246

CHIDHAR THE PROPHET.

A thousand years went by, and then
I passed the self-same place again.

There in the deep of waters cast
His nets one lonely fisherman,
And as he drew them up at last,
I asked him how that lake began.
He looked at me and laughed to say,
"The waters spring forever and aye,
And fish are plenty every day."

A thousand years went by, and then
I went the self-same road again.

I found a country wild and rude,
And, axe in hand, beside a tree,
The hermit of that solitude,
I asked how old that wood might be.
He spoke, "I count not time at all,
A tree may rise, a tree may fall,
The forest overlives us all.”

A thousand years went on, and then
I passed the self-same place again.

And there a glorious city stood,
And, 'mid tumultuous market-cry,
I asked when rose the town, where wood,
Pasture and lake, forgotten lie.

They heard me not, and little blame, —
For them the world is as it came,
And all things must be still the same.

A thousand years shall pass, and then
I mean to try that road again.

POETRY

FOR

HOME AND SCHOOL.

PART II.

SOME MURMUR, WHEN THEIR SKY IS CLEAR.R. C. Trench.

SOME murmur, when their sky is clear
And wholly bright to view,

If one small speck of dark appear
In their great heaven of blue;
And some with thankful love are filled,
If but one streak of light,
One ray of God's good mercy, gild
The darkness of their night.

In palaces are hearts that ask,
In discontent and pride,
Why life is such a dreary task,

And all good things denied ;
And hearts in poorest huts admire
How Love has in their aid
(Love that not ever seems to tire)
Such rich provision made.

WEEP NOT FOR BROAD LANDS LOST.-R. C. Trench.

WEEP not for broad lands lost;
Weep not for fair hopes crost;

Weep not when limbs wax old;
Weep not when friends grow cold;
Weep not tha Death must part
Thine and the best loved heart;

Yet weep, weep all thou can,-
Weep, weep, because thou art
A sin-defilèd man.

SUNDAYS.-Henry Vaughan.

BRIGHT shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss ; Heaven once a week;

The next world's gladness prepossessed in this;
A day to seek;

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages; lamps that light Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich And full redemption of the whole week's flight; The pulleys unto headlong man; time's bower; The narrow way; "Transplanted paradise; God's walking hour; The cool o' th' day;

The creature's jubilee; God's parle with dust; Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh and flowers;

Angels descending; the returns of trust;
A gleam of glory after six days' showers;
The church's love-feasts; time's prerogative
And interest,

Deducted from the whole, the combs and hive,
And home of rest;

The milky way chalked out with suns; a clue

That guides through erring hours, and in full story A taste of heaven on earth; the pledge and cue

Of a full feast, and the out-courts of glory.

THE BOY OF EGREMOND.

THE BOY OF EGREMOND." — Rogers.

"SAY, what remains when hope is fled?
She answered, "Endless weeping!"
For in the herdsman's eye she read
Who in his shroud lay sleeping.

At Embsay rung the matin-bell,
The stag was roused on Barden-fell;
The mingled sounds were swelling, dying,
And down the Wharfe a hern was flying;
When near the cabin in the wood,
In tartan clad and forest-green,

With hound in leash and hawk in hood,
The Boy of Egremond was seen.
Blithe was his song, a song of yore;
But where the rock is rent in two,
And the river rushes through,

His voice was heard no more!

'T was but a step! the gulf he past;
But that step,
- it was his last!
As through the mist he winged his way
(A cloud that hovers night and day),

The hound hung back, and back he drew
The master and his merlin too.

* In the twelfth century, William Fitz-Duncan laid waste the valleys of Craven with fire and sword, and was afterwards established there by his uncle, David of Scotland.

He was the last of the race; his son, commonly called the Boy of Egremond, dying before him in the manner here related; when a priory was removed from Embsay to Bolton, that it might be as near as possible to the place where the accident happened. That place is still known by the name of the Strid; and the mother's answer, as given in the first stanza, is to this day often repeated in Wharfedale. See Whitaker's History of Craven.

250

LIFE AND DEATH.

That narrow place of noise and strife
Received their little all of life!

There now the matin-bell is rung,
The "Miserere!" duly sung;
And holy men in cowl and hood
Are wandering up and down the wood.
But what avail they? Ruthless Lord,
Thou didst not shudder when the sword
Here on the young its fury spent,
The helpless and the innocent.
Sit now and answer groan for groan;
The child before thee is thy own.
And she who wildly wanders there,
The mother in her long despair,
Shall oft remind thee, waking, sleeping,
Of those who by the Wharfe were weeping;
Of those who would not be consoled,
When red with blood the river rolled.

LIFE AND DEATH.-R. C. Trench.

A PARABLE, FROM THE GERMAN OF RÜCKERT.

THERE went a man through Syrian land,
Leading a camel by the hand.

The beast, made wild by some alarm,
Began to threaten sudden harm,
So fiercely snorting, that the man
With all his speed escaping ran;
He ran, and saw a well that lay,
As chance would have it, by the way.
He heard the camel snort so near,
As almost maddened him with fear,

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