Prescribed to duty!— woful forfeiture
He made by wilful breach of law divine.
With like perverseness did the Church abjure
Obedience to her Lord, and haste to twine,
'Mid Heaven-born flowers that shall for aye endure,
Weeds on whose front the world had fixed her sign.
O Man! if with thy trials thus it fares,
If good can smooth the way to evil choice,
From all rash censure be the mind kept free;
He only judges right who weighs, compares,
And, in the sternest sentence which his voice
Pronounces, ne'er abandons Charity.
FROM false assumption rose, and, fondly hailed
By superstition, spread the Papal power;
Yet do not deem the Autocracy prevailed
Thus only, even in error's darkest hour.
She daunts, forth-thundering from her spiritual tower,
Brute rapine, or with gentle lure she tames.
Justice and Peace through her uphold their claims;
And Chastity finds many a sheltering bower.
Realm there is none that, if controlled or swayed
By her commands, partakes not, in degree,
Of good, o'er manners, arts, and arms diffused:
Yes, to thy domination, Roman See,
Though miserably, oft monstrously, abused
By blind ambition, be this tribute paid.
“HERE Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall, More promptly rises, walks with stricter heed, More safely rests, dies happier, is freed
Earlier from cleansing fires, and gains withal
A brighter crown?' On
That confident assurance may be read;
And, to like shelter, from the world have fled
Increasing multitudes. The potent call
Doubtless shall cheat full oft the heart's desires;
Yet, while the rugged Age on pliant knee
Vows to rapt Fancy humble fealty,
A gentler life spreads round the holy spires;
Where'er they rise, the sylvan waste retires,
And aëry harvests crown the fertile lea.
DEPLORABLE his lot who tills the ground,
His whole life long tills it, with heartless toil
Of villain-service, passing with the soil
To each new Master, like a steer or hound,
Or like a rooted tree, or stone earth-bound;
But mark how gladly, through their own domains,
The Monks relax or break these iron chains;
While Mercy, uttering, through their voice, a sound Echoed in Heaven, cries out, "Ye Chiefs, abate These legalized oppressions! Man, whose name And nature God disdained not, - Man, whose soul Christ died for,
cannot forfeit his high claim
To live and move exempt from all control
Which fellow-feeling doth not mitigate!"
RECORD We too, with just and faithful pen,
That many hooded Cenobites there are,
Who in their private cells have yet a care
Of public quiet; unambitious Men,
Counsellors for the world, of piercing ken;
Whose fervent exhortations from afar
Move Princes to their duty, peace or war;
And ofttimes in the most forbidding den
Of solitude, with love of science strong,
How patiently the yoke of thought they bear!
How subtly glide its finest threads along!
Spirits that crowd the intellectual sphere
With mazy boundaries, as the astronomer
With orb and cycle girds the starry throng.
AND, not in vain embodied to the sight,
Religion finds even in the stern retreat
Of feudal sway her own appropriate seat;
From the collegiate pomps on Windsor's height
Down to the humbler altar, which the Knight
And his Retainers of the embattled hall
Seek in domestic oratory small,
For prayer in stillness, or the chanted rite;
Then chiefly dear, when foes are planted round.
Who teach the intrepid guardians of the place-
Hourly exposed to death, with famine worn,
And suffering under many a perilous wound
How sad would be their durance, if forlorn
Of offices dispensing heavenly grace!
AND what melodious sounds at times prevail!
And, ever and anon, how bright a gleam
Pours on the surface of the turbid Stream!
What heart-felt fragrance mingles with the gale
That swells the bosom of our passing sail!
For where, but on this River's margin, blow
Those flowers of chivalry, to bind the brow
Of hardihood with wreaths that shall not fail?-
Fair Court of Edward! wonder of the world!
I see a matchless blazonry unfurled
Of wisdom, magnanimity, and love;
And meekness tempering honorable pride;
The lamb is couching by the lion's side,
And near the flame-eyed eagle sits the dove.
Furl we the sails, and pass with tardy oars Through these bright regions, casting many
Upon the dream-like issues, - the romance
Of many-colored life, that Fortune pours
Round the Crusaders, till on distant shores
Their labors end; or they return to lie,
The vow performed, in cross-legged effigy,
Devoutly stretched upon their chancel floors.
Am I deceived? or is their requiem chanted
By voices never mute, when Heaven unties
Her inmost, softest, tenderest harmonies;
Requiem which Earth takes up with voice un-
daunted,
When she would tell how Brave, and Good, and
Wise,
For their high guerdon not in vain have panted!
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