Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours. Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; ON FIRST READING CHAPMAN'S HOMER. That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne: Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific - and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmiseSilent, upon a peak in Darien. LINES ON THE MERMAID TAVERN. SOULS of Poets dead and gone, What Elysium have ye known, Happy field or mossy cavern, Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern? No! those days are gone away, And their hours are old and gray, And their minutes buried all Under the down-trodden pall Of the leaves of many years: Many times have winter's shears, Frozen North, and chilling East, Sounded tempests to the feast Of the forest's whispering fleeces, Since men knew nor rent nor leases. No, the bugle sounds no more, Past the heath and up the hill; On the fairest time of June Or the seven stars to light you, Gone, the merry morris din; She would weep, and he would craze: So it is yet let us sing, Honor to maid Marian, And to all the Sherwood-clan! Let us two a burden try. JOHN KEBLE. JOHN KEBLE, a famous English clergyman and poet, born at Fairford, Gloucestershire, April 25, 1792; died at Bournemouth, Hampshire, Marc' 27, 1866. He took his degree at Oriel College, Oxford, in 1810. He was ordained in 1815, and in 1823 resigned all his Oxford employments from a sense of duty and accepted three small curacies, the united emoluments of which were less than £100 a year. In 1824 he declined an archdeanery in the West Indies, worth £2,000 a year; and in 1825 accepted the curacy of Hursley, becoming Vicar of the parish in 1839. In 1832 he was made Professor of Poetry at Oxford. His "Prælectiones Academica," in Latin, were published in 1832-1840. His sermon, "The National Apostacy," preached at Oxford in 1833, is characterized as "the start of the religious movement" of that time. He was also the author of several of the famous "Tracts for the Times." He edited and annotated "The Complete W rks of Richard Hooker (4 vols., 1836); and in 1838, in conjunct on with Newman and Pusey, began the editing of the Library of the Fathers,' a collection extending to some forty volumes. His poetical works comprise "The Christian Year," upon which his reputation mainly rests, and of which more than 500,000 copies have been sold (1827); “The Child's Christian Year" (1841); The Psalter, in English Verse" (1839); "Lyra Innocentium" (1846); and a volume of "Posthumous Poems." The "Life of Kebie" has been written by Chief-Justice Sir John Taylor Coleridge (1868). THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. (THE CHRISTIAN INHERITANCE.) SEE Lucifer like lightning fall, This world of Thine, by him usurped too long, Now opening all her stores to heal Thy servants' wrong. So when the first-born of Thy foes When Thy redeemed at midnight rose And cast their bonds away, The rphaned realm threw wide her gates and told And when their wondrous march was o'er, Where Abraham fed his flocks of yore, Among their fathers' tombs; A land that drinks the rain of Heaven at will, Whose waters kiss th feet many a vine-clad hill: Oft as they watched, at thoughtful eve, A gale from bowers of balm Sweep o'er the billowy corn, and heave The tresses of the palm, Just as the lingering Sun had touched with gold, It was a fearful joy, I ween, To trace the Heathen's toil The limpid wells, the orchards green, Left ready for the spoil, The household stores untouched, the roses bright And now another Canaan yields To Thine all-conquering Ark; Fly from the "old poetic" fields, Immortal Greece, dear land of glorious lays, Lo! here the "unknown God" of thy unconscious praise! The olive-wreath, the ivied wand, "The sword in myrtles drest," Each legend of the shadowy strand Now wakes a vision blest; As little children lisp, and tell of Heaven, So thoughts beyond their thought to those high bards were given. And these are ours; Thy partial grace The tempting treasure lends: These relics of a guilty race Are forfeit to Thy friends; |