Cowper's Grave. I will invite thee, from thy envious herse To rise, and 'bout the world thy beams to spread HABINGTON. Ir is a place where poets crown'd may feel the heart's decaying- O poets! from a maniac's tongue was pour'd the deathless singing! And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story— And how, when, one by one, sweet sounds and wandering lights departed, He shall be strong to sanctify the poet's high vocation, And bow the meekest Christian down in meeker adoration: Nor ever shall he be in praise by wise or good forsaken; Named softly, as the household name of one whom God hath taken! With sadness that is calm, not gloom, I learn to think upon him; COWPER'S GRave. And wrought within his shatter'd brain such quick poetic senses, The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's chill removing, But while in blindness he remain'd, unconscious of the guiding, Like a sick child, that knoweth not his mother while she blesses, The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him; Thus! oh, not thus! no type of earth could image that awaking, But felt those eyes alone, and knew "my Saviour not deserted!" Deserted! who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested, What frantic hands outstretch'd have e'er the atoning drops averted— COWPER'S GRAVE. Deserted! God could separate from His own essence rather: And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father- It went up single, echoless, "My God, I am forsaken!" It went up from the Holy's lips amid his lost creation, That of the lost, no son should use those words of desolation; Forgiveness. ELIZABETH B. BARRETT. O God! my sins are manifold, against my life they cry, Wilt thou release my trembling soul, that to despair is driven? 66 Forgive!" a blessed voice replied, "and thou shalt be forgiven!" My foemen, Lord! are fierce and fell, they spurn me in their pride, Arise, O King; and be the proud to righteous ruin driven! Seven times, O Lord! I pardon'd them, seven times they sinn'd again: BISHOP HEBER, Daniel in the Den of Lions. Dan. vi. 18, 22, 24. NIGHT spreads her sable shroud As o'er a silent city of the dead; Nor voice nor sound is heard, Save the lone midnight bird, And the far warder's deep and measured tread. There streams no joyous light From that pavilion bright, Where princes round the Lord of Asia throng;- The golden harp is mute Mute is the voice of music and of song. Pale solitude is there, Remorse, and gnawing care; Grief wrings the monarch's heart, and dims his eye; His word hath seal'd the doom, His signet guards the tomb;— The guiltless prophet has gone forth to die. He now laments, as one Reft of an only son, Self-tortured, self-convicted, self-abhorr'd; But vain is pity now, And vain the threatening brow; No power can change the irrevocable word! |