So through heaven's starry ceiling,
To the hermit soul's abode,
Comes the Holy Spirit,-earthward
Raying down from God.

THE VISION OF THE ROCK.

I SATE upon a lonely peak

A backwood river's course to view,
And watched the changing shadows freak
Its liquid length of gleaming blue,
Streaked by the crane slow gliding o'er,
Or chequering to the leafy roar

Of woods that 'neath me grew,

Or curdling dark, as high o'erhead

The gathering clouds before the sounding breezes fled.

Straight I bethought how once the scene

Spread in its primal horror there,

When, but some lone bird's weary threne

Or howlings from the wild dog's lair,
Or rush of startled kangaroo,

As near some stealthy savage drew

With hunger in his air,

Or from the stream some murmured sound

Broke the dread slumbrous calm of solitude pro

found.

A change came o'er my thoughts-behind

A length of coming time I threw,

Till round me, on that rock reclined,
Its folds prophetic vision drew;

And purpling, like the morning, gave
Mine eyes of Freedom's birth to have

A seeming ante-view;

As haply in brave promise stole

His country's purer weal o'er youthful Hampden's soul.

All round me villages upgrew

At once, with orchards clumped about,
And oft between, tall pine-rows through,
Some mansion's pillared porch looked out,
And thickening up from alleys green,
Where rustic groups in dance were seen,
Came merry cry and shout;

While from tall groves beyond, the cheer

Of maiden's laughter soft, broke in rich wavelets near.

And in the gusts that overpassed

The stir of neighbouring cities came,

Whose structures in the distance massed
Proclaimed their opulence and fame,

O'er fields of ripening plenty viewed,

Or hills with white flocks fleeced, and strewed
With herds that grazed the same;

While on the paven roads between

The crowding chariots came with rapid-rolling din.

Now gaining depth, the vision lay

Around my being like a law,
So that my spirit might not say
But all was real that I saw ;

I mark a youth and maiden, pressed

By love's sweet power, elude the rest,

And as they nearer drew

I list the vow that each imparts

Folded within the spells of harmonising hearts.

But suddenly a grim-faced sire
Strides like a fatal wraith between
With that cold whiteness in his ire
Which in the bad alone is seen!
Alas! this world can never be
A poet's Eden utterly-

'Twill be what it hath been!

So long as love's rich heart is red

And beauty's eyes are bright-so long shall tears be shed.

They pass; and lo! a lonely boy

With wandering steps goes musing by;

Glory is in his air, and joy

And all the poet in his eye!

And now, whilst rich emotions flush

His happy face, as cloud-hues blush

In morning's radiant sky,

He sings-and to the charmful sound

Troops of angelic shapes throng into being round.

But 'neath a sombre cypress-tree,

And clad in garbs of kindred gloom,
A mother and her child I see

Both mourning o'er a lonely tomb!
Ah! life hath ever been a brief

Mixed dream of glory and of grief

Its earliest, latest doom!

That heart in which love's tides first ran

Descends with all its risks to every child of man.

Now turning see, with locks all grey,

A form majestic; wisdom true
Illumes his brow-the power to weigh

All worth, and look all semblance through;

And stately youths of studious mien,
Children of light, with him are seen,

His auditory-who

Attend the speaking sage along,

And hearken to the wisdom of his manna-dropping tongue.

And now doth his large utterances throw
A sacred solemnising spell

O'er scenes that yet no record know,
Round names that now I may not tell;
But there was one-too long unknown!
Whereat, as with a household tone
Upon the ear it fell,

Each listener's speaking eyes were given

To glisten with a tear, and turn awhile to heaven.

Thus night came on; for hours had flown,
And yet its hold the vision kept,

Till lulled by many a dying tone,

I laid me on the rock and slept!

And now the moon hung big between

Two neighbouring summits sheathed with sheen— When all with dews bewept,

And roused by a loud coming gale,

I sought our camp-fire's glow, deep in the darkling vale.

LOVE DREAMING OF DEATH.

I DREAMT my little boys were dead
And I was sitting wild and lone;
On closed unmoving knees my head
Lay rigid as a stone.

And thus I sat without a tear,

And though I drew life's painful breath, All life to me seemed cold and drear, And comfortless as death:

Sat on the earth as on a bier,

Where loss and ruin lived alone, Without the comfort of a tearWithout a passing groan.

And there was stillness everywhere,
Ensphering one wide sense of woe—
The stillness of a world's despair,
Whose tides had ceased to flow.

Yea, so eternal seemed my grief,
Time moved not, neither slow nor fast,
Nor recked I whether periods brief
Or centuries had passed.

It was as if to marble cold

My loss had petrified the air, And I was shut within its hold, Made deathless by despair

Made deathless in a world of death,
There ever sitting wild and lone,
With all but one pent painful breath
Transmuted into stone.

And more the gorgon horror crushed
With dry petrific pressure in,
Till forth my waking spirit rushed
With agonising din!