1827.-BABY.

O when did Baby come?
When half the world was dumb,
Babe was dressed in white,
In the black, dead night.

O Baby came from where?
That place is very fair;
The middle of the skies,
The heart of Paradise.

O who sent Baby here?
It was an angel dear,
A spirit of purple flame;
Love is that angel's name.

O who was Baby's shield
Down from the heavenly field
Along the pathway dim ?
-One of the cherubim ;
His sword he took with him.

His golden head he bowed
To cleave the hindering cloud:
A seraph shone behind
Singing through the wind.
Singing and shining thus,
They brought the gift to us,
And in the dead of night,
The child was wrapt in white.

O God,-who art the Lord
Of the cherub with the sword,
And the seraph with the lamp,-
Let both of them encamp

Beside the hushing tent
Of the creature that is sent
From the middle of Thy sky,—
To guard, to beautify;

To make the inaudible breath
More terrible than Death,
And light the unconscious face
As from a heavenly place
With the wonder of Thy ways!

Oh, why are your beautiful eyes so red,
Fair Lady?
They have taken my baby out of my bed,
My baby!
Speak sooth, your babe has gone up to God,
Fair Lady.

His little feet, little feet were not shod,

My Baby.

But the road that leads to the heavenly town Is all over clouds as soft as down,

Fair Lady. The way of the clouds is long and dim, I would I were there to carry him,

My Baby.

He will be holpen by cherubs bright, A fair new star for a lamp they light,

Sweet Lady!

Hurled back and buried under rocks heaved down

By wrathful hands from scatheless battlements.

With words of holy charm,

Soothing despair and leaving resignation.

Mild thro' the city moved Argiope,
Pale with a sorrow too divine for fear;
And when, at morn and eve,

She bowed her meek head to her father's
blessing,

Omartes felt as if the righteous gods

Could doom no altars at whose foot she prayed.

Only, when all alone,

Stole from her lips a murmur like complaint,

Shaped in these words, "Wert thou, then, but a dream?

Or shall I see thee in the Happy Fields ?"
Now came with stony eye

The livid vanquisher of cities, Famine; And moved to pity now, the Persian sent Heralds with proffered peace on terms that

seem

Gentle to Asian kings,

And unendurable to Europe's Freemen ; "I from thy city will withdraw my hosts, And leave thy people to their chiefs and laws, Taking from all thy realm

Nought save the river, which I make my border,

"If but, in homage to my sovereign throne, Thou pay this petty tribute once a year; Six grains of Scythian soil,

One urn of water spared from Scythian fountains."

And the Scyth answered-"Let the Mede demand

That which is mine to give, or gold or life; The water and the soil

Are, every grain and every drop, my country's:

"And no man hath a country where a King Pays tribute to another for his crown." And at this stern reply,

The Persian doomed to fire and sword the city.

Lord Lytton.

1829.-THE APPLE OF LIFE. (From "CHRONICLES AND CHARACTERS.”) So she rose, and went forth thro' the city. And with her the apple she bore

In her bosom and stood 'mid the multitude, waiting therewith in the door

Of the hall where the King, to give judgment, ascended at morning his throne:

And, kneeling there, cried, "Let the King live for ever! Behold, I am one

66

"Whom the vile of themselves count the vilest. But great is the grace of my lord.

And now let my lord on his handmaid look down, and give ear to her word." Thereat, in the witness of all, she drew forth, and, uplifting her head,

Show'd the Apple of Life, which who tastes, tastes not death. "And this apple," she said,

"Last night was deliver'd to me, that thy servant should eat, and not die.

But I said to the soul of thy servant, 'Not so. For behold, what am I?

That the King, in his glory and gladness, should cease from the light of the sun, Whiles I, that am least of his slaves, in my shame and abasement live on.'

For not sweet is the life of thy servant, unless to thy servant my lord

Stretch his hand, and show favour; for surely the frown of a king is a sword.

But the smile of the King is as honey that flows from the clefts of the rock,

And his grace is as dew that from Horeb descends on the heads of the flock:

In the King is the heart of a host: the King's strength is an army of men :

And the wrath of the King is a lion that roareth by night from his den:

But as grapes from the vines of En-Gedi are
favours that fall from his hands,
And as towers on the hill-tops of Shenir the
throne of King Solomon stands.
And for this, it were well that for ever the
King, who is many in one,

Should sit, to be seen thro' all time, on a
throne 'twixt the moon and the sun!
For how shall one lose what he hath not?
Who hath, let him keep what he hath.
Wherefore I to the King give this apple."
Then great was King

garment, and cried,

Solomon's wrath. And he rose, rent his "Woman, whence came this apple to thee ? "

But when he was 'ware of the truth, then his heart was awaken'd. And he

Knew at once that the man who, erewhile, unawares coming to him, had brought That Apple of Life was, indeed, God's good Angel of Death. And he thought "In mercy, I doubt not, when man's eyes were open'd and made to see plain All the wrong in himself, and the wretchedness, God sent to close them again For man's sake, his last friend upon earthDeath, the servant of God, who is just. Let man's spirit to Him whence it cometh return, and his dust to the dust!"

Then the Apple of Life did King Solomon seal in an urn that was sign'd

With the seal of Oblivion: and summon'd the Spirits that walk in the wind

Unseen on the summits of mountains, where never the eagle yet flew;

And these he commanded to bear far away,out of reach, out of view,

Out of hope, out of memory,-higher than Ararat buildeth his throne,

In the Urn of Oblivion the Apple of Life.

But on green jaspar-stone Did the King write the story thereof for instruction. And Enoch, the seer, Coming afterward, search'd out the meaning. And he that hath ears, let him hear.

Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith).

1830.-EPILOGUE.

(From "CHRONICLES AND CHARACTERS.")

Long of yore, on the mountain, the voice
Of the merciful Master was heard
To the mourners proclaiming "Rejoice":
And, rejoicing, they welcomed his word:
To the hand of the rich man 66 Restore,"

To the heart of the poor man "Be fed,"
And "Be heal'd," to the souls that were sore,
And to all men "Be brothers," it said.
But, since Christ hath been nail'd to the tree,
Fruits unripe have our hands gather'd of

it: Noisy worship of lip and of knee,

Niggard love, not of love, bat of profit. For the poor is opprest as of old :

And of all men is no man the brother: And the Churches but gather their gold, While the nations destroy one another : Only, all of these things are now done

In another than Cæsar's name: And all wrongs that are Christless go on Unashamed of all Christian shame : By the white man despised is the black: And the strong hath his heel on the weak: By the burthen still gall'd is the back: . And the goal is yet distant to seek : Tho', to guide us, its shining is oft,

Like a fire on the midnight, discern'd: When the hope of man's heart leaps aloft From the chain that his anguish hath spurn'd:

As in Germany once: when a priest

Was changed into a man, for man's sake; And his word, as the dawn fills the East, Fill'd the West, till a world was awake; In the letter a soul was created

By the breaking the seals of a book; And man's conscience in man reinstated, All conscienceless sovereignties shook. Shook indeed, but not shatter'd! For straightway

When indignant and bold in the breach Thought arose, and sped on thro' the gate

way,
Whence she beckon'd to all and to each,

They that loosed her lost heart: and, as onward

She explored her companionless track To the goal of her destiny-sunward,

They wrung hands, and shriek'd to her, "Come back!"

So she pass'd from among them for ever,
And hath left them where, still in the dark,
Blowing watchfires spent, they shall never
Blow the ashes thereof to a spark:
Once in England: when Hampden's high will,
Eliot's truth that was true to the death,
Pym's large speech, and the sword that hath
still

"FREEDOM," graven by Law, on its sheath,
Won for England what woe to the day
When England forgets to revere,
Or unheedfully casts it away,

Thro' Futurity helmless to steer!

Once in France: when the storm of the sound
Of the spirits of men rushing free
Shook the shores of the nations around,

As the roar of a jubilant sea;
And the heart of the feeble wax'd strong,
For his friends were as one flesh and blood
In the casting away of time's wrong

And the gathering up of earth's good; But dull time goeth deafly since when

Those rejoicings were mingled by time With the moans of the murders of men, And the cursings of carnage and crime; All is silent and sullen again :

And again the old cankering forms Reappear, as when after the rain

From the earth reappear the earth-worms.

O the infinite effort that seems

But in infinite failure to finish!

Man's belief in the good that he dreams
Must each fact, he awakes to, diminish?
God forbid! Whom thank thou for whatever
Of evil remains-understood

As good cause for continued endeavour
In the battle 'twixt Evil and Good.
Heed not what may be gain'd or be lost

In that battle. Whatever the odds,
Fight it out, never counting the cost;
Man's the deed is, the consequence God's.
Robert Lytton (Owen Meredith).

1831. THE OWL AND THE BELL. "Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!"

Sang the Bell to himself in his house at home,
Up in the tower, away and unseen,
In a twilight of ivy, cool and green;
With his Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!
Singing bass to himself in his house at home.

Said the Owl to himself, as he sat below
On a window-ledge, like a ball of snow,
"Pest on that fellow, sitting up there,
Always calling the people to prayer!
With his Bing, Bim, Bang, Bome!
Mighty big in his house at home!