THE BALLAD OF RICHARD BURNELL.

But to thee, His chosen servant,

Is this higher lot allowed;

He has brought thee through deep waters, Through the furnace, through the cloud;

"He has made of thee a mourner,

Like the Christ, that thou may'st rise To a purer height of glory,

Through the pangs of sacrifice!

"'Tis alone of His appointing,

That thy feet on thorns have trod; Suffering, woe, renunciation,

Only bring us nearer God.

"And when nearest Him, then largest
The enfranchised heart's embrace :-

It was Christ, the Man rejected,
Who redeemed the human race.

"Say not, then, thou hast no duties;Friendless outcasts on thee call,

And the sick and the afflicted,

66

And the children, more than all.

Oh, my friend, rise up, and follow
Where the hand of God shall lead ;

He has brought thee through affliction,
But to fit thee for His need!"

Thus she spoke; and as from midnight
Springs the opal-tinted morn,

So, within his dreary spirit,

A new day of life was born.

Strength sublime may rise from weakness, Groans be turned to songs of praise,

Nor are life's divinest labours

Only told by length of days.

Young he died: but deeds of mercy
Beautified his life's short span,

And he left his worldly substance
To complete what he began.

ALEXANDER SMITH.

SCENE-THE BANKS OF A RIVER.

'Tis that loveliest stream.

I've learned by heart its sweet and devious course

By frequent tracing, as a lover learns

The features of his best beloved's face.

In memory it runs, a shining thread,

With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.
From yonder trees I've seen the western sky

All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun
Beat like a pulse, welling at ev'ry beat

A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church. Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede

For sinful hamlets scatter'd at its feet,

I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down,
And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of hell
At ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hour
Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
'Twas at the close of a long summer day,
As we were sitting on yon grassy slope,

The sunset hung before us like a dream

That shakes a demon in his fiery lair;

The clouds were standing round the setting sun

Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles,

Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light,

Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame, Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks

Of pilèd gorgeousness, and rocks of fire

A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas—

All these were huddled in that dreadful west,

All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light,

And from the centre blazed the angry sun,
Stern as the unlash'd eye of God a-glare
O'er evening city with its boom of sin.
I do remember, as we journeyed home,
(That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains,)
With what a soothing came the naked moon.
She, like a swimmer who has found his ground,
Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud,

PICTURES.

And plunged from the other side into the night.
I and that friend, the feeder of my soul,

Did wander up and down these banks for years,
Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths,
How sin and weeping all should pass away

In the calm sunshine of the earth's old age.

Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer's verse;

'Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hung

O'er the fine pants and trembles of a line.

Oft, standing on a hill's green head, we felt
Breezes of love, and joy, and melody,

Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.

Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed
On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams,
O'er which the air hung silent in its joy;
With a great city lying in its smoke,

A monster sleeping in its own thick breath;
And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods
In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks,
Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs,

And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played,
To us unheard; till, gradual, all was lost

In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills,

Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.

PICTURES.

THE lark is singing in the blinding sky,

Hedges are white with May. The bridegroom sea

Is toying with the shore, his wedded bride,

And, in the fulness of his marriage joy,

He decorates her tawny brow with shells,