SUNDAYS.

BRIGHT shadows of true rest! some shoots of bliss!
Heaven once a week;

The next world's gladness prepossessed in this;
A day to seek

Eternity in time; the steps by which

We climb above all ages; lamps that light
Man through his heap of dark days; and the rich
And full redemption of the whole week's flight:
The pulleys unto headlong man; time's bower;
The narrow way;

Transplanted paradise; God's walking hour;
The cool o' the day;

The creature's jubilee; God's parle with dust;

Heaven here; man on those hills of myrrh, of flowers; Angels descending; the returns of trust;

A gleam of glory after six days' showers;
The Church's love-feasts; time's prerogative
And interest

Deducted from the whole; the combs and hive,
And home of rest;

The milky-way chalked out with suns; a clue

That guides through erring hours, and in full story;

A taste of heaven on earth; the pledge and cue
Of a full feast, and the out-courts of glory.

THE RETREAT.

HAPPY those early days, when I

Shined in my angel-infancy!

Before I understood this place,

Appointed for my second race;

Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought;

When yet I had not walked above
A mile or two from my first love;
And, looking back at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some gilded cloud or flower
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;

Before I taught my tongue to wound
My conscience with a sinful sound;
Or had the black art to dispense,
A several sin to every sense;

But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
Oh! how I long to travel back,

And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence the enlightened spirit sees
That shady city of palm-trees;

But, oh! my soul, with too much stay,
Is drunk, and staggers in the way.
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came return.

THE RAINBOW.

STILL young and fine! but what is still in view
We slight as old and soiled, though fresh and new:
How bright wert thou when Shem's admiring eye
Thy burning flaming arch did first descry;
When Nahor, Terah, Haran, Abram, Lot,
The youthful world's gray fathers in one knot,
Did with intentive looks watch every hour
For thy new light, and trembled at each shower.

When thou dost shine darkness looks white and fair,
Forms turn to music, clouds to smiles and air;
Rain gently spends his honey drops, and pours
Balm on the cleft earth, milk on grass and flowers.
Bright pledge of peace and sunshine! the sure tie
Of thy Lord's hand, the object of his eye!
When I behold thee, though my light be dim,
Distant and low, I can in thine see Him,
Who looks upon thee from his glorious throne,
And minds the covenant betwixt all and one.

THE WORLD.

I SAW eternity the other night,

Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright:

And round beneath it, time in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,

Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurled.

The doting lover in his quaintest strain

Did there complain;

Near him his lute, his fancy, and his flights,-
Wit so delights-

With gloves and knots, the silly snares of pleasure;
Yet his dear treasure

All scattered lay, while he his eyes did pour
Upon a flower.

The darksome statesman, hung with weights and woe,
Like a thick midnight fog, moved there so slow,

He did not stay nor go;

Condemning thoughts (like sad eclipses) scowl
Upon his soul,

And clouds of crying witnesses without

Pursued him with one shout;

Yet digged the mole, and, lest his ways be found,
Worked under ground,

Where he did clutch his prey,-but one did see That policy.

Churches and altars fed him; perjuries

Were gnats and flies;

It rained about him blood and tears, but he
Drank them as free.

The fearful miser on a heap of rust

Sate pining all his life there-did scarce trust
His own hands with the dust;

Yet would not place one piece above, but lives
In fear of thieves.

Thousands there were as frantic as himself,
And hugged each one his pelf:

The downright epicure placed heaven in sense,
And scorned pretence;

While others slipped into a wide excess,
Said little less:

The weaker sort slight, trivial wares enslave,
Who think them brave;

And poor despised truth sat counting by
Their victory.

Yet some, who all this while did weep and sing,
And sing and weep, soared up into the ring:
But most would use no wing.

O fools! (said I), thus to prefer dark night
Before true light;

To live in grots and caves, and hate the day,
Because it shows the way-

The way which from this dead and dark abode
Leads up to God;

A way where you might tread the sun, and be More bright than he.

But as I did their madness thus discuss,

One whispered thus:

"This ring the Bridegroom did for none provide, But for his Bride."

1

SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE.

SIR EDWARD SHERBURNE was born in Lancashire, in 1618. He was a Catholic, but zealously served his royal master during the whole of the civil war, much to the injury of his fortune. Beside several poetical translations from Seneca and others, he was the author of a volume of Miscellanies, which contain many passages of great beauty. His attachment to James II. involved him in trouble at the Revolution, and he died almost in poverty, in 1702.

TO THE ETERNAL WISDOM.

O THOU eternal Mind! whose wisdom sees
And rules our changes by unchanged decrees;
As with delight on thy grave works we look,
Say, art Thou too with our light follies took?
For when thy bounteous hand, in liberal showers,
Each way diffused thy various blessings pours,
We catch at them with strife, as vain to sight,
As children when for nuts they scrambling fight.
This snatching at a sceptre breaks it; he
That broken does ere he can grasp it see;
The poor world seeming like a ball, that lights
Betwixt the hands of powerful opposites:
Which, while they cantonize in their bold pride,
They but an immaterial point divide.
Oh! whilst for wealthy spoils these fight, let me,
Though poor, enjoy a happy peace with Thee!