For succor; but perhaps he sits alone
On stormy waters, tossed in a little boat
That holds but him, and can contain no
more!

Religion tells of amity sublime

Which no condition can preclude; of One Who sees all suffering, comprehends all wants,

All weakness fathoms, can supply all needs: But is that bounty absolute ?-His gifts, Are they not, still, in some degree, rewards For acts of service? Can his love extend To hearts that own not him? Will showers of grace,

When in the sky no promise may be seen, Fall to refresh a parched and withered land

Or shall the groaning Spirit cast her load
At the Redeemer's feet?"
In rueful tone,
With some impatience in his mien, he
spake :

Back to my mind rushed all that had been urged

To calm the Sufferer when his story closed;
I looked for counsel as unbending now;
But a discriminating sympathy
Stooped to this apt reply.

"As men from men

Do, in the constitution of their souls,
Differ, by mystery not to be explained;
And as we fall by various ways, and sink
One deeper than another, self-condemned,
Through manifold degrees of grief and
shame;

So manifold and various are the ways
Of restoration, fashioned to the steps
Of all infirmity, and tending all
To the same point, attainable by all-
Peace in ourselves, and union with our God.
For you, assuredly, a hopeful road
Lies open we have heard from you a voice
At every moment softened in its course
By tenderness of heart; have seen your

Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation. Here you stand,
Adore, and worship, when you know it not;
Pious beyond the intention of your thought;
Devout above the meaning of
your will.
-Yes, you have felt, and may not cease to
feel.

The estate of man would be indeed forlorn
If false conclusions of the reasoning power
Made the eye blind, and closed the passages
Through which the ear converses with the
heart.

Has not the soul, the being of your life,
Received a shock of awful consciousness,
In some calm season, when these lofty

Sends inspiration from the shadowy heights, And blind recesses of the caverned rocks; The little rills, and waters numberless, Inaudible by daylight, blended their notes With the loud streams: and often, at the hour

When issue forth the first pale stars, is heard,

Within the circuit of this fabric huge,
One voice-the solitary raven, flying
Athwart the concave of the dark blue dome,
Unseen, perchance above all power of
sight-

An iron knell! with echoes from afar Faint-and still fainter-as the cry, with which

The wanderer accompanies her flight Through the calm region, fades upon the ear,

Diminishing by distance till it seemed To expire; yet from the abyss is caught again,

And yet again recovered!

But descending From these imaginative heights, that yield

Far-stretching views into eternity, Acknowledge that to Nature's humble power Your cherished sullenness is forced to bend Even here, where her amenities are sown With sparing hand. Then trust yourself abroad [fields,

To range her blooming bowers, and spacious Where on the labours of the happy throng She smiles, including in her wild embrace City, and town, and tower,--and sea with ships

Sprinkled; - be our Companion while we track

Her rivers populcus with gliding life;
While, free as air, o'er printless sands we
march,

Or pierce the gloom of her majestic woods;
Roaming, or resting under grateful shade
In peace and meditative cheerfulness;
Where living things, and things inanimate,
Do speak, at Heaven's command, to eye
and ear,

And speak to social reason's inner sense,
With inarticulate language.

For, the ManWho, in this spirit, communes with the Forms

Of nature, who with understanding heart
Both knows and loves such objects as excite
No morbid passions, no disquietude,
No vengeance, and no hatred-needs must
feel

The joy of that pure principle of love
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In fellow-natures and a kindred joy.
Accordingly he by degrees perceives
His feelings of aversion softened dowr;
A holy tenderness pervade his frame.
His sanity of reason not impaired,
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing
clear,

From a clear fountain flowing, he looks round

And seeks for good; and finds the good he seeks:

Until abhorrence and contempt are things He only knows by name; and, if he hear, From other mouths, the language which they speak,

He is compassionate; and has no thought; No feeling, which can overcome his love.

And further; by contemplating these Forms

In the relations which they bear to man,

He shall discern, how, through the various

means

come

Which silently they yield, are multiplied
The spiritual presence of absent things.
Trust me, that for the instructed, time will
[teach
When they shall meet no object but may
Some acceptable lesson to their minds
Of human suffering, or of human joy.
So shall they learn, while all things speak
of man,
[laws,
Their duties from all forms; and general
And local accidents, shall tend alike
To rouse, to urge; and, with the will, confer
The ability to spread the blessings wide
Of true philanthropy. The light of love
Not failing, perseverance from their steps
Departing not, for them shall be confirmed
The glorious habit by which sense is made
Subservient still to moral purposes,
Auxiliar to divine. That change shall
clothe

The naked spirit, ceasing to deplore
The burthen of existence. Science then
Shall be a precious visitant; and then,
And only then, be worthy of her name:
For then her heart shall kindle her dull eye,
Dull and inanimate, no more shall hang
Chained to its object in brute slavery;
But taught with patient interest to watch
The process of things, and serve the cause
Of order and distinctness, not for this
Shall it forget that its most noble use,
Its most illustrious province, must be found
In furnishing clear guidance, a support
Not treacherous to the mind's excursive
power.

-So build we up the Being that we are; Thus deeply drinking-in the soul of things, We shall be wise perforce; and while inspired [free By choice, and conscious that the Will is Shall move unswerving, even as if impelled

By strict necessity, along the path

Of order and of good. Whate'er we see,
Or feel, shall tend to quicken and refine;
Shall fix, in calmer seats of moral strength,
Earthly desires; and raise, to loftier heights
Of divine love, our intellectual soul."

In open circle seated round, and hushed
As the unbreathing air, when not a leaf
Stirs in the mighty woods. So did he
speak:

The words he uttered shall not pass away
Dispersed, like music that the wind takes up
By snatches, and lets fall, to be forgotten;
No-they sank into me, the bounteous gift
Of one whom time and nature had made
wise,

Gracing his doctrine with authority
Which hostile spirits silently allow;
Of one accustomed to desires that feed
On fruitage gathered from the tree of life;
To hopes on knowledge and experience
built;

Of one in whom persuasion and belief
Had ripened into faith, and faith become
A passionate intuition; whence the Soul,
Though bound to earth by ties of pity and
love,

From all injurious servitude was free.

The Sun, before his place of rest were
reached,

Had yet to travel far, but unto us,
To us who stood low in that hollow dell,
He had become invisible,-a pomp
Leaving behind of yellow radiance spread
Over the mountain sides, in contrast bold
With ample shadows, seemingly, no less
Than those resplendent lights, his rich be-
quest;

A dispensation of his evening power.
-Adown the path that from the glen had
led
[Mate

The funeral train, the Shepherd and his Were seen descending :-forth to greet them

With ostentatious zeal.-Along the floor
Of the small Cottage in the lonely Dell
A grateful couch was spread for our repose;
Where, in the guise of mountaineers, we
lay,
[sound
Stretched upon fragrant heath, and lulled by
Of far-off torrents charming the still night,
And. to tired limbs and over-busy thoughts,
Inviting sleep and soft forgetfulness.