to the mansions of grief
She hastes with the tidings of joy and relief.
She strengthens the weary, she comforts the weak,
And soft is her voice in the ear of the sick;
Where want and affliction on mortals attend,
The Sister of Charity there is a friend.
Unshrinking where pestilence scatters his breath
Like an angel she moves 'mid the vapours of death;
Where rings the loud musket and flashes the sword,
Unfearing she walks, for she follows her Lord
How sweetly she bends o'er each plague-tainted face,
With looks that are lighted with holiest grace!
How kindly she dresses each suffering limb,
For she sees in the wounded the image of Him!
Behold her, ye worldly! behold her, ye vain!
Who shrink from the pathway of virtue and pain;
Who yield up to pleasure your nights and your days,
Forgetful of service, forgetful of praise.
Ye lazy philosophers, self-seeking men,
Ye fireside philanthropists, great at the pen,
How stands in the balance your eloquence weighed
With the life and the deeds of that delicate maid?
ALAS! they had been friends in youth :
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain:
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.
Each spake words of high disdain
And insult to his heart's best brother,
They parted ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining;
They stood aloof-the scars remaining,
Like cliffs which hadbeen rent asunder A dreary sea now flows between;
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
WINTER; A SONG.
W.. SHAKSPEARE.
WHEN icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
To-who;
Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
THE VICISSITUDES OF LIFE.
So farewell to the little good you bear me. Farewell, a long farewell, to all my greatness. This is the state of man; to-day he puts forth
CARDINAL WOLSEY'S SPEECH TO CROMWELL. 275
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him
The third day comes a frost, a killing frost;
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,
And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,
Like little wanton boys that swim on bladders,
These many summers in a sea of glory;
But far beyond my depth; my high-blown pride
At length broke under me; and now has left me
Weary and old with service, to the mercy
Of a rude stream, that must for ever hide me.
Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye;
I feel my heart new open'd., Oh, how wretched
Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours!
There is, betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have:
And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,
Never to hope again.
CARDINAL WOLSEY'S SPEECH TO
CROMWELL.
CROMWELL, I did not think to shed a tear
In all my miseries; but thou hast forced me
Out of thy honest truth to play the woman.
Let's dry our eyes: and thus far hear me, Cromwell;
And, when I am forgotten, as I shall be,
And sleep in dull cold marble, where no mention
Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee;
Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,
And sounded all the depths and shoals of honour,
Found thee a way, out of his wreck to rise in ;
A sure and safe one, though thy master miss'd it.
Mark but my fall, and that that ruin'd me.
Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:
By that sin fell the angels; how can man, then,
The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
Love thyself last : cherish those hearts that hate thee.
Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's: then, if thou fall'st, O
Cromwell,
Thou fall'st a blessed martyr. Serve the king;
And, pr'ythee, lead me in:
There, take an inventory of all I have,
To the last penny: 'tis the king's: my robe
And my integrity to heaven is all
I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
AT last, with easy roads, he came to Leicester,
Lodged in the abbey; where the reverend abbot,
With all his convent honourably received him :
To whom he gave these words,-O father abbot,
An old man, broken with the storms of state,
Is come to lay his weary bones among ye:
Give him a little earth for charity!
So went to bed: where eagerly his sickness
Pursued him still; and, three nights after this,
About the hour of eight (which he himself
Foretold should be his last), full of repentance,
Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,
He gave his honours to the world again,
His blessed part to heaven, and slept in peace.
|