Yes, I have seen him, can I not remember?
Yes, I have known him, and shall Paul forget?
I, even I who from the fleshly prison
Caught (I believe it, but I dare not say), Rose to the midlight of the Lord arisen, Woke to the waking rapture of the day.
Ah! they are shut, the ears of my divining,
Sealed are the eyes that should have seen Him
then;
Look what a beam from the Beloved shining!
Look what a night of treasonable men!
What was their tale of some one on a summit,
Looking, I think, upon the endless sea,-
One with a fate, and sworn to overcome it,
One who was fettered, and who should be free?
Round him a robe, for shaming and for searing,
Ate with empoisonment and stung with fire,
He thro' it all was to his lord uprearing
Desperate patience of a brave desire.
Ay, and for me there shot from the beginning
Pulses of passion broken with my breath;
Oh, thou poor soul, enwrapped in such a sinning,
Bound in the shameful body of thy death!
Well, let me sin, but not with my consenting;
Well, let me die, but willing to be whole:
Never, O Christ,- -so stay me from relenting,-
Shall there be truce betwixt my flesh and soul !
Also I ask, but ever from the praying
Shrinks my soul backward, eager and afraid; Point me the sense and shame of my betraying, Show me, O Love, Thy wounds that I have made!
Yes, thou forgivest, but with all forgiving
Canst not renew mine innocence again :
Make Thou, O Christ, a dying of my living,
Purge from the sin, but never from the pain!
So shall all speech of now and of to-morrow,
All He hath shown me or shall show me yet,
Spring from an infinite and tender sorrow,
Burst from a burning passion of regret!
Standing afar, I summon you anigh Him;
Yes, to the multitudes I shout and say,
"This is my King! I preach and I deny Him;
Christ! whom I crucify anew to-day!"
FREDERIC W. H. MYERS.
DRY those fair, those crystal eyes,
Which like growing fountains rise
To drown their banks: Grief's sullen brooks
Would better flow in furrow'd looks.
Thy lovely face was never meant
To be the shore of discontent.
Then clear those wat'rish stars again,
Which else portend a lasting rain,
Lest the clouds which settle there
Prolong my winter all the year,
And thy example others make
In love with sorrow, for thy sake.
Dr. KING, Bp. of Chichester,
born 1591.
UPON HIS WHITE HAIRS.
THESE hairs of age are messengers
Which bid me fast repent and pray;
They be of death the harbingers
That doth prepare and dress the way,
Wherefore I joy that you may see
Upon my head such hairs to be.
They be the lines that lead the length
How far my race was for to run;
They say my youth is fled with strength,
And how old age is well begun ;
The which I feel, and you may see
Such lines upon my head to be.
They be the strings of sober sound,
Whose music is harmonical;
Their tunes declare a time from ground
I came, and how thereto I shall:
Wherefore I love that you may see
Upon my head such hairs to be.
God grant to those that white hairs have,
No worse them take than I have meant,
That after they be laid in grave,
Their souls may joy their lives well spent.
God grant, likewise, that you may see
Upon my head such hairs to be.
LORD VAUX, King Henry VIII.
"SHEPHERD, what's Love? I pray thee tell.”
"It is that fountain and that well
Where pleasure and repentance dwell;
It is, perhaps, that sauncing bell
That tolls us all to Heaven or hell,
And this is Love, as I heard tell.”
"Yet what is Love? I prithee say."
"It is a work on holiday;
It is December match'd with May,
When lusty blood's in fresh array,
And this is Love, as I hear say."
"Yet what is Love? good Shepherd, sain."
"It is a sunshine mixt with rain;
It is a toothache, or like pain ;
It is a game where none doth gain;
The lass saith no, and would full fain,
And this is Love, as I hear sain."
"Yet, Shepherd, what is Love, I pray?"
"It is yea, it is a nay,
A pretty kind of sporting fray ;
It is a thing will soon away;
Then, nymphs, take vantage while you may,
And this is Love, as I hear say.”
"And what is Love, Good Shepherd, show."
A thing that creeps, that cannot go ;
A prize that passeth to and fro;
A thing for one, a thing for moe,
And he that proves, shall find it so."
And, Shepherd, this is Love, I trow."
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
OH! how much more doth Beauty beauteous seem
By that sweet ornament which truth doth give!
The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live;
The canker'd blooms have full as deep a dye
As the perfumed tincture of the roses,
Hang on thick thorns, and play as wantonly,
When summer's breath their masked buds discloses ;
But, for their virtue only is their show,
They live unwoo'd, and unrespected fade,
Die to themselves-Sweet roses do not so,
Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made;
And so of you, beauteous and lovely youth,
When that shall fade my verse distils your truth.
SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet LIV.
GREAT monarch of the world, from whose power springs
The potency and power of kings,
Record the royal woe my suffering sings;
And teach my tongue, that ever did confine
Its faculties in truth's seraphick line,
To track the treasons of thy foes and mine.
Nature and law, by Thy divine decree
(The only root of righteous royaltie),
With this dim diadem invested me;
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