THE HAPPY MAN.
How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will;
Whose armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his highest skill;
Whose passions not his masters are;
Whose soul is still prepared for death-
Not tied unto the world with care
Of prince's ear, or vulgar breath;
Who hath his life from rumours freed,
Whose conscience is his strong retreat;
Whose state can neither flatterers feed,
Nor ruin make oppressors great;
Who envies none whom chance doth raise,
Or vice; who never understood
How deepest wounds are given with praise,
Nor rules of state, but rules of good;
Who God doth late and early pray
More of His grace than gifts to lend,
And entertains the harmless day
With a well-chosen book or friend ;
This man is freed from servile bands
Of hope to rise or fear to fall;
Lord of himself, though not of lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all.
NIGHT is the time for rest;
How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Down on our own delightful bed!
Night is the time for dreams
The gay romance of life
When truth that is and truth that seems
Mix in fantastic strife.
Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are!
Night is the time for toil,
To plough the classic field, Intent to find the buried spoil
Its wealthy furrows yield,
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sung, and heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep—
To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory, where sleep
The joys of other years—
Hopes that were angels at their birth,
But died when young, like things of earth.
Night is the time to watch
O'er ocean's dark expanse, To hail the Pleiades, or catch
The full moon's earliest glance, That brings unto the home-sick mind All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care,
Brooding on hours misspent:
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent-
Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost.
Night is the time to think,
When, from the eye, the soul
Takes flight, and on the utmost brink
Of yonder starry pole
Discerns beyond the abyss of night
The dawn of uncreated light.
Night is the time to pray :
Our Saviour oft withdrew
To desert mountains far away;
So will His followers do,
Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And commune there alone with God.
Night is the time for death,
When all around is peace,
Calmly to yield the weary breath,
From sin and suffering cease;
Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign
To parting friends :-that death be mine.
THE PLEASURES OF HEAVEN.
THERE all the happy souls that ever were,
Shall meet with gladness in one theatre;
And each shall know there one another's face,
By beatific virtue of the place.
There shall the brother with the sister walk,
And sons and daughters with their parents talk,
But all of God: they still shall have to say,
But make Him all in all their theme that day,
That happy day, that never shall see night.
Where He will be all beauty to the sight,
Wine or delicious fruits unto the taste;
A music in the ears will ever last;
Unto the scent, a spicery or balm,
And to the touch, a flower, like soft as palm.
He will all glory, all perfection be,
God in the Union and the Trinity.
That holy, great, and glorious mystery,
Will there revealèd be in majesty ;
By light and comfort of spiritual grace,
The vision of Our Saviour face to face
In His humanity; to hear Him preach
The price of our redemption, and to teach,
Through His inherent righteousness in death,
The safety of our souls and forfeit breath.
What fulness of beatitude is here!
What love with mercy mixèd doth appear
To style us friends, who were by nature foes;
Adopt us heirs by grace, who were of those
Had lost ourselves; and prodigally spent
Our native portions and possessèd rent,
Yet have all debts forgiven us; an advance,
By imputed right, to an inheritance
In His eternal kingdom, where we sit,
Equal with angels, and co-heirs of it.
THERE was a place in childhood that I remember well,
And there a voice of sweetest tone bright fairy tales did tell;
And gentle words and fond embrace were given with joy to me
When I was in that happy place, upon my mother's knee.
When fairy tales were ended, "Good night" she softly said,
And kissed, and laid me down to sleep within my tiny bed;
And holy words she taught me there methinks I yet can see
Her angel eyes, as close I knelt beside my mother's knee.
In the sickness of my childhood, the perils of my prime,
The sorrows of my riper years, the cares of every time;
When, doubt and danger weighed me down, then, pleading all
It was a fervent prayer to Heaven that bent my mother's knee.
|