SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.

He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High, which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see Him, but not now: I shall behold Him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Seth.-NUм. xxiv. 16, 17.

O FOR a sculptor's hand,

That thou might'st take thy stand,

Thy wild hair floating on the eastern breeze,
Thy tranced yet open gaze

Fixed on the desert haze,

As one who deep in Heaven some airy pageant sees.

In outline dim and vast

Their fearful shadows cast

The giant forms of empires on their way
To ruin one by one

They tower and they are gone,

Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.

No sun or star so bright
In all the world of light

That they should draw to Heaven his downward eye: He hears the Almighty's word,

He sees the angel's sword,

Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie.

Lo! from yon argent field,

To him and us revealed,

One gentle star glides down, on earth to dwell.

Chained as they are below

Our eyes may see it glow,

And, as it mounts again, may track its brightness well.

To him it glared afar,

A token of wild war,

The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath :

But close to us it gleams,

Its soothing lustre streams

Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way

We in the tents abide

Which he at distance eyed

Like goodly cedars by the waters spread,

While seven red altar-fires

Rose up in wavy spires,

[path.

Where on the mount he watched his sorceries dark and dread.

He watched till morning's ray

On lake and meadow lay,

And willow-shaded streams, that silent sweep

Around the bannered lines,

Where by their several signs

The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep.

He watched till knowledge came

Upon his soul like flame,

Not of those magic fires at random caught:

But true prophetic light

Flashed o'er him, high and bright,

Flashed once, and died away, and left his darkened thought.

And can he choose but fear,
Who feels his GOD so near,

That when he fain would curse, his powerless tongue
In blessing only moves ?-

Alas! the world he loves

Too close around his heart her tangling veil hath flung.

Sceptre and star divine,

Who in thine inmost shrine

Hast made us worshippers, O claim thine own;
More than thy seers we know—

O teach our love to grow

Up to thy heavenly light, and reap what thou hast sown.

KEBLE.

MONDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.-GENESIS Xi. 8.

SINCE all that is not heaven must fade,
Light be the hand of Ruin laid
Upon the home I love:

With lulling spell let soft Decay
Steal on, and spare the giant sway,
The crash of tower and grove.

Far opening down some woodland deep
In their own quiet glade should sleep
The relics dear to thought,

And wild-flower wreaths from side to side
Their waving tracery hang, to hide
What ruthless Time has wrought.

Such are the visions green and sweet
That o'er the wistful fancy fleet
In Asia's sea-like plain,

Where slowly, round his isles of sand,
Euphrates through the lonely land
Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest;
There her forlorn and weary nest
The famished hawk has found,
The wild dog howls at fall of night,
The serpent's rustling coils affright
The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high,
Half seen against the evening sky,
Seems like a ghost to glide,

And watch, from Babel's crumbling heap,
Where in her shadow, fast asleep,
Lies fallen imperial pride?1

2

With half-closed eye a lion there
Lies basking in his noon-tide lair,
Or prowls in twilight gloom.
The golden city's king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreams2
Sprang from rough ocean's womb.
But where are now his eagle wings,
That sheltered erst a thousand kings,
Hiding the glorious sky

From half the nations, till they own
No holier name, no mightier throne?
That vision is gone by.

3

Quenched is the golden statue's ray,
The breath of heaven has blown away
What toiling earth had piled,
Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's sand

The fabrics of a child.

1 See Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, ii. 387. "In my second visit to Birs Nimrood, my party suddenly halted, having descried several dark objects moving along the summit of its hill, which they construed into dismounted Arabs on the look out: I took out my glass to examine, and soon distinguished that the causes of our alarm were two or three majestic lions, taking the air upon the heights of the pyramid." 3 Daniel ii, and iii.

2 Daniel vii. 4.

Divided thence through every age
Thy rebels, Lord, their warfare wage,
And hoarse and jarring all

Mount up their heaven-assailing cries
To thy bright watchmen in the skies
From Babel's shattered wall.

Thrice only since, with blended might
The nations on that haughty height
Have met to scale the heaven;
Thrice only might a Seraph's look
A moment's shade of sadness brook-
Such power to guilt was given.

Now the fierce Bear and Leopard keen '
Are perished as they ne'er had been,
Oblivion is their home:

Ambition's boldest dream and last
Must melt before the clarion blast
That sounds the dirge of Rome.

Heroes and Kings, obey the charm,
Withdraw the proud high-reaching arm,
There is an oath on high,

That ne'er on brow of mortal birth
Shall blend again the crowns of earth,
Nor in according cry

Her many voices mingling own
One tyrant Lord, one idol throne:
But to His triumph soon

He shall descend, who rules above,
And the pure language of His love 2
All tongues of men shall tune.

1 Daniel vii. 5, 6. 2 Then will I turn the people to a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one consent.-Zeph. iii. 9.