Unheard in summer’s flaring ray,
Pour forth thy notes, sweet singer,
Wooing the stillness of the autumn day:
Bid it a moment linger,
Nor fly
Too soon from winter’s scowling eye.
The blackbird’s song at even-tide,
And hers, who gay ascends,
Filling the heavens far and wide,
Are sweet. But none so blends,
As thine,
With calm decay, and peace divine.
Twenty-Second Sunday after Trinity.
Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him?
_Matthew_ xviii. 21.
WHAT liberty so glad and gay,
As where the mountain boy,
Reckless of regions far away,
A prisoner lives in joy?
The dreary sounds of crowded earth,
The cries of camp or town,
Never untuned his lonely mirth,
Nor drew his visions down.
The snow-clad peaks of rosy light
That meet his morning view,
The thwarting cliffs that bound his sight,
They bound his fancy too.
Two ways alone his roving eye
For aye may onward go,
Or in the azure deep on high,
Or darksome mere below.
O blest restraint! more blessèd range!
Too soon the happy child
His nook of homely thought will change
For life’s seducing wild:
Too soon his altered day-dreams show
This earth a boundless space,
With sun-bright pleasures to and fro
Sporting in joyous race:
While of his narrowing heart each year,
Heaven less and less will fill,
Less keenly, thorough his grosser ear,
The tones of mercy thrill.
It must be so: else wherefore falls
The Saviour’s voice unheard,
While from His pard’ning Cross He calls,
“O spare as I have spared?”
By our own niggard rule we try
The hope to suppliants given!
We mete out love, as if our eye
Saw to the end of Heaven.
Yes, ransomed sinner! wouldst thou know
How often to forgive,
How dearly to embrace thy foe,
Look where thou hop’st to live;—
When thou hast told those isles of light,
And fancied all beyond,
Whatever owns, in depth or height,
Creation’s wondrous bond;
Then in their solemn pageant learn
Sweet mercy’s praise to see:
Their Lord resigned them all, to earn
The bliss of pardoning thee.
Twenty-third Sunday after Trinity.
Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto
His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even
to subdue all things onto Himself. _Philippians_ iii. 21.
RED o’er the forest peers the setting sun,
The line of yellow light dies fast away
That crowned the eastern copse: and chill and dun
Falls on the moor the brief November day.
Now the tired hunter winds a parting note,
And Echo hide good-night from every glade;
Yet wait awhile, and see the calm heaves float
Each to his rest beneath their parent shade.
How like decaying life they seem to glide!
And yet no second spring have they in store,
But where they fall, forgotten to abide
Is all their portion, and they ask no more.
Soon o’er their heads blithe April airs shall sing,
A thousand wild-flowers round them shall unfold,
The green buds glisten in the dews of Spring,
And all be vernal rapture as of old.
Unconscious they in waste oblivion lie,
In all the world of busy life around
No thought of them; in all the bounteous sky,
No drop, for them, of kindly influence found.
Man’s portion is to die and rise again—
Yet he complains, while these unmurmuring part
With their sweet lives, as pure from sin and stain,
As his when Eden held his virgin heart.
And haply half unblamed his murmuring voice
Might sound in Heaven, were all his second life
Only the first renewed—the heathen’s choice,
A round of listless joy and weary strife.
For dreary were this earth, if earth were all,
Tho’ brightened oft by dear Affection’s kiss;—
Who for the spangles wears the funeral pall?
But catch a gleam beyond it, and ’tis bliss.
Heavy and dull this frame of limbs and heart,
Whether slow creeping on cold earth, or borne
On lofty steed, or loftier prow, we dart
O’er wave or field: yet breezes laugh to scorn
Our puny speed, and birds, and clouds in heaven,
And fish, living shafts that pierce the main,
And stars that shoot through freezing air at even—
Who but would follow, might he break his chain?
And thou shalt break it soon; the grovelling worm
Shall find his wings, and soar as fast and free
As his transfigured Lord with lightning form
And snowy vest—such grace He won for thee,
When from the grave He sprang at dawn of morn,
And led through boundless air thy conquering road,
Leaving a glorious track, where saints, new-born,
Might fearless follow to their blest abode.
But first, by many a stern and fiery blast
The world’s rude furnace must thy blood refine,
And many a gale of keenest woe be passed,
Till every pulse beat true to airs divine,
Till every limb obey the mounting soul,
The mounting soul, the call by Jesus given.
He who the stormy heart can so control,
The laggard body soon will waft to Heaven.
Twenty-fourth Sunday after Trinity.
The heart knoweth his own bitterness: and a stranger doth not
intermeddle with his joy. _Proverbs_ xiv. 10.
WHY should we faint and fear to live alone,
Since all alone, so Heaven has willed, we die,
Nor e’en the tenderest heart, and next our own,
Knows half the reasons why we smile and sigh?
Each in his hidden sphere of joy or woe
Our hermit spirits dwell, and range apart,
Our eyes see all around in gloom or glow—
Hues of their own, fresh borrowed from the heart.
And well it is for us our GOD should feel
Alone our secret throbbings: so our prayer
May readier spring to Heaven, nor spend its zeal
On cloud-born idols of this lower air.
For if one heart in perfect sympathy
Beat with another, answering love for love,
Weak mortals, all entranced, on earth would lie,
Nor listen for those purer strains above.
Or what if Heaven for once its searching light
Lent to some partial eye, disclosing all
The rude bad thoughts, that in our bosom’s night
Wander at large, nor heed Love’s gentle thrall?
Who would not shun the dreary uncouth place?
As if, fond leaning where her infant slept,
A mother’s arm a serpent should embrace:
So might we friendless live, and die unwept.
Then keep the softening veil in mercy drawn,
Thou who canst love us, thro’ Thou read us true;
As on the bosom of th’ aërial lawn
Melts in dim haze each coarse ungentle hue.
So too may soothing Hope Thy heave enjoy
Sweet visions of long-severed hearts to frame:
Though absence may impair, or cares annoy,
Some constant mind may draw us still the same.
We in dark dreams are tossing to and fro,
Pine with regret, or sicken with despair,
The while she bathes us in her own chaste glow,
And with our memory wings her own fond prayer.
O bliss of child-like innocence, and love
Tried to old age! creative power to win,
And raise new worlds, where happy fancies rove,
Forgetting quite this grosser world of sin.
Bright are their dreams, because their thoughts are clear,
Their memory cheering: but th’ earth-stained spright,
Whose wakeful musings are of guilt and fear,
Must hover nearer earth, and less in light.
Farewell, for her, th’ ideal scenes so fair—
Yet not farewell her hope, since thou hast deigned,
Creator of all hearts! to own and share
The woe of what Thou mad’st, and we have stained.
Thou knowst our bitterness—our joys are Thine—
No stranger Thou to all our wanderings wild:
Nor could we bear to think, how every line
Of us, Thy darkened likeness and defiled,
Stands in full sunshine of Thy piercing eye,
But that Thou call’st us Brethren: sweet repose
Is in that word—the LORD who dwells on high
Knows all, yet loves us better than He knows.
Twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity.
The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of
righteousness. _Proverbs_ xvi. 31.
THE bright-haired morn is glowing
O’er emerald meadows gay,
With many a clear gem strewing
The early shepherd’s way.
Ye gentle elves, by Fancy seen
Stealing away with night
To slumber in your leafy screen,
Tread more than airy light.
And see what joyous greeting
The sun through heaven has shed,
Though fast yon shower be fleeting,
His beams have faster sped.
For lo! above the western haze
High towers the rainbow arch
In solid span of purest rays:
How stately is its march!
Pride of the dewy morning!
The swain’s experienced eye
From thee takes timely warning,
Nor trusts the gorgeous sky.
For well he knows, such dawnings gay
Bring noons of storm and shower,
And travellers linger on the way
Beside the sheltering bower.
E’en so, in hope and trembling
Should watchful shepherd view
His little lambs assembling,
With glance both kind and true;
’Tis not the eye of keenest blaze,
Nor the quick-swelling breast,
That soonest thrills at touch of praise—
These do not please him best.
But voices low and gentle,
And timid glances shy,
That seem for aid parental
To sue all wistfully,
Still pressing, longing to be right,
Yet fearing to be wrong,—
In these the Pastor dares delight,
A lamb-like, Christ-like throng.
These in Life’s distant even
Shall shine serenely bright,
As in th’ autumnal heaven
Mild rainbow tints at night,
When the last shower is stealing down,
And ere they sink to rest,
The sun-beams weave a parting crown
For some sweet woodland nest.
The promise of the morrow
Is glorious on that eve,
Dear as the holy sorrow
When good men cease to live.
When brightening ere it die away
Mounts up their altar flame,
Still tending with intenser ray
To Heaven whence first it came.
Say not it dies, that glory,
’Tis caught unquenched on high,
Those saintlike brows so hoary
Shall wear it in the sky.
No smile is like the smile of death,
When all good musings past
Rise wafted with the parting breath,
The sweetest thought the last.
Sunday next before Advent.
Gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost. _St.
John_ vi. 12.
WILL God indeed with fragments bear,
Snatched late from the decaying year?
Or can the Saviour’s blood endear
The dregs of a polluted life?
When down th’ o’erwhelming current tossed
Just ere he sink for ever lost,
The sailor’s untried arms are crossed
In agonizing prayer, will Ocean cease her strife?
Sighs that exhaust but not relieve
Heart-rending sighs, O spare to heave
A bosom freshly taught to grieve
For lavished hours and love misspent!
Now through her round of holy thought
The Church our annual steps has brought,
But we no holy fire have caught—
Back on the gaudy world our wilful eyes were bent.
Too soon th’ ennobling carols, poured
To hymn the birth-night of the LORD,
Which duteous Memory should have stored
For thankful echoing all the year—
Too soon those airs have passed away;
Nor long within the heart would stay
The silence of CHRIST’S dying day,
Profaned by worldly mirth, or scared by worldly fear.
Some strain of hope and victory
On Easter wings might lift us high
A little while we sought the sky:
And when the SPIRIT’S beacon fires
On every hill began to blare,
Lightening the world with glad amaze,
Who but must kindle while they gaze?
But faster than she soars, our earth-bound Fancy tires.
Nor yet for these, nor all the rites,
By which our Mother’s voice invites
Our GOD to bless our home delights,
And sweeten every secret tear:—
The funeral dirge, the marriage vow,
The hollowed font where parents bow,
And now elate and trembling now
To the Redeemer’s feet their new-found treasures bear:—
Not for this Pastor’s gracious arm
Stretched out to bless—a Christian charm
To dull the shafts of worldly harm:—
Nor, sweetest, holiest, best of all
For the dear feast of JESUS dying,
Upon that altar ever lying,
Where souls with sacred hunger sighing
Are called to sit and eat, while angels prostrate fall:—
No, not for each and all of these,
Have our frail spirits found their ease.
The gale that stirs the autumnal trees
Seems tuned as truly to our hearts
As when, twelve weary months ago,
’Twas moaning bleak, so high and low,
You would have thought Remorse and Woe
Had taught the innocent air their sadly thrilling parts.
Is it, CHRIST’S light is too divine,
We dare not hope like Him to shine?
But see, around His dazzling shrine
Earths gems the fire of Heaven have caught;
Martyrs and saints—each glorious day
Dawning in order on our way—
Remind us, how our darksome clay
May keep th’ ethereal warmth our new Creator brought.
These we have scorned, O false and frail!
And now once more th’ appalling tale,
How love divine may woo and fail,
Of our lost year in Heaven is told—
What if as far our life were past,
Our weeks all numbered to the last,
With time and hope behind us cast,
And all our work to do with palsied hands and cold?
O watch and pray ere Advent dawn!
For thinner than the subtlest lawn
’Twixt thee and death the veil is drawn.
But Love too late can never glow:
The scattered fragments Love can glean
Refine the dregs, and yield us clean
To regions where one thought serene
Breathes sweeter than whole years of sacrifice below.