THE PASTOR.
O E be to the priest, y-born,
That will not cleanly weed his corn,
And preach his charge among;
Woe be to that shepherd, I say,
That will not watch his foes away,
As to his office doth belong ;
Woe be to him that doth not keep,
From Romish wolves his sheep,
With staff and weapon strong.
The Welsh Bard Taliessyn.*
THE PASTOR.
IGH thoughts at first, and visions high,
Are ours of easy victory;
The Word we bear seems so divine,
So framed for Adam's guilty line,
That none, unto ourselves we say,
Of all his finning, suffering race
Will hear that Word, so full of grace,
And coldly turn away.
* From Usher's Religion of the Ancient Irish, c. X.
But soon a fadder mood comes round,
High hopes have fallen to the ground,
And the Ambassadors of Peace
Go weeping that men will not cease
To strive with Heaven; they inly mourn,
That suffering men will not be blest,
That weary men refuse to rest,
And wanderers to return.
TRENCH.
O aid the fatherless,
Comfort the sick, and be the poor
man's
friend,
And in the wounded heart pour Gospel
balm.
SOUTHEY.
H! it is sweet to die- to part from earth,
And win all heaven for things of little
worth—
Then sure thou wouldīt not, though
thou couldst, awake
The little slumberer for its mother's fake.
It is when those we love in death depart,
That earth has slightest hold upon the heart.
EDMESTON.
JORGIVE, blest shade, the tributary tear
That mourns thy exit from a world
like this;
Forgive the wish that would have kept
thee here, And stayed thy progress to the realms of bliss.
No more confined by grovelling scenes of night,
No more a tenant pent in mortal clay ;
Now should we rather hail thy glorious flight,
And trace thy journey to the realms of day.
LYTTLETON.
HAT hallows ground where heroes
sleep?
'Tis not the sculptured pile we heap;
In dews that heavens far distant weep,
Their turf may bloom,
Or genii twine beneath the deep
Their coral tomb.
But strew his ashes to the wind,
Whose word or voice has served mankind.
And is he dead whose glorious mind,
Lifts thine on high?
To live in hearts we leave behind,
Is not to die.
ERVANT of God, well done!
Rest from thy loved employ ;
The battle o'er, the victory won,
Enter thy Master's joy.
The cry at midnight came,
He started up to hear ;
A mortal arrow pierced his frame,-
He fell, but felt no fear.
His spirit with a bound
Left its encumbering clay ;
His tent at sunrise on the ground
A darkened ruin lay.
HEN let us be content to leave behind
So much, which yet we leave not quite
behind ;
For the bright memories of the holy
dead,
The blessed ones departed, shine on us
Like the pure splendours of some large star,
Which pilgrims, travelling onward, at their back
Leave, and at every moment see not now;
Yet, whensoever they lift, may pause and turn,
And with their glories hide their faces still.
Or, as beneath a northern sky is seen
The sunken sunset living in the West,
A tender radiance there surviving long,
Which has not faded all
before
The flaming banners of the morn advance
Over the summits of the Orient Hills.
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