For of the noblest of the land
Was that deep-hushed, bareheaded band;
And, central in the ring,
By that dead pauper on the ground,
Her ragged orphans clinging round,
Knelt their anointed king.
ROBERT and CAROLINE SOUTHEY.
THE seraph Abdiel, faithful found
Among the faithless, faithful only he;
Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal ;
Nor number, nor example with him wrought
To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind,
Though single. From amidst them forth he passed,
Long way through hostile scorn, which he sus-
tained
Superior, nor of violence feared aught;
And with retorted scorn his back he turned
On those proud towers to swift destruction doomed.
THE road was lone; the grass was dank
With night-dews on the briery bank
Whereon a weary reaper sank.
His garb was old; his visage tanned;
The rusty sickle in his hand
Could find no work in all the land.
He saw the evening's chilly star
Above his native vale afar;
A moment on the horizon's bar
It hung, then sank, as with a sigh ;
And there the crescent moon went by,
An empty sickle down the sky.
To soothe his pain, Sleep's tender palm
Laid on his brow its touch of balm ;
His brain received the slumberous calm;
And soon that angel without name,
Her robe a dream, her face the same,
The giver of sweet visions came.
She touched his eyes; no longer sealed,
They saw a troop of reapers wield
Their swift blades in a ripened field.
At each thrust of their snowy sleeves
A thrill ran through the future sheaves
Rustling like rain on forest leaves.
They were not brawny men who bowed,
With harvest-voices rough and loud,
But spirits, moving as a cloud.
Like little lightnings in their hold,
The silver sickles manifold
Slid musically through the gold.
O, bid the morning stars combine
To match the chorus clear and fine,
That rippled lightly down the line, -
A cadence of celestial rhyme,
The language of that cloudless clime,
To which their shining hands kept time!
Behind them lay the gleaming rows,
Like those long clouds the sunset shows
On amber meadows of repose;
But, like a wind, the binders bright
Soon followed in their mirthful might,
And swept them into sheaves of light.
Doubling the splendor of the plain,
There rolled the great celestial wain,
To gather in the fallen grain.
Its frame was built of golden bars;
Its glowing wheels were lit with stars;
The royal Harvest's car of cars.
The snowy yoke that drew the load,
On gleaming hoofs of silver trode;
And music was its only goad.
To no command of word or beck
It moved, and felt no other check
Than one white arm laid on the neck, -
The neck, whose light was overwound
With bells of lilies, ringing round
Their odors till the air was drowned:
The starry foreheads meekly borne,
With garlands looped from horn to horn,
Shone like the many-colored morn.
The field was cleared. Home went the bands,
Like children, linking happy hands,
While singing through their father's lands;
Or, arms about each other thrown,
With amber tresses backward blown,
They moved as they were music's own.
The vision brightening more and more,
He saw the garner's glowing door,
And sheaves, like sunshine, strew the floor,-
The floor was jasper, - golden flails,
Swift-sailing as a whirlwind sails,
Throbbed mellow music down the vales.
He saw the mansion,- all repose,
Great corridors and porticos,
Propped with the columns, shining rows;
Far flew the music's circling sound;
Then floated back, with soft rebound,
To join, not mar, the converse round, -
Sweet notes, that, melting, still increased,
Such as ne'er cheered the bridal feast
Of king in the enchanted East.
Did any great door ope or close,
It seemed the birth-time of repose,
The faint sound died where it arose ;
And they who passed from door to door,
Their soft feet on the polished floor
Met their soft shadows, — nothing more.
"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car;
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to thee!"
At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace;
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.
THOMAS BUCHANAN READ.
THE RELIGION OF HUDIBRAS.
HE was of that stubborn crew
Of errant saints, whom all men grant
To be the true church militant;
Such as do build their faith upon
The holy text of pike and gun;
Decide all controversies by
Infallible artillery,
And prove their doctrine orthodox
By apostolic blows and knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation
A godly, thorough Reformation,
Which always must be carried on
And still be doing, never done;
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies ;
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss;
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick;
That with more care keep holiday
The wrong, than others the right way;
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to;
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipped God for spite;
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
INSCRIBED TO R. AIKEN, ESQ. "Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys and destiny obscure; Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short but simple annals of the poor."- GRAY.
My loved, my honored, much-respected friend, No mercenary bard his homage pays :
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the even
The soupe their only hawkie does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hained kebbuck fell, An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing," That thus they all shall meet in future days; There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, Together hymning their Creator's praise, In such society, yet still more dear;
How 't was a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the While circling Time moves round in an eternal bell.
Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide, Devotion's every grace, except the heart! The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole ; But, haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul;
And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.
Then homeward all take off their several way; The youngling cottagers retire to rest : The parent-pair their secret homage pay, And proffer up to heaven the warm request, That He who stills the raven's clamorous nest, And decks the lily fair in flowery pride, Would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, For them and for their little ones provide; But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.
From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad; Princes and lords are but the breath of kings, "An honest man's the noblest work of God!" And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind : What is a lordling's pomp? --a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind, Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refined!
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And, O, may Heaven their simple lives prevent From luxury's contagion, weak and vile! Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle.
EVENING HYMN.
GLORY to thee, my God, this night,
For all the blessings of the light;
Keep me, O, keep me, King of kings,
Beneath thy own almighty wings!
Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done;
That with the world, myself, and thee
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be.
Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed;
To die, that this vile body may
Rise glorious at the judgment-day.
FROM all that dwell below the skies
Let the Creator's praise arise;
Let the Redeemer's name be sung
Through every land, by every tongue.
Eternal are thy mercies, Lord,
Eternal truth attends thy word;
Thy praise shall sound from shore to shore,
Till suns shall rise and set no more.
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