The heavy gale swept over the surge; The corpse was cast to the wind and wave,——— The convict has found in the green sea a grave. LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON. HOPELESS GRIEF. I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless,- Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Of the absolute heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death; In everlasting watch and moveless woe, ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING. IV. COMFORT AND CHEER. TO MYSELF. LET nothing make thee sad or fretful, Be still; What God hath ordered must be right; My will. Why shouldst thou fill to-day with sorrow About to-morrow, My heart? One watches all with care most true; Only be steadfast; never waver, Thou knowest what God wills must be For all his creatures, so for thee, The best. From the German of PAUL FLEMING. Translation of CATHERINE WINKWORTH. THE FLOWER. How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean Are thy returns! even as the flowers in spring; To which, besides their own demean, The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring. Like snow in May, As if there were no such cold thing. Who would have thought my shrivelled heart Could have recovered greenness? It was gone Quite underground; as flowers depart To see their mother root, when they have blown; Where they together All the hard weather, Dead to the world, keep house unknown. These are thy wonders, Lord of power, This or that is: Thy word is all, if we could spell. O that I once past changing were, Fast in thy paradise, where no flower can wither! Many a spring I shoot up fair, Off'ring at heav'n, growing and groning thither; Nor doth my flower Want a spring-showre, My sinnes and I joining together. But, while I grow in a straight line, Still upwards bent, as if heav'n were mine own, Thy anger comes, and I decline: What frost to that? what pole is not the zone Where all things burn, When thou dost turn, And the least frown of thine is shown? And now in age I bud again; After so many deaths I live and write; That I am he On whom thy tempests fell all night! These are thy wonders, Lord of love, Swelling through store, Forfeit their paradise by their pride. GEORGE HERBERT. SONNET. TO CYRIACK SKINNER. CYRIACK, this three years' day, these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What supports me, dost thou ask? The conscience, friend, to have lost them overplied In Liberty's defence, my noble task, Of which all Europe rings from side to side. This thought might lead me through the world's vain mask, Content, though blind, had I no better guide. MILTON. INVICTUS. OUT of the night that covers me, In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud; Beyond this place of wrath and tears And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, |