A soul! 'tis living consciousness, 'tis life,-
Life's very substance, which recoils from death,
And all that is of death, and all that breathes
Pollution; and, since flattery is a lie
Akin to death, it shrinks from flattery.
Whence learn'd you this egregious folly?
Am deeply versed in books of learned lore,
And long have known to treat with sovereign scorn
This phantom of an immaterial being.
And think'st thou, silly dreamer, that when death
Shall lay thee low in the undistinguish'd heap
Of slaves, by foul excess or vengeance meet
Brought to destruction, thy disburden'd spirit,
Pure and ethereal still, shall find its home
In realms of peace and liberty secure?
A poet of your own shall be mine oracle; "Not all of me shall die; my nobler part Shall spurn the grave, and mount above the pyre ; I hope, nay, I resolve, to live again.
Nor shall the soul alone survive though worms
Destroy this body, yet my flesh renewed
Shall see its God. Out of that charnel pit,
Whereof thou speakest eloquently, lady,
A hand shall pick each fragment of my frame,
How marr'd and dissipate soever. Nay,
There is a power shall congregate the winds
Before the judgement-seat, and bid them yield
Each several grain of dust that they have scatter'd ;
And I shall live again-this self-same being;
*Horace Od. III. 30, 6, 7.
Not yours, nor any one's ignoble slave,
But joyful in my new enfranchisement,
Glorious, loving for ever, and belov'd
“This certain hope is laid up in my bosom.”*
Fabiola.
Infatuate girl! where didst thou learn this jargon, These idle dreams consort not with thy duty: Whence didst thou learn it? answer me.
Most noble mistress, in my native land,
And in a school where each is as his fellow,—
Greek as barbarian, bondsman as the free.†
Presumptuous slave! thou waitest not, it seems, For death, to claim equality with me:
But dar'st, e'en now to boast thyself mine equal, Nay, haply e'en my better. Speak thy mind, Nor wrap thy sense in dark ambiguous phrases; Say wretch, dost count me thy inferior?
Most noble mistress,-in the pride of power,
Ingenious learning, and the arts of life,
In every grace of lineament and form,
In every charm of action and of speech,
High are you rais'd above all rivalry,
And far remov'd from envious thoughts of one
Lowly and insignificant as I.
But if, obedient to your gracious word,
I needs must speak the plain unvarnish'd truth,
I ask your gentleness, if a poor slave,
Within whose breast there burns a living light,
Who measures life by immortality,
Whose place of dwelling is above the skies,
Whose prototype the Deity itself,
Dare count herself, in moral dignity,
Or sphere of thought, second to one who owns
(Despite her gifts so excellent and rare)
No higher destiny, no loftier end,
Than waits the pretty senseless prisoner
That beats the gilded bars of yonder cage?
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
Of all great Nature's tones, that sweep
Earth's resonant bosom far or near,
Low-breathed or loudest, shrill or deep,
Few, few are grasped by mortal ear.
Ten octaves close our scale of sound:
Its myriad grades, distinct or twined
Transcend our hearing's petty bound
To us, as colours to the blind.
In sound's unmeasured empire thus
The heights, the depths, alike we miss :-
Ah! but in measured sound to us
A compensating spell there is!
In holy music's golden speech
Remotest notes to notes respond:
Each octave is a world; yet each
Vibrates to worlds its own beyond.
Our narrow pale, the vast resumes;
Our sea-shell whispers of the sea:
Echoes are ours of angel plumes
That winnow far infinity.
Clasp thou of Truth the central core!
Hold fast that centre's central sense!
An atom there shall fill thee more,
Than realms on Truth's circumference.
That cradled Saviour, mute and small,
Was God-is God, while worlds endure!
Who holds Truth truly, holds it all
In essence or in miniature.
Know that thou know'st! He knoweth much
Who knows not many things: and he
Knows most, whose knowledge hath a touch
Of God's divine Simplicity.
WHEN Patrick now o'er Ulster's forest bound,
And Connact, echoing to the western wave,
And Leinster, fair with hill suspended woods,
Had raised the cross, and where the deep night
ruled,
Splendour had sent of everlasting light,
Sole peace of warring hearts, to Munster next
Thomond and Desmond, Heber's portion old,
He turned; and, fired by love that mocks at rest,
Through raging storm, pushed on the whole night long,
Intent the Annunciation Feast to hold
At Cashel of the Kings. The royal keep
High seated on its rock, as morning broke,
Faced them at last; and at the selfsame hour
Aengus, in his father's absence, lord,
Rising from happy sleep and heaven-sent dreams,
Went forth, upon his youthful front that light
Which shines from spotless soul. With sudden start
The prince stept back; for o'er the fortress court,
Like grove storm-levelled, lay the idols huge,
False Gods and foul, that long had awed the land,
Prone, without hand of man. O'er-awed he gazed.
Then on the air there rang a sound of hymns,
And, by the eastern gate St. Patrick stood,
The brethren round him. On their shaggy garb
Auroral dews, struck by the rising sun,
Glittered, that diamond-panoplied they seemed,
And as a heavenly vision. At that sight
The youth, descending with a wondering joy,
Welcomed his guests: and, ere an hour, the streets
Far down, shone forth like flowering meads in spring,
So thronged the folk in holiday attire
To see the man far-famed. "Who spurns our Gods?"
Once they had cried in wrath: but, year by year,
Tidings of some deliverance great and strange,
Some life more noble, some sublimer hope,
Some regal race enthroned beyond the grave,
Had reached them from afar. The best believed,
Great hearts, for whom nor earthly love sufficed,
Nor earthly fame. The meaner scoffed: yet all
Desired the man. Delay their thirst had edged,
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