And wrought within his shattered brain,
Such quick poetic senses,

As hills have language for, and stars,
Harmonious influences!

The pulse of dew upon the grass
Kept his within its number;
And silent shadows from the trees
Refreshed him like a slumber.

Wild timid hares were drawn from woods
To share his home-caresses,
Uplooking to his human eyes
With sylvan tendernesses :
The very world, by God's constraint,
From falsehood's ways removing,

Its women and its men became
Beside him, true and loving.

But while in blindness he remained
Unconscious of the guiding,

And things provided came without
The sweet sense of providing,
He testified this solemn truth,
Though frenzy desolated -
Nor man, nor nature satisfy,
Whom only God created!

Like a sick child that knoweth not
His mother while she blesses

And drops upon his burning brow
The coolness of her kisses,
That turns his fevered eyes around

"My mother! where's my mother?" As if such tender words and looks

Could come from any other!

The fever gone, with leaps of heart,
He sees her bending o’er him;
Her face all pale from watchful love,
The unweary love she bore him!
Thus, woke the poet from the dream,
His life's long fever gave him,
Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes,

Which closed in death, to save him!

Thus? oh, not thus! no type of earth Could image that awaking,

Wherein he scarcely heard the chant Of seraphs, round him breaking, Or felt the new immortal throb

Of soul from body parted;

But felt those eyes alone, and knew
My Saviour! not deserted!

Deserted! who hath dreamt that when

The Cross in darkness rested,

Upon the Victim's hidden face,

No love was manifested?

What frantic hands outstretched have e'er

The atoning drops averted,

What tears have washed them from the soul, That one should be deserted?

Deserted! God could separate

From His own essence rather:
And Adam's sins have swept between
The righteous Son and Father;
Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry,
His universe hath shaken -
It went up single, echoless,
"My God, I am forsaken!"

It went up from the Holy's lips
Amid His lost creation,

That, of the lost, no son should use
Those words of desolation;

That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope,
Should mar not hope's fruition,
And I, on Cowper's grave, should see
His rapture, in a vision!

CHEERFULNESS.

I THINK We are too ready with complaint
In this fair world of God's. Had we no hope
Indeed beyond the zenith and the cope

Of yon gray blank of sky, we might be fain
To muse upon eternity's constraint

Round our aspirant souls. But since the scope
Must widen early, is it well to droop
For a few days consumed in loss and faint?
O pusillanimous Heart, be comforted;
And like a cheerful traveller, take the road,
Singing beside the hedge. What if the bread
Be bitter in thine inn, and thou unshod

To meet the flints? At least it may be said,
"Because the way is short, I thank Thee, God!"

44

Oliver Wendell Holmes.

GOD IS LOVE.

OR is our being's only end and aim To add new glories to our Maker's name, As the poor insect, shrivelling in the blaze, Lends a faint sparkle to its streaming rays? Does earth send upwards to the Eternal's ear The mingled discords of her jarring sphere To swell His anthem, while Creation rings With notes of anguish from its shattered strings? Is it for this the immortal Artist means These conscious, throbbing, agonized machines?

Dark is the soul whose sullen creed can bind
In chains like these the all-embracing mind;
No! two-faced bigot! thou dost ill reprove
The sensual selfish, yet benignant Jove,