RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. ALL'S WELL. SWEET-VOICED Hope, thy fine discourse And pictured scheme To match the fact still want the power; From birth to grave Ask and receive, 't is sweetly said; 241 Life's youngest tides joy-brimming flow Might hark to hear or help to sing, The boundless whole Its bounty all doth daily bring. "All mine is thine," the sky-soul saith: And aye to thanks returns my thought. Life's gift outruns my fancies far, If I would pray, I've naught to say But this, that God may be God still; For Him to live And sweeter than my wish His will. And drowns the dream In larger stream, As morning drinks the morning star. ROYALTY. THAT regal soul I reverence, in whose eyes Suffices not all worth the city knows For less than level to his bosom rise Runneth the road his daily feet have A loftier heaven he beareth in his breast, RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH. THE KINGDOM OF GOD. I SAY to thee, do thou repeat That he, and we, and all men move ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. "T is but the cloudy darkness dense, Some chosen prophet-soul the while Shall dare, sublimely meek, And darker hearts' despair, That soul has heard perchance his word, And on the dusky air, His skirts, as passed He by, to see Hath strained on their behalf, Who on the plain, with dance amain, Adore the Golden Calf. "T is but the cloudy darkness dense; He dwells that none may see, Take better part, with manlier heart, Thine adult spirit can: No God, no Truth, receive it ne'erBelieve it ne'er-O Man! But turn not then to seek again What first the ill began; No God, it saith; ah, wait in faith The Man that went the cloud within Is gone and vanished quite; "He cometh not," the people cries, "Nor bringeth God to sight": "Lo these thy gods, that safety give, Adore and keep the feast!" Deluding and defuded cries The Prophet's brother-Priest: Devout, indeed! that priestly creed, 243 He yet shall bring some worthy thing Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, FROM THE "BOTHIE OF TOBER-NAVUOLICH." WHERE does Circumstance end, and Providence, where begins it? What are we to resist, and what are we to be friends with? If there is battle 't is battle by night; I stand in the darkness, Here in the midst of men, Ionian and Dorian on both sides, Signal and password known; which is friend, which is foeman? Is it a friend? I doubt, though he speak with the voice of a brother. O that the armies indeed were arrayed! Sound, thou trumpet of God, come forth Would that the armies indeed were Only infinite jumble and mess and dislocation, Backed by a solemn appeal, "For God's sake do not stir there!" THE STREAM OF LIFE. O STREAM descending to the sea, In garden plots the children play, O life descending into death, Our waking eyes behold, Parent and friend thy lapse attend, Companions young and old. Strong purposes our minds possess, Our hearts affections fill, We toil and earn, we seek and learn, And thou descendest still. O end to which our currents tend, To which we flow, what do we know, A roar we hear upon thy shore, As we our course fultil; Searce we divine a sun will shine And be above us still. QUA CURSUM VENTUS. As ships becalmed at eve, that lay Are scarce, long leagues apart, descried; When fell the night, upsprung the breeze, E'en so, but why the tale reveal Astounded, soul from soul estranged? At dead of night their sails were filled, And onward each rejoicing steered : Ah, neither blame, for neither willed, Or wist, what first with dawn appeared! To veer, how vain! On, onward strain, Brave barks! In light, in darkness too, Through winds and tides one compass guides, To that, and your own selves, be true. But O blithe breeze, and O great seas, One port, methought, alike they sought, |