1375.-HYMN TO INTELLECTUAL BEAUTY.

The awful shadow of some unseen power

Floats, though unseen, among us-visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower;

Like moonbeams, that behind some piny mountain shower,

It visits with inconstant glance
Each human heart and countenance,
Like hues and harmonies of evening,

Like clouds in starlight widely spread,
Like memory of music fled,

Like aught that for its grace may be
Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery.

Spirit of beauty, that dost consecrate With thine own hues all thou dost shine upon

Of human thought or form, where art thou gone?

Why dost thou pass away and leave our state,

This dim, vast vale of tears, vacant and desolate ?

Ask why the sunlight not for ever Weaves rainbows o'er yon mountain river;

Why aught should fail and fade that once is shown;

Why fear, and dream, and death, and

birth

Cast on the daylight of this earth

Such gloom; why man has such a scope For love and hate, despondency and hope?

No voice from some sublimer world hath ever

To sage or poet these responses given; Therefore the names of demon, ghost, and heaven,

Remain the records of their vain endeavourFrail spells, whose utter'd charm might not avail to sever

From all we hear and all we see Doubt, chance, and mutability. Thy light alone, like mist o'er mountains driven,

Or music by the night wind sent

Through strings of some still instrument, Or moonlight on a midnight stream, Gives grace and truth to life's unquiet dream.

Love, hope, and self-esteem, like clouds depart,

And come, for some uncertain moments

lent.

Man were immortal and omnipotent Didst thou, unknown and awful as thou art, Keep with thy glorious train firm state within his heart.

Thou messenger of sympathies

That wax and wane in lover's eyes! Thou that to human thought art nourishment,

Like darkness to a dying flame! Depart not as thy shadow came!

Depart not, lest the grave should be,

Like life and fear, a dark reality.

While yet a boy I sought for ghosts, and sped

Through many a listening chamber, cave, and ruin,

And starlight wood, with fearful steps pursuing

Hopes of high talk with the departed dead.
I call'd on poisonous names with which our
youth is fed;

I was not heard; I saw them not.
When musing deeply on the lot

Of life, at that sweet time when winds are wooing

All vital things that wake to bring
News of birds and blossoming,
Sudden thy shadow fell on me-

I shriek'd, and clasp'd my hands in ecstasy!

I vow'd that I would dedicate my powers
To thee and thine; have I not kept the
Vow?

With beating heart and streaming eyes,

And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,

Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmur'd-Victory!
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's
gloom ?

Whom come ye forth to combat -warriors, whom?

These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train

Red from the scourge, and recent from the chain?

God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!

Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave! North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds

fly,

The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train ;

Their cloudy guide moves on:-" And must we swim the main ?"

'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,

Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood; He comes-their leader comes!-the man of God

O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod, And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,

In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet;

And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,

Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell;

Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd, The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world; And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,

And caves, and sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt,

are seen.

Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;

The beetling waters storm above their head; While far behind retires the sinking day, And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, Or dark to them or cheerless came the night. Still in their van, along that dreadful road, Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God.

Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave
On the long mirror of the rosy wave;
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every

eye

To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain ; Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine,

And tenfold darkness broods above their line. Yet on they fare by reckless vengeance led, And range unconscious through the ocean's bed;

Till midway now-that strange and fiery form

Show'd his dread visage light'ning through the storm;

With withering splendour blasted all their

might,

And brake their chariot wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight.

"Fly, Misraim, fly!" The ravenous floods they see,

And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.

Fly, Misraim, fly!" From Edom's coral strand

Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand.

With one wild crash the thundering waters

sweep,

And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep; Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,

As mortal wailing swell'd the nightly blast.

And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore

The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood

In trustless wonder by the avenging flood! Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show

The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below!
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car-
A few sad relics of a nation's war;

Alas, how few! Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had
borne

The house of bondage and the oppressor's

scorn,

The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,

In faltering accents sobb'd his gratitude,
Till kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound;
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbb'd in Miriam's
breast.

She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,
Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet
harmony.

"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear?

On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where ?

Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.

Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphèd!” And every pause between, as Miriam sang, From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, And loud and far their stormy chorus spread

Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphèd!"

Bishop Heber.-Born 1783, Died 1826.

1378.-FROM BISHOP HEBER'S JOURNAL.

If thou wert by my side, my love,
How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale!

If thou, my love, wert by my side,
My babies at my knce,
How gaily would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide,

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam
I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn or eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still;
O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
O'er bleak Almorah's hill.

That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates,
Nor wild Malwah detain;

For sweet the bliss us both awaits
By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark-blue sea;

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay
As then shall meet in thee!

Bishop Heber.-Born 1783, Died 1826.

1379.-AN EVENING WALK IN
BENGAL.

Our task is done!-on Gunga's breast
The sun is sinking down to rest;
And, moor'd beneath the tamarind bough,
Our bark has found its harbour now.
With furled sail and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride:
Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslem's savoury supper steams;
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.

Come, walk with me the jungle through-
If yonder hunter told us true,
Far off, in desert dank and rude,
The tiger holds its solitude;
Now (taught by recent harm to shun
The thunders of the English gun)
A dreadful guest but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on; no venom'd snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake-
Child of the sun, he loves to lie
'Midst nature's embers, parch'd and dry,
Where o'er some tower in ruin laid,
The peepul spreads its haunted shade;
Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe,
Fit warder in the gate of Death.
Come on; yet pause! Behold us now
Beneath the bamboo's arched bough,
Where, gemming oft that sacred gloom,
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom;

And winds our path through many a bower

Of fragrant tree and giant flower-
The ceiba's crimson pomp display'd
O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade,
And dusk anana's prickly glade;
While o'er the brake, so wild and fair,
The betel waves his crest in air;
With pendant train and rushing wings,
Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs;
And he, the bird of hundred dyes,
Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize.
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod !
Yet who in Indian bowers has stood,

But thought on England's "good greenwood;"
And bless'd, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade;
And breath'd a prayer (how oft in vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again?

A truce to thought-the jackal's cry
Resounds like sylvan revelry;

And through the trees yon failing ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet mark, as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes-
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring;
While to this cooler air confest,
The broad dhatura bares her breast,
Of fragrant scent and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night!
Still as we pass, in soften'd hum
Along the breezy alleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum :
Still as we pass, from bush and brier
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And what is she whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?

I know that soul-entrancing swell,

It is it must be-Philomel!
Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;
And we must early sleep, to find
Betimes the morning's healthy wind.
But oh with thankful hearts confess
E'en here there may be happiness;
And He, the bounteous Sire, has given
His peace on earth-his hope of heaven.
Bishop Heber.-Born 1783, Died 1826.

1380.-EFIPHANY.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning, Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine

aid!

Star of the East, the horizon adorning, Guide where our infant Redeemer is lil

Thou art gone to the grave-and, its mansion forsaking,

Perhaps thy tried spirit in doubt linger'd long,

But the sunshine of heaven beam'd bright on thy waking,

And the song which thou heard'st was the seraphim's song.

Thou art gone to the grave-but 'twere wrong to deplore thee,

When God was thy ransom, thy guardian, thy guide;

He gave thee, and took thee, and soon will restore thee,

Where death hath no sting, since the Saviour hath died.

Bishop Heber.-Born 1783, Died 1826.

1382.-SPRING.

When spring unlocks the flowers to paint the laughing soil;

When summer's balmy showers refresh the mower's toil;

When winter binds in frosty chains the fallow and the flood,

In God the earth rejoiceth still, and owns his Maker good.

The birds that wake the morning, and those that love the shade,

The winds that sweep the mountain or lull the drowsy glade,

The sun that from his amber bower rejoiceth on his way,

The moon and stars their Master's name in silent pomp display.

Shall man, the lord of nature, expectant of the sky

Shall man, alone unthankful, his little praise

deny ?

No; let the year forsake his course, the seasons cease to be,

Thee, Master, must we always love, and, Saviour, honour thee.

The flowers of spring may wither, the hope of summer fade,

The autumn droop in winter, the bird forsake the shade,

The winds be lull'd, the sun and moon forget

their old decree,

But we, in nature's latest hour, O Lord, will cling to thee!

Bishop Heber.-Born 1783, Died 1826.

1383-LINES WRITTEN IN THE
CHURCHYARD OF RICHMOND,
YORKSHIRE.

Methinks it is good to be here,

If thou wilt, let us build-but for whom?
Nor Elias nor Moses appear;

But the shadows of eve that encompass with gloom

The abode of the dead and the place of the tomb.

Shall we build to Ambition? Ah no! Affrighted, he shrinketh away;

For see, they would pin him below In a small narrow cave, and, begirt with cold

clay,

To the meanest of reptiles a peer and a prey.

To Beauty? Ah no! she forgets The charms which she wielded before; Nor knows the foul worm that he frets The skin which but yesterday fools could adore,

For the smoothness it held or the tin twhich it wore.