SELBORNE.

A SONNET, TO THE SAME.

THAT quiet vale! it greets my vision now,
As when we saw it, one autumnal day,

A cloudless sun brightening each feathery spray
Of woods that clothed the Hanger to its brow:
Woods-whose luxuriance hardly might allow
A peep at that small hamlet, as it lay,
Bosomed in orchard-plots and gardens gay,
With here and there a field, perchance, to plough.
Delightful valley! still I own thy claim;

As when I gave thee one last lingering look,
And felt thou wast indeed a fitting nook
For HIM to dwell in, whose undying name
Has unto thee bequeathed its humble fame,
Pure, and imperishable,-like his book!

TO E. F.

ON HER REAPPEARANCE AMONG HER FRIENDS,

AT THE YEARLY MEETING, 1845.

ONCE more thy well-known voice lift up, A Saviour's goodness to proclaim;

Take in thy hand salvation's cup,

Call on thy God, and bless His name!

It harmonizes with the past

Of a devoted life, like thine,

That thus serenely to the last

Thy setting sun should brightly shine. Long since first shone its morning rays, Its noon-tide splendour may be spent ;Can coming night avert our gaze,

While stars are in the firmament? Faith, hope, and love, as stars come forth, Making a more than noon of night! And bear this witness to thy worth,

'Tis eventide, and round thee-light!

"A CHRISTIAN IS THE HIGHEST STYLE OF

MAN."

"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto!"

A NOBLE thought! and worthy to awake,
From Rome's proud senate, in her palmy days,
Both for the orator's and nature's sake,
O'erwhelming echoes of accordant praise.

"I am a man! and therefore to my heart Think nothing human alien e'er can be; That sense of union can enough impart

Of weal or woe to make it dear to me!

And, truly, in such bond of brotherhood,

To those who estimate its hidden might, Enough is seen, and felt, and understood,

For human hearts to own its hallowed right.

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"A CHRISTIAN IS THE

But while I pay my homage to his soul,
Who thus humanity could broadly scan;
And, looking only at their mighty whole,

Do honour to the natural rights of man;

I can but feel-a Christian, by his faith,
May humbly stand upon yet higher ground;
And feel to all who live by vital breath

In a still dearer brotherhood fast bound!

Is he a follower of The Crucified

The Nazarene-who died that all might live? In that one bond of union is implied

More than the Roman creed could ever give.

That would but link, by human sympathy,
The noble speaker to his fellow-man;

But this makes known a closer unity

Than proud philosophy had power to scan.

There needs no more to knit in closest thrall, Beyond what Greek or Roman ever knew, Than this-" One common Saviour died for all!

And rose again-to prove his mission true!"

HIGHEST STYLE OF MAN."

This, of itself, has a more hallowing leaven,
Than human sympathy can e'er confer;
Because its loftier hopes are linked with heaven,
And God's own word is its interpreter !

Then chide me not, if, yielding homage due
Unto the noble Roman's noble thought,
I hold the humblest Christian's happier view
As with a higher, holier union fraught.

Higher-as opening up a loftier line;

Holier-as springing from a deeper root; For LOVE TO GOD may be pronounced divine, When LOVE OF MAN becomes its genuine fruit!

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