EDMUND PEEL.

I.

TO THE RIVER TEES.

TEES! if the wells we draw from shed no light,
Thou hast a voice to gladden thy green dale,
Till the rocks founder and the mountains fail.
Plunge, and roll on, in full harmonious might,
Based on primeval adamantine right!

Wind out, and reach, and murmur down the vale ;
Or in a torrent, white as stony hail,

Strike the deep caves of thunder, black as night, Whose walls stand fast forever! What am I Thy depths to fathom, or to wield thy force,

Or of thy shoals to babble, Various One?

We came alike from yonder equal sky.

Could I but run thy clear and sonorous course, Rejoicing thousands, disappointing none !

II.

ZEAL WITHOUT KNOWLEDGE.

To save the soul, to purchase Paradise,
By voluntary woe and wilful pain,
Tried in all ages, still is tried in vain.

The wheels of Juggernaut crush out the cries Of hideous unavailing sacrifice,

As when to Moloch reeked the bloody plain! As when the fire-devoted shrieked amain! As when lean agony, in lowly guise, Groaned on the lofty pillar! - Better pray For light, than hold a taper unapproved, Than give a wrong direction to the blind! Elijah laughed to scorn the frantic bray

And the red gashes, which to frenzy moved Zeal without knowledge, plaguing human kind.

III.

TO WINTER.

THOU of the snowy vest and frosted hair,
With icicles down-hanging, Winter, hail!
Never be mine against a power to rail
Ancient as Night! to deem thee void and bare,
Cousin of Death, twin-brother of Despair!

Rather shall praises in my song prevail,
Praises of Him who gives us to inhale
The freshness of the uninfected air.
So long as I behold the clear blue sky,
The carol of the robin-redbreast hear,
And o'er the frozen waters seem to fly;
Or, softly cushioned, while the fire burns clear,
Bask in the light of a beloved eye,

So long, O Winter! to my soul be dear.

SIR AUBREY DE VERE.

I.

TIME MISSPENT.*

THERE is no remedy for time misspent ;
No healing for the waste of idleness,
Whose very languor is a punishment

Heavier than active souls can feel or guess.
O hours of indolence and discontent,

Not now to be redeemed! ye sting not less,
Because I know this span of life was lent
For lofty duties, not for selfishness.
Not to be whiled away in aimless dreams,
But to improve ourselves, and serve mankind,
Life and its choicest faculties were given.
Man should be ever better than he seems;

And shape his acts, and discipline his mind,

To walk, adorning earth, with hope of heaven.

*From "A Song of Faith, Devout Exercises, and Sonnets, by Sir Aubrey de Vere, Bart., 1842."

II.

ORIGIN OF THE SOUL.

IT cannot be that by traduction come

Our souls, like growth of the corporeal frame :
This earth is to the flesh a natural home;

But spirit is of heaven, from whence it came,
And tends aspiring, — an ethereal flame,
Sacred, as are the fires of martyrdom !
All else is mystery. We hear a name,

But meet no phantom risen from the tomb.
What shall we think then? Ere this world was born,
Were souls, countless as beams of stellar light,

Called forth? or as our flesh demands? The night Of childhood, and man's meditative morn,

Thrill with vague memories; and blind impulse brings Shadows perplexed of pre-existing things!