And had I power to give that knowledge birth
In all the speeches of the babbling earth;
Did Shadrach's zeal my glowing breast inspire
To weary tortures and rejoice in fire;
Or had I faith like that which Israel saw
When Moses gave them miracles and law:
Yet, gracious Charity! indulgent guest,
Were not thy power exerted in my breast,
Those speeches would send up unheeded prayer,
That scorn of life would be but wild despair;
A cymbal's sound were better than my voice-
My faith were form, my eloquence were noise.
Charity! decent, modest, easy, kind,

Softens the high, and rears the abject mind;
Knows with just reins, and gentle hand to guide,
Betwixt vile shame and arbitrary pride:
Not soon provoked, she easily forgives,
And much she suffers as she much believes.
Soft peace she brings wherever she arrives;
She builds our quiet as she forms our lives:
Lays the rough path of peevish nature even,
And opens in our heart a little heav'n.

Each other gift, which God on man bestows,
Its proper bounds and due restrictions knows:
To one fix'd purpose dedicates its power,
And finishing its act exists no more.
Thus, in obedience to what heaven decrees,
Knowledge shall fail and prophecy shall cease;
But lasting Charity's more ample sway,
Nor bound by time, nor subject to decay,
In happy triumph shall for ever live,

And endless good diffuse, and endless praise receive.

As through the artist's intervening glass
Our eye observes the distant planets pass,
A little we discover, but allow

That more remains unseen than art can show:
So, whilst our mind its knowledge would improve,
(Its feeble eye intent on things above,)
High as we may, we lift our reason up,
By faith directed, and confirm'd by hope;
Yet are we able only to survey

Dawnings of beams and promises of day:
Heav'n's fuller effluence mocks our dazzled sight,
Too great its swiftness, and too strong its light.
But soon the mediate clouds shall be dispell'd,
The Sun shall soon be face to face beheld,
In all his robes, with all his glory on,
Seated, sublime, on his meridian throne.

Then constant Faith and holy Hope shall die,
One lost in certainty, and one in joy;
Whilst thou, more happy power, fair Charity,
Triumphant sister, greatest of the three,
Thy office and thy nature still the same,
Lasting thy lamp, and unconsumed thy flame,
Shalt still survive.

Shalt stand before the host of Heav'n confess'd,
For ever blessing, and for ever bless'd.

PRIOR.

22. THE CHILD'S WISH IN JUNE.

MOT

OTHER, mother, the winds are at play;
Prithee let me be idle to-day.

Look, dear mother, the flowers all lie
Languidly under the bright blue sky;

See, how slowly the streamlet glides;
Look, how the violet roguishly hides;
Even the butterfly rests on the rose,
And scarcely sips the sweets as he goes.

Poor Tray is asleep in the noon-day sun,
And the flies go about him, one by one;
And pussy sits near with a sleepy grace,
Without ever thinking of washing her face.
There flies a bird to a neighbouring tree;
But very lazily flieth he;

And he sits and twitters a gentle note,
That scarcely ruffles his little throat.

You bid me be busy; but, mother, hear
How the humdrum grasshopper soundeth near;
And the soft west wind is so light in its play,
It scarcely moves a leaf on the spray.

I wish, oh, I wish I were yonder cloud,
That sails about with its misty shroud;
Books and work I no more should see,

But I'd come and float, dear mother, o'er thee!

MRS. GILMAN.

23. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.

NOT

a drum was heard, not a funeral note,

As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharg'd his farewell shot,
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly,-at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moon-beams' misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest-
With his martial cloak around him!

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought—as we hollow'd his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow-

How the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

"Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;

But nothing he'll reck, if they let him sleep on
In the grave
where a Briton has laid him."

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock toll'd the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory ! We carved not a line, we raised not a stone, But we left him-alone with his glory!

THE

HE boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled;

The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead;
Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.
The flames roll'd on-he would not go,
Without his father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He call'd aloud:-"Say, father, say
If yet my task is done?"
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

"Speak, father!" once again he cried,
"If I may yet be gone!

And," but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames roll'd on..

Upon his brow he felt their breath,

And in his waving hair,

And look'd from that lone post of death,
In still yet brave despair:

*Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son to the admiral of the Orient, a French ship of war, remained at his post in the battle of the Nile, after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel when the flames had reached the powder.