THE PRAISE OF MEN.

Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!

Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the elements !
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!

311

Thou, too, hoar mount, with thy sky-pointing peaks! Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard, Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene, Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast, Thou, too, again, stupendous mountain! thou That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low In adoration, upward from thy base

Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapory cloud,
To rise before me, -rise, Ö, ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense, from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from earth to heaven,
Great hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.

THE PRAISE OF MEN. - Trench.
"Cum laudaris, teipsum contemne."
Augustine.
WHEN men exalt thee with their flatteries,
Be thou provoked thine own self to despise,
And, for an help to this, the meanest thing
Which thou hast ever done to memory bring.

Think, too, that now thou dost in peril fall
Of doing a yet meaner thing than all,
If, being what thou art in thine own sight,
Thou canst this praise appropriate as thy right.

COUPLETS.- Trench.

To halls of heavenly truth admission wouldst thou win ? Oft Knowledge stands without, while Love may enter in.

Lovingly to each other sun and moon give place, Else were the mighty heaven for them too narrow space.

Despise not little sins; for mountain-high may stand The piled heap made up of smallest grains of sand.

Despise not little sins; the gallant ship may sink, Though only drop by drop the watery tide it drink.

God many a spiritual house has reared, but never one Where lowliness was not laid first, the corner-stone.

Rear highly as thou wilt thy branches in the air,
But that thy roots shall strike as deep in earth have

care.

Sin, not till it is left, will duly sinful seem;
A man must waken first, ere he can tell his dream.

When thou art fain to trace a map of thine own heart, As undiscovered land set down the largest part.

Wouldst thou do harm, and yet unharmed thyselfabide? None ever struck another, save through his own side.

God's dealings still are love,- his chastenings are alone Love now compelled to take an altered, louder tone.

From our ill-ordered hearts we oft are fain to roam, As men go forth who find unquietness at home.

Why furnish with such care thy lodging of a night, And leave the while thy home in such a naked plight?

When thou hast thanked thy God for every blessing sent,

What time will then remain for murmurs or lament?

Envy detects the spots in the clear orb of light,
And Love the little stars in the gloomiest, saddest night.

Thou canst not choose but serve,— man's lot is servitude,

But thou hast this much choice, a bad lord or a good,

Before the eyes of men let duly shine thy light,
But ever let thy life's best part be out of sight.

Wouldst thou go forth to bless, be sure of thine own ground,

Fix well thy centre first, then draw thy circles round

Sin may be clasped so close we cannot see its face, Nor seen nor loathed until held from us a small space.

If humble, next of thy humility beware,
And lest thou shouldst grow proud of such a grace

have care.

314

How fearful is his case whom now God does not chide

When sinning worst, to whom even chastening is denied!

COUPLETS.

God often would enrich, but finds not where to place His treasure, nor in hand nor heart a vacant space.

O, leave to God at sight of sin incensed to be! Sinner if thou art grieved, that is enough for thee.

Set not thy heart on things given only with intent
To be alleviations of thy banishment.

Ill fares the child of heaven, who will not entertain On earth the stranger's grief, the exile's sense of pain.

Mark how there still has run, enwoven from above, Through thy life's darkest woof, the golden thread of love.

Things earthly we must know ere love them: 't is alone Things heavenly that must be first loved and after known.

The sinews of Love's arm use makes more firm and strong, Which, being left unused, will disappear ere long.

Wouldst thou abolish quite strongholds of self and sin?

Fear can but make the breach for Love to enter in.

When God afflicts thee, think he hews a rugged stone, Which must be shaped, or else aside as useless thrown.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

Evil, like a rolling stone upon a mountain-top,
A child may first set off, a giant cannot stop.

315

He knew, who healed our wounds, we quickly should be fain

Our old hurts to forget, so let the scars remain.

When will the din of earth grate harshly on our ears? When we have once heard plain the music of the spheres.

Why win we not at once what we in prayer require? That we may learn great things as greatly to desire.

The tasks, the joys of earth, the same in heaven will be;

Only the little brook has widened to a sea.

Who hunt this world's delight too late their hunting

rue,

When it a lion proves, the hunter to pursue.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD. — Wordsworth.

I.

THERE was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,

To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,

The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;
Turn wheresoe'er I may,

By night or day,

The things which I have seen I now can see no more.