When the sullen death-bell tolls
For our own departed souls-
When our final doom is near:
Gracious Son of Mary, hear!

Thou hast bow'd the dying head,
Thou the blood of life hast shed,
Thou hast fill'd a mortal bier :
Gracious Son of Mary, hear!

When the heart is sad within
With the thought of all its sin,
When the spirit shrinks with fear,
Gracious Son of Mary, hear!

Thou the shame, the grief hast known;
Though the sins were not Thine own,
Thou hast deign'd their load to bear:
Gracious Son of Mary, hear!

H. H. Milman.-Born 1791.

1669.-BROTHER, THOU ART GONE.

Brother, thou art gone before us,

And thy saintly soul is flown Where tears are wiped from every eye, And sorrow is unknown

From the burden of the flesh,

And from care and sin released, Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest.

The toilsome way thou 'st travell'd o'er,
And hast borne the heavy load;
But Christ hath taught thy wandering feet
To reach His blest abode.
Thou'rt sleeping now, like Lazarus,

On his Father's faithful breast,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.

Sin can never taint thee now,

Nor can doubt thy faith assail; Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ And the Holy Spirit fail.

And there thou'rt sure to meet the good, Whom on earth thou lovest best, Where the wicked cease from troubling, And the weary are at rest.

"Earth to earth, and dust to dust,"

Thus the solemn priest hath said-
So we lay the turf above thee now,
And seal thy narrow bed;
But thy spirit, brother, soars away
Among the faithful blest,
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

And when the Lord shall summon us
Whom thou now hast left behind,
May we, untainted by the world,
As sure a welcome find;

May each, like thee, depart in peace,
To be a glorious, happy guest
Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

H. H. Milman.-Born 1791.

1670.-CHORUS.

King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Thus we move, our sad steps timing
To our cymbals' feeblest chiming,
Where Thy house its rest accords.
Chased and wounded birds are we,
Through the dark air fled to Thee-
To the shadow of Thy wings,
Lord of lords! and King of kings!

Behold, O Lord! the heathen tread
The branches of Thy fruitful vine,
That its luxurious tendrils spread

O'er all the hills of Palestine.
And now the wild boar comes to waste
Even us the greenest boughs and last,
That, drinking of Thy choicest dew,
On Zion's hill in beauty grew.

No! by the marvels of Thine hand,
Thou wilt save Thy chosen land!
By all Thine ancient mercies shown,
By all our fathers' foes o'erthrown,
By the Egyptian's car-borne host,
Scatter'd on the Red Sea coast-
By that wide and bloodless slaughter
Underneath the drowning water.

Like us, in utter helplessness,
In their last and worst distress-
On the sand and sea-weed lying-
Israel pour'd her doleful sighing;
While before the deep sea flow'd,
And behind fierce Egypt rode-
To their father's God they pray'd,
To the Lord of hosts for aid.

On the margin of the flood
With lifted rod the prophet stood;
And the summon'd east wind blew,
And aside it sternly threw

The gather'd waves that took their stand,
Like crystal rocks, on either hand,
Or walls of sea-green marble piled
Round some irregular city wild.

Then the light of morning lay
On the wonder-paved way,
Where the treasures of the deep
In their caves of coral sleep.
The profound abysses, where
Was never sound from upper air,
Rang with Israel's chanted words:
King of kings! and Lord of lords!
Then with bow and banner glancing,
On exulting Egypt came;

With her chosen horsemen prancing,
And her cars on wheels of flame,
In a rich and boastful ring,

All around her furious king.

But the Lord from out His cloud,

The Lord look'd down upon the proud;
And the host drave heavily
Down the deep bosom of the sea.

With a quick and sudden swell

Prone the liquid ramparts fell;
Over horse, and over car,
Over every man of war,

Over Pharaoh's crown of gold,
The loud thundering billows roll'd,
As the level waters spread

Down they sank-they sank like lead
Down sank without a cry or groan.
And the morning sun, that shone
On myriads of bright-arm'd men,
Its meridian radiance then

Cast on a wide sea, heaving, as of yore,
Against a silent, solitary shore.

"My boy John

He that went to sea

What care I for the ship, sailor?
My boy's my boy to me.

"You come back from sea,
And not know my John?

I might as well have ask'd some landsman, Yonder down in the town.

There's not an ass in all the parish

But knows my John.

"How's my boy-my boy?

And unless you let me know
I'll swear you are no sailor,
Blue jacket or no-

Brass buttons or no, sailor,
Anchor and crown or no-

Sure his ship was the Jolly Briton".
'Speak low, woman, speak low!"

"And why should I speak low, sailor,
About my own boy John?
If I was loud as I am proud
I'd sing him over the town!
Why should I speak low, sailor ?".
"That good ship went down.”

"How's my boy-my boy?
What care I for the ship, sailor-
I was never aboard her.
Be she afloat or be she aground

Love is the happy privilege of the mind-
Love is the reason of all living things.
A Trinity there seems of principles,
Which represent and rule created life-
The love of self, our fellows, and our God.
In all throughout one common feeling reigns:
Each doth maintain, and is maintain'd by the
other :

All are compatible-all needful; one
To life, to virtue one,-and one to bliss:
Which thus together make the power, the end,
And the perfection of created Being,
From these three principles doth every deed,
Desire, and will, and reasoning, good or bad,

unseen

Void of gross sign-is scarce a simple essence,
Immortal, immaterial, though it be.
One only simple essence liveth-God,-
Creator, uncreate. The brutes beneath,
The angels high above us, with ourselves,
Are but compounded things of mind and form.
In all things animate is therefore cored
An elemental sameness of existence;
For God, being Love, in love created all,
As he contains the whole and penetrates.
Seraphs love God, and angels love the good:
We love each other; and these lower lives,
Which walk the earth in thousand diverse
shapes,

According to their reason, love us too:
The most intelligent affect us most.
Nay, man's chief wisdom's love-the love of
God.

The new religion-final, perfect, pure-
Was that of Christ and love. His great com-
mand-

His all-sufficing precept-was't not love? Truly to love ourselves we must love God,To love God we must all his creatures love,

To love his creatures, both ourselves and Him. Thus love is all that's wise, fair, good, and happy!

Philip James Bailey.-Born 1816.

1673.-ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

O thou vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!

Thou thing that windest round the solid world

Like a huge animal, which, downward hurl'd From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,

Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone.
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily-laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no
life

Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife. The earth hath nought of this: no chance or change

Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-waken'd air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go :
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow :
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their wonted home;
And come again, and vanish; the young
Spring

Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer
flies.

Oh! wonderful thou art, great element:
And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding
caves,

I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters
teach-

Eternity-Eternity-and Power.

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

Disown'd their natural green, and took black And mournful hue; and the rough brier, stretching

His straggling arms across the rivulet,
Lay like an arm'd sentinel there, catching
With his tenacious leaf straws, wither'd
boughs,

Moss that the banks had lost, coarse grasses which

Swam with the current, and with these it hid The poor Marcelia's deathbed. Never may net

Of venturous fisher be cast in with hope,
For not a fish abides there. The slim deer
Snorts as he ruffles with his shortened breath
The brook, and panting flies the unholy place,
And the white heifer lows, and passes on;
The foaming hound laps not, and winter birds
Go higher up the stream. And yet I love
To loiter there: and when the rising moon
Flames down the avenue of pines, and looks
Red and dilated through the evening mists,
And chequer'd as the heavy branches sway
To and fro with the wind, I stay to listen,
And fancy to myself that a sad voice,
Praying, comes moaning through the leaves,
as 'twere

For some misdeed. The story goes-that

some

Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world Frown'd upon) once stray'd thither, and 'twas thought

Cast herself in the stream: you may have heard

Of one Marcelia, poor Nolina's daughter, who Fell ill and came to want? No! Oh, she loved

A wealthy man, who mark'd her not. He wed,

And then the girl grew sick, and pined away, And drown'd herself for love.

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

Circling the round globe in their wandering,
To thee their ancient queen and mother sing.
Mother of beauty! veil'd queen!
Fear'd and sought, and never seen
Without a heart-imposing feeling,
Whither art thou gently stealing?
In thy smiling presence, I
Kneel in star-struck idolatry,
And turn me to thine eye (the moon),
Fretting that it must change so soon:
Toying with this idle rhyme,

I scorn that bearded villain Time,
Thy old remorseless enemy,
And build my link'd verse to thee.
Not dull and cold and dark art thou:
Who that beholds thy clearer brow,
Endiadem'd with gentlest streaks

Of fleecy-silver'd cloud, adorning
Thee, fair as when the young sun 'wakes,
And from his cloudy bondage breaks,

And lights upon the breast of morning,
But must feel thy powers;

Mightier than the storm that lours,
Fairer than the virgin hours

That smile when the young Aurora scatters Her rose-leaves on the valleys low,

And bids her servant breezes blow.

Not Apollo, when he dies,

In the wild October skies,

Red and stormy; or when he

In his meridian beauty rides

Over the bosom of the waters,

And turns the blue and burning tides
To silver, is a peer for thee,
full regality.

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

And the lovely morn did break
Through the azure of her eyes,
And her heart was warm and meek,
And her hope was in the skies.

But the lady loved at last,
And the passion pain'd her soul,
And her hope away was cast,
Far beyond her own control;
And the clouded thoughts that roll
Through the midnight of the mind,
O'er her eyes of azure stole,
Till they grew deject and blind.

He to whom her heart was given,
When May music was in tune,
Dared forsake that amorous heaven,
Changed and careless soon!

Oh, what is all beneath the moon
When his heart will answer not!
What are all the dreams of noon
With our love forgot!

Heedless of the world she went,
Sorrow's daughter, meek and lone,
Till some spirit downwards bent
And struck her to this sleep of stone.
Look! Did old Pygmalion

Sculpture thus, or more prevail,
When he drew the living tone
From the marble pale?

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

1676.-THE SLEEPING FIGURE OF MODENA.

Upon a couch of silk and gold
A pale enchanted lady lies,
And o'er her many a frowning fold
Of crimson shades her closed eyes;
And shadowy creatures round her rise;
And ghosts of women masqued in woe;
And many a phantom pleasure flies:
And lovers slain-ah, long ago!

The lady, pale as now she sleeps,
An age upon that couch hath lain,
Yet in one spot a spirit keeps
His mansion, like a red-rose stain;
And, when lovers' ghosts complain,
Blushes like a new-born flower,
Or as some bright dream of pain
Dawneth through the darkest hour.

Once-but many a thought hath fled,
Since the time whereof I speak-
Once the sleeping lady bred
Beauty in her burning cheek,

For suns to ripen, come! O phenix rare!
If death hath spared, or philosophic search
Permit thee still to own thy haunted nest,
Perfect Arabian-lonely nightingale!
Dusk creature, who art silent all day long,
But when pale eve unseals thy clear throat,
loosest

Thy twilight music on the dreaming boughs
Until they waken ;-and thou, cuckoo bird,
Who art the ghost of sound, having no shape
Material, but dost wander far and near,
Like untouch'd echo whom the woods deny
Sight of her love-come all to my slow
charm!

Come thou, sky-climbing bird, wakener of

morn,

Who springest like a thought unto the sun, And from his golden floods dost gather wealth

(Epi halamium and Pindarique song),
And with it enrich our ears; come all to me,
Beneath the chamber where my lady lies,
And, in your several musics, whisper-Love!
B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

1678.-TO THE SNOWDROP. Pretty firstling of the year!

Herald of the host of flowers! Hast thou left thy cavern drear, In the hope of summer hours? Back unto thy earthen bowers! Back to thy warm world below,

Till the strength of suns and showers Quell the now relentless snow!

Art still here ?-Alive, and blythe?
Though the stormy Night hath fled,
And the Frost hath pass'd his scythe
O'er thy small, unshelter'd head?
Ah! some lie amidst the dead
(Many a giant, stubborn tree,—
Many a plant, its spirit shed),

That were better nursed than thee!

What hath saved thee? Thou wast not
'Gainst the arrowy winter furr'd,-
Arm'd in scale,-but all forgot
When the frozen winds were stirr'd.
Nature, who doth clothe the bird,
Should have hid thee in the earth,

Till the cuckoo's song was heard,
And the Spring let loose her mirth.
Nature,-deep and mystic word!

Mighty mother, still unknown! Thou didst sure the snowdrop gird With an armour all thine own! Thou, who sent'st it forth alone To the cold and sullen season

(Like a thought at random thrown), Sent it thus for some grave reason!

If 'twere but to pierce the mind

With a single, gentle thought,
Who shall deem thee harsh or blind
Who that thou hast vainly wrought?
Hoard the gentle virtue caught
From the snowdrop,-reader wise!
Good is good, wherever taught,
On the ground or in the skies!

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.

1680.-THE BLOOD HORSE.

Gamarra is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone,
With all his line of fathers known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,

But blown abroad by the pride within!
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night,
And his pace as swift as light.

Look,-how 'round his straining throat
Grace and shifting beauty float;
Sinewy strength is in his reins,

And the red blood gallops through his veins,-
Richer, redder, never ran

Through the boasting heart of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire,-
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelp
Or O'Brien's blood itself!

He, who hath no peer, was born,
Here, upon a red March morn;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arab bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of race divine!
And yet, he was but friend to one,
Who fed him at the set of sun,

By some lone fountain fringed with green;
With him a roving Bedouin,

He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),—
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands

B. W. Procter.-Born 1798.