But should thankless silence seal
Lips, that might half Heaven reveal,
Should bards in idol-hymns profane
The sacred soul-enthralling strain,
(As in this bad world below

Noblest things find vilest using,)
Then, thy power and mercy shew,

In vile things noble breath infusing ;

Then waken into sound divine
The very pavement of thy shrine,
Till we, like Heaven's star-sprinkled floor,
Faintly give back what we adore.
Childlike though the voices be,

And untunable the parts,
Thou wilt own the minstrelsy,

If it flow from childlike hearts.

MONDAY BEFORE EASTER.

Doubtless Thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us,

and Israel acknowledge us not. Isaiah lxin. 16.

FATHER to me Thou art and Mother dear,
“ And Brother too, kind husband of my

heart” So speaks Andromache in boding fear,

Ere from her last embrace her hero part-
So evermore, by Faith's undying glow,
We own the Crucified in weal or woe.

Strange to our ears the church-bells of our home,

The fragrance of our old paternal fields May be forgotten ; and the time may come

When the babe's kiss no sense of pleasure yields Even to the doting mother: but thine own Thou never canst forget, nor leave alone.

There are who sigh that no fond heart is theirs,

None loves them best—0 vain and selfish sigh ! Out of the bosom of His love He spares

The Father spares the Son, for thee to die : For thee He died—for thee He lives again : O'er thee He watches in His boundless reign.

Thou art as much His care, as if beside

Nor man nor angel liv’d in heaven or earth : Thus sunbeams pour alike their glorious tide

To light up worlds, or wake an insect's mirth: They shine and shine with unexhausted storeThou art thy Saviour's darling-seek no more.

On thee and thine, thy warfare and thine end,

Even in His hour of agony He thought, When, ere the final pang His soul should rend,

The ransom'd spirits one by one were brought To his mind's eye-two silent nights and days" In calmness for His far-seen hour He stays.

Ye vaulted cells where martyr'd seers of old

Far in the rocky walls of Sion sleep, Green terraces and arched fountains cold,

Where lies the cypress shade so still and deep, Dear sacred haunts of glory and of woe, Help us, one hour, to trace His musings high and low:

One heart-ennobling hour! It may not be:

Th’unearthly thoughts have pass’d from earth away, And fast as evening sunbeams from the sea

Thy footsteps all in Sion's deep decay Were blotted from the holy ground: yet dear Is every stone of hers; for Thou wast surely here.

There is a spot within this sacred dale

That felt Theekneeling-touch'd thy prostrate brow: One angel knows it. O might prayer avail

To win that knowledge ! sure each holy vow Less quickly from th' unstable soul would fade, Offer'd where Christ in agony was laid.

Might tear of ours once mingle with the blood

That from His aching brow by moonlight fell,

Over the mournful joy our thoughts would brood,

Till they had fram'd within a guardian spell
To chase repining fancies, as they rise,
Like birds of evil wing, to mar our sacrifice.

So dreams the heart self-flattering, fondly dreams;

Else wherefore, when the bitter waves o'erflow, Miss we the light, Gethsemane, that streams

From thy dear name, where in His page of woe It shines, a pale kind star in winter's sky? Who vainly reads it there, in vain had seen Him die.

TUESDAY BEFORE EASTER.

They gave him to drink wine mingled with myrrh : but he received it not. St. Mark xv. 23.

“FILL high the bowl, and spice it well, and pour 66 The dews oblivious: for the Cross is sharp,

“ The Cross is sharp, and He
66 Is tenderer than a lamb.