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Nor doth the outward ear alone

At that high warning start;

Conscience gives back th' appalling tone; "Tis echoed in the heart.

It fills the Church of God; it fills
The sinful world around;

Only in stubborn hearts and wills
No place for it is found.

To other strains our souls are set :
A giddy whirl of sin

Fills ear and brain, and will not let

Heaven's harmonies come in,

Come, Lord, come, Wisdom, Love, and Power,

Open our ears to hear;

Let us not miss th' accepted hour;

Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.

MONDAY IN WHITSUN-WEEK.

So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth and they left off to build the city. Genesis xi. 8.

SINCE all that is not heav'n must fade,

Light be the hand of Ruin laid

Upon the home I love :

With lulling spell let soft Decay
Steal on, and spare the giant sway,
The crash of tower and grove.

Far opening down some woodland deep
In their own quiet glade should sleep
The relics dear to thought,

And wild-flower wreaths from side to side
Their waving tracery hang, to hide

What ruthless Time has wrought.

Such are the visions green and sweet
That o'er the wistful fancy fleet

In Asia's sea-like plain,

Where slowly, round his isles of sand,
Euphrates through the lonely land

Winds toward the pearly main.

Slumber is there, but not of rest;
There her forlorn and weary nest
The famish'd hawk has found,
The wild dog howls at fall of night,
The serpent's rustling coils affright
The traveller on his round.

What shapeless form, half lost on high',
Half seen against the evening sky,

Seems like a ghost to glide,

And watch, from Babel's crumbling heap,
Where in her shadow, fast asleep,

Is fall'n imperial Pride?

f See Sir R. K. Porter's Travels, ii. 387. "In my second visit to Birs Nimrood, my party suddenly halted, having descried several dark objects moving along the summit of its hill, which they construed into dismounted Arabs on the look out: I took out my glass to examine, and soon distinguished that the causes of our alarm were two or three majestic lions, taking the air upon the heights of the pyramid."

With half-clos'd eye a lion there
Lies basking in his noontide lair,
Or prowls in twilight gloom.
The golden city's king he seems,
Such as in old prophetic dreams

Sprang from rough ocean's womb.

But where are now his eagle wings,
That shelter'd erst a thousand kings,

Hiding the glorious sky

From half the nations, till they own

No holier name, no mightier throne?
That vision is gone by.

Quench'd is the golden statue's ray

h

The breath of heaven has blown away

What toiling earth had pil'd,

Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's sand

The fabrics of a child.

Divided thence through every age
Thy rebels, Lord, their warfare wage,

g Daniel vii. 4.

h Daniel ii. and iii.

And hoarse and jarring all

Mount up their heaven assailing cries To thy bright watchmen in the skies From Babel's shatter'd wall.

Thrice only since, with blended might The nations on that haughty height Have met to scale the heaven:

Thrice only might a Seraph's look

A moment's shade of sadness brook— Such power to guilt was given.

Now the fierce Bear and Leopard keen i Are perish'd as they ne'er had been,

Oblivion is their home:

Ambition's boldest dream and last
Must melt before the clarion blast

That sounds the dirge of Rome.

Heroes and Kings, obey the charm, Withdraw the proud high-reaching arm There is an oath on high,

i Daniel vii. 5, 6.

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