So without sound of music,

Or voice of them that wept,

Silently down from the mountain's crown,
The great procession swept.

Perchance the bald old eagle,
On gray Beth-Peor's height,
Out of his lonely eyrie,

Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking,

Still shuns that hallowed spot,

For beast and bird have seen and heard,
That which man knoweth not.

But when the warrior dieth,

His comrades in the war,

With arms reversed and muffled drum,

Follow his funeral car ;

They show the banners taken,

They tell his battles won,

And after him lead his masterless steed,

While peals the minute-gun.

Amid the noblest of the land,

We lay the sage to rest,

And give the bard an honored place

With costly marble drest,

In the great minster transept

Where lights like glories fall,

And the organ rings, and the sweet choir sings, Along the emblazoned wall.

This was the truest warrior

That ever buckled sword, This, the most gifted poet

That ever breathed a word;
And never earth's philosopher
Traced with his golden pen

On the deathless page, truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.

And had he not high honor,—
The hillside for a pall,

To lie in state, while angels wait

With stars for tapers tall,

And the dark rock-pines like tossing plumes

Over his bier to wave,

And God's own hand, in that lonely land,

To lay him in the grave?

In that strange grave without a name,

Whence his uncoffined clay

Shall break again, O wondrous thought!
Before the judgment-day,

And stand with glory wrapt around

On hills he never trod,

And speak of the strife that won our life
With the Incarnate Son of God.

O lonely grave in Moab's land!
O dark Beth-Peor's hill!

Speak to these curious hearts of ours,
And teach them to be still.

God hath His mysteries of grace,

Ways that we cannot tell;

He hides them deep, like the hidden sleep Of him He loved so well.

Sir Edwin Arnold.

1832.

APRIL.

Blossom of the almond trees,
April's gift to April's bees,
Birthday ornament of spring,
Flora's fairest daughterling ;-
Coming when no flowerets dare
Trust the cruel outer air,
When the royal king cup bold
Will not don his coat of gold,
And the sturdy blackthorn spray
Keeps its silver for the May ;-
Coming when no flowerets would,
Save thy lowly sisterhood,
Early violets, blue and white,

Dying for their love of light,—

Almond blossom, sent to teach us,

That the spring-days soon will reach us,

Lest, with longing over-tried,

We die as the violets died.

Blossom, clouding all the tree
With thy crimson 'broidery,
Long before a leaf of green
On the bravest bough is seen ;
Ah! when winter winds are swinging
All thy red bells into ringing,
With a bee in every bell,

Almond bloom, we greet thee well.

Sabine Baring-Gould.

1834.

THE OLIVE-TREE.

Said an ancient hermit, bending
Half in prayer upon his knee,
"Oil I need for midnight watching,
I desire an olive-tree."

Then he took a tender sapling,
Planted it before his cave,

Spread his trembling hands above it,
As his benison he gave.

But he thought, the rain it needeth,

That the root may drink and swell: "God! I pray Thee, send Thy showers!" So a gentle shower fell.

"Lord! I ask for beams of summer, Cherishing this little child." Then the dripping clouds divided,

And the sun looked down and smiled.

Send it frost to brace its tissues,
O my God!" the hermit cried.
Then the plant was bright and hoary,
But at evensong it died.

Went the hermit to a brother
Sitting in his rocky cell :
"Thou an olive-tree possessest;
How is this, my brother, tell?

"I have planted one, and prayed,
Now for sunshine, now for rain ;
God hath granted each petition,
Yet my olive-tree hath slain!"

Said the other: "I intrusted
To its God my little tree;

He who made knew what it needed
Better than a man like me.

"Laid I on Him no condition,

Fixed not ways and means; so I

Wonder not my olive thriveth,

Whilst thy olive-tree did die."