THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. "Lord, why is this?" I trembling cried, 195 Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?' "Tis in this way," the Lord replied, "I answer prayer for grace and faith. “These inward trials I employ, From self and pride to set thee free! NEWTON. The Second Coming of Christ. E'EN thus amidst thy pride and luxury, O Earth, shall that last coming burst on thee; ; 196 THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Still to the pouring out the cup of woe; And mountains, molten by his burning feet, And heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat. The hundred-gated cities then, The towers, and temples, named of men The courtly bowers of love and ease, Go, gaze on fall'n Jerusalem! Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurl'd, The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And one vast common doom ensepulchres the world. O who shall then survive? O who shall stand and live? When all that hath been is no more: When, for the round earth hung in air In the sky's azure canopy, When, for the breathing earth and sparkling sea, Is but a fiery deluge without shore, THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, 197 Lord of all power! when Thou art there alone On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne, That in its high meridian noon Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon ; The dead of all the ages round thee wait: Daffodils. FAIR daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon: As yet the early rising sun Has not attain'd his noon : Stay, stay, Until the hastening day But to the even-song ; We have short time to stay as you ; As your hours do; and dry Away Like to the summer's rain, Or, as the pearls of morning dew Ne'er to be found again. HERRICK. Stanzas. WHEN Hope, in possession's proud noon riding high, Sets quench'd in eternal eclipse, And like fruits of Asphaltus, the pleasures we try, Turn ashes and dust on the lips; When the joys we have nursed into bitterness burst, O where shall we find a repose for the mind O why was Youth's pathway so gallantly strewn O why is the scene of existence serene, As to Ardour's young eye it appears, If its sunshine be warm but to nurture the storm That bursts into ruin and tears? Nay, murmur not, mortal, the fraud is thine own! Who bade thee a shadow adore ? Earth's blessings were given for thy comfort alone, Thy hopes and affections for more. Then turn thee from earth to the rights of thy birth- And seek above those the unbroken repose, |