In snow-white splendour,-think again; Out of a farewell yearning-favoured more

TROUBLED long with warring notions
Long impatient of Thy rod,
I resign my soul's emotions
Unto Thee, mysterious God!

What avails the kindly shelter
Yielded by this craggy rent,
If my spirit toss and welter

Give voice to what my hand shall trace, 5 On the waves of discontent?

And fear not lest an idle sound
Of words unsuited to the place
Disturb its solitude profound.

I saw this Rock, while vernal air
Blew softly o'er the russet heath,
Uphold a Monument as fair
As church or abbey furnisheth.
Unsullied did it meet the day,

ΙΟ

Parching Summer hath no warrant
To consume this crystal Well;
Rains, that make each rill a torrent,
Neither sully it nor swell.

Thus, dishonouring not her station,
Would my Life present to Thee,
Gracious God, the pure oblation
Of divine tranquillity!

5

ΙΟ

15

My fancy kindled as I gazed;
And, ever as the sun shone forth,
The flattered structure glistened, blazed,
And seemed the proudest thing on earth.
But frost had reared the gorgeous Pile 21
Unsound as those which Fortune builds-
To undermine with secret guile,

Sapped by the very beam that gilds.

XIV.
V.

NOT seldom, clad in radiant vest,
Deceitfully goes forth the Morn;
Not seldom Evening in the west
Sinks smilingly forsworn.

The smoothest seas will sometimes prove,
To the confiding Bark, untrue;

And, while I gazed, with sudden shock 25 | And, if she trust the stars above

Fell the whole Fabric to the ground;
And naked left this dripping Rock,
With shapeless ruin spread around!

SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER.

MODERNISED.

I,

THE PRIORESS' TALE.

"Call up him who left half told

The story of Cambusean bold,"

In the following Poem no further deviation from the original has been made than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the Author: so much, however, is the language altered since Chaucer's time, especially in pronunciation, that much was to be removed, and its place supplied with as little incongruity as possible. The ancient accent has been retained in a few conjunctions, as alsò and alwày, from a conviction that such sprinklings of antiquity would be admitted, by persons of taste, to have a graceful accordance with the subject. The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine background for her tender-hearted sympathies with the Mother and Child; and the mode in which the story is told amply atones for the extravagance of the miracle.

Thy worship is performed and precious O bush unburnt! burning in Moses'

The light to us vouchsafing of thy prayer,
To be our guide unto thy Son so dear.

V.

"My knowledge is so weak, O blissful

Queen!

IX.

"This Widow thus her little Son hath taught

60

Our blissful Lady, Jesu's Mother dear,
To worship aye, and he forgat it not;
Sweet is the holiness of youth: and hence,
For simple 2 infant hath a ready ear.
Calling to mind this matter when I may,
Saint Nicholas in my presence standeth
aye,

To tell abroad thy mighty worthiness, 30
That I the weight of it may not sustain;
But as a child of twelvemonths old or less,
That laboureth his language to express,
Even so fare I; and therefore, I thee pray,
Guide thou my song which I of thee shall For he so young to Christ did reverence.

The whilst the rest their anthem-book
repeat

The Alma Redemptoris did he hear;
And as he durst he drew him near and
near,

By a great Lord, for gain and usury,
Hateful to Christ and to His company; 40
And through this street who list might And hearkened to the words and to the

ride and wend;