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ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS.

PART III.

FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE PRESENT TIMES.

I.

I SAW the figure of a lovely Maid

Seated alone beneath a darksome tree,
Whose fondly-overhanging canopy

Set off her brightness with a pleasing shade.
No Spirit was she; that my heart betrayed,
For she was one I loved exceedingly;

But while I gazed in tender reverie

(Or was it sleep that with my Fancy played?)
The bright corporeal presence-form and face—
Remaining still distinct grew thin and rare,
Like sunny mist;-at length the golden hair,
Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace
Each with the other in a lingering race

Of dissolution, melted into air.

II.

PATRIOTIC SYMPATHIES.

LAST night, without a voice, this Vision spake
Fear to my Soul, and sadness that might seem
Wholly dissevered from our present theme;
Yet, my beloved Country! I partake
Of kindred agitations for thy sake;

Thou, too, dost visit oft my midnight dream;
Thy glory meets me oft with the earliest beam
Of light, which tells that Morning is awake.
If aught impair thy beauty or destroy,
Or but forebode destruction, I deplore

With filial love the sad vicissitude ;

If thou hast fallen, and righteous Heaven restore The prostrate, then my spring-time is renewed, And sorrow bartered for exceeding joy.

III.

CHARLES THE SECOND.'

WHO Comes with rapture greeted, and caress'd
With frantic love his kingdom to regain?
Him Virtue's Nurse, Adversity, in vain
Received, and fostered in her iron breast:
For all she taught of hardiest and of best,
Or would have taught, by discipline of pain
And long privation, now dissolves amain,
Or is remembered only to give zest
To wantonness.-Away, Circean revels!

But for what gain? if England soon must sink

Into a gulf which all distinction levels

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That bigotry may swallow the good name,

And, with that draught, the life-blood: misery, shame,

By Poets loathed; from which Historians shrink!

IV.

LATITUDINARIANISM.

YET Truth is keenly sought for, and the wind

Charged with rich words poured out in thought's defence;

Whether the Church inspire that eloquence,

Or a Platonic Piety confined

To the sole temple of the inward mind;
And One there is who builds immortal lays,
Though doomed to tread in solitary ways,
Darkness before and danger's voice behind!
Yet not alone, nor helpless to repel

Sad thoughts; for from above the starry sphere
Come secrets, whispered nightly to his ear;
And the pure spirit of celestial light

Shines through his soul- that he may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.'

V.

CLERICAL INTEGRITY.

NOR shall the eternal roll of praise reject
Those Unconforming; whom one rigorous day
Drives from their Cures, a voluntary prey
To poverty, and grief, and disrespect,
And some to want as if by tempests wrecked
On a wild coast; how destitute! did They
Feel not that Conscience never can betray,

That peace of mind is Virtue's sure effect.
Their altars they forego, their homes they quit,
Fields which they love, and paths they daily trod,
And cast the future upon Providence ;

As men the dictate of whose inward sense
Outweighs the world; whom self-deceiving wit
Lures not from what they deem the cause of God.