A SONG FOR ST. CECILIA'S DAY. FROM harmony, from heavenly harmony, And could not heave her head, Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry, From harmony, from heavenly harmony From harmony to harmony. Through all the compass of the notes it ran, What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Less than a God they thought there could not dwell That spoke so sweetly and so well. What passion cannot Music raise and quell? Orpheus could lead the savage race; But bright Cecilia raised the wonder higher GRAND CHORUS. As from the power of sacred lays So when the last and dreadful hour UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF JOHN | But guide us upward to a better day. MILTON. [Prefixed to "Paradise Lost."] THREE poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England, did adorn, The first in loftiness of thought surpassed; The next in majesty; in both the last, The force of nature could no further go; To make a third, she joined the former two. [From Religio Laici.] THE LIGHT OF REASON. DIM as the borrowed beams of moon and stars To lonely, weary, wandering travellers, Is reason to the soul: and as on high, Those rolling fires discover but the sky, Not light us here; so Reason's glimmering ray Was lent, not to assure our doubtful way, And as these nightly tapers disappear, When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere; So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight; So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light. A future cordial for a fainting mind; For, what was ne'er refused, all hoped to find, Each in his turn, the rich might freely come, As to a friend; but to the poor, 'twas home. As to some holy house the afflicted came, The hunger-starved, the naked and the lame; Want and disease both fled before her name, For zeal like hers her servants were too slow; She was the first, where need required, to go; Herself the foundress and attendant too. [From Eleonora.] BEAUTIFUL DEATH. As precious gums are not for lasting fire, They but perfume the temple, and expire: So was she soon exhaled and vanished hence; A short sweet odor of a vast expense. She vanished, we can scarcely say she died: For but a now did heaven and earth divide: She passed serenely with a single breath; This moment perfect health, the next was death: One sigh did her eternal bliss assure; So little penance needs, when souls are almost pure. As gentle dreams our waking thoughts pursue; Or, one dream passed, we slide into a No pains she suffered, nor expired with noise; Her soul was whispered out with God's still voice; As an old friend is beckoned to a feast, And treated like a long-familiar | guest. He took her as he found, but found her so, As one in hourly readiness to go: E'en on that day, in all her trim prepared; As early notice she from heaven had heard; And some descending courier from above [move; Had given her timely warning to reOr counselled her to dress the nuptial room. For on that night the bridegroom was to come, He kept his hour, and found her where she lay Clothed all in white, the livery of the day; Scarce had she sinned in thought, or word, or act; Unless omissions were to pass for fact: That hardly death a consequence could draw, To make her liable to nature's law. And, that she died, we only have to show The mortal part of her she left below: The rest, so smooth, so suddenly she went, Looked like translation through the firmament. [From The Character of a Good Parson.] THE MODEL PREACHER, YET of his little he had some to spare, To feed the famished and to clothe the bare: For mortified he was to that degree, A poorer than himself he would not And thin partitions do their bounds see. divide. |