Gleanings from the Poets

When one by one each human sound

Dies on the awful ear,

Then Nature's voice no more is drowned, She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours she on the Christian heart
That warning still and deep,
At which high spirits of old would start
E'en from their pagan sleep,

Just guessing, through their murky blind,
Few, faint, and baffling sight,
Streaks of a brighter heaven behind
A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
Through many a dreary age,
Upbore whate'er of good and wise
Yet lived in bard or sage :

They marked what agonizing throes
Shook the great mother's womb;
But Reason's spells might not disclose
The gracious birth to come;

Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast
God's secret love and power;
The travail-pangs of Earth must last
Till her appointed hour;

The hour that saw from opening heaven Redeeming glory stream,

Beyond the summer hues of even,
Beyond the mid-day beam.

256

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,
The meanest things below,
As with a seraph's robe of fire
Invested, burn and glow :

The rod of heaven has touched them all,
The word from heaven is spoken:
“Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall !
Are not thy fetters broken?

"The God who hallowed thee, and blest,
Pronouncing thee all good,-
Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,
And all thy bliss renewed?

"Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft,
Now that th' eternal Son

His blessed home in heaven hath left
To make thee all his own?”

Thou mourn'st because sin lingers still
In Christ's new heaven and earth;
Because our rebel works and will
Stain our immortal birth;

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,
The Saviour hides his face,
And worldlings blot the temple's gold
With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail-pains;
Hence, till thy God return,

In Wisdom's ear thy blithest strains,
O Nature, seem to mourn!

IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY. — Burns.

Is there, for honest poverty,

That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Our toil 's obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man 's the gowd for a' that!

What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man, for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

Their tinsel show, and a' that,
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,

Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He 's but a coof for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

His riband, star, and a' that,
The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at a' that !

A king can mak' a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that,

१

But an honest man 's aboon his might,
Guid faith he mauna fa' that!

258

THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT.

For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense and pride o' worth
Are higher ranks than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a' that,

That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,

It 's comin' yet, for a' that,
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that!

THE GREENWOOD SHRIFT.- Blackwood's Magazine.

OUTSTRETCHED beneath the leafy shade

Of Windsor Forest's deepest glade

A dying woman lay;

Three little children round her stood,
And there went up from the greenwood
A woful wail that day.

"O mother! ,,
was the mingled cry,
"O mother! mother! do not die

And leave us all alone."

My blessed babes!" she tried to say,
But the faint accents died away
In a low sobbing moan.

And then life struggled hard with death,
And fast and strong she drew her breath,
And up she raised her head

And peering through the deep wood's maze With a long, sharp, unearthly gaze,

"Will he not come ?" she said.

Just then, the parting boughs between,
A little maid's light form was seen,
All breathless with her speed;
And following close, a man came on
(A portly man to look upon),
Who led a panting steed.

"Mother!" the little maiden cried,
Or e'er she reached the woman's side,
And kissed her clay-cold cheek,
"I have not idled in the town,
But long went wandering up and down,
The minister to seek.

They told me here, they told me there, I think they mocked me everywhere; And when I found his home,

And begged him on my bended knee
To bring his book, and come with me,
Mother! he would not come.

"I told him how you dying lay,

And could not go in peace away
Without the minister;