XVIII. CATECHISING.

FROM Little down to Least-in due degree,
Around the Pastor, each in new-wrought vest,
Each with a vernal posy at his breast,
We stood, a trembling, earnest Company!
With low soft murmur, like a distant bee,
Some spake, by thought-perplexing fears betrayed ;
And some a bold unerring answer made:
How fluttered then thy anxious heart for me,
Beloved Mother! Thou whose happy hand
Had bound the flowers I wore, with faithful tie:
Sweet flowers! at whose inaudible command
Her countenance, phantom-like, doth re-appear:
O lost too early for the frequent tear,
And ill requited by this heartfelt sigh!

THE Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale,
With holiday delight on every brow:

Tis passed away; far other thoughts prevail;
For they are taking the baptismal Vow,

Upon their conscious selves; their own lips speak
The solemn promise. Strongest sinews fail,
And many a blooming, many a lovely cheek
Under the holy fear of God turns pale,
While on each head his lawn-robed Servant lays
An apostolic hand, and with prayer seals
The Covenant. The Omnipotent will raise
Their feeble Souls; and bear with his regrets,
Who, looking round the fair assemblage, feels
That ere the Sun goes down their childhood sets.

XX.

-

CONFIRMATION CONTINUED.

I SAW a Mother's eye intensely bent

Upon a Maiden trembling as she knelt;
In and for whom the pious Mother felt
Things that we judge of by a light too faint:

Tell, if ye may, some star-crowned Muse, or Saint!
Tell what rushed in, from what she was relieved
Then, when her Child the hallowing touch received,
And such vibration to the Mother went

That tears burst forth amain. Did gleams appear? Opened a vision of that blissful place

Where dwells a Sister-child? And was power given
Part of her lost One's glory back to trace

Even to this Rite? For thus She knelt, and, ere
The Summer-leaf had faded, passed to Heaven.

By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied :
One duty more, last stage of this ascent,
Brings to thy food, memorial Sacrament!
The Offspring, haply at the Parent's side;
But not till They, with all that do abide
In Heaven, have lifted up their hearts to laud
And magnify the glorious name of God,
Fountain of Grace, whose Son for Sinners died.
Here must my Song in timid reverence pause:
But shrink not, ye, whom to the saving rite
The Altar calls; come early under laws

That can secure for you a path of light

Through gloomiest shade; put on (nor dread its weight) Armour divine, and conquer in your cause!

XXII. -RURAL CEREMONY.

CONTENT with calmer scenes around us spread
And humbler objects, give we to a day
Of annual joy one tributary lay;

This day, when, forth by rustic music led,
The village Children, while the sky is red
With evening lights, advance in long array
Through the still Church-yard, each with garland gay,
That, carried sceptre-like, o’ertops the head

Of the proud Bearer.

To the wide Church-door,

Charged with these offerings which their Fathers bore For decoration in the Papal time,

The innocent procession softly moves:

The spirit of Laud is pleased in Heaven's pure clime, And Hooker's voice the spectacle approves !

WOULD that our Scrupulous Sires had dared to leave
Less scanty measure of those graceful rites
And usages, whose due return invites

A stir of mind too natural to deceive;

Giving the Memory help when she would weave
A crown for Hope! I dread the boasted lights
That all too often are but fiery blights,

Killing the bud o'er which in vain we grieve.
Go, seek, when Christmas snows discomfort bring,
The counter Spirit found in some gay Church
Green with fresh Holly, every pew a perch
In which the linnet or the thrush might sing,
Merry and loud, and safe from prying search,
Strains offered only to the genial Spring.

*See note, p. 203.

XXIV.- MUTABILITY.

FROM low to high doth dissolution climb,
And sinks from high to low, along a scale
Of awful notes, whose concord shall not fail;
A musical but melancholy chime,

Which they can hear who meddle not with crime,
Nor avarice, nor over-anxious care.

Truth fails not; but her outward forms that bear
The longest date do melt like frosty rime,
That in the morning whitened hill and plain
And is no more; drop like the tower sublime
Of yesterday, which royally did wear

Its crown of weeds, but could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.

XXV. OLD ABBEYS.

MONASTIC Domes! following my downward way,
Untouched by due regret I marked your fall!
Now, ruin, beauty, ancient stillness, all
Dispose to judgment temperate as we lay
On our past selves in life's declining day :
For as, by discipline of Time made wise,
We learn to tolerate the infirmities
And faults of others, gently as he may
Towards our own the mild Instructor deals,
Teaching us to forget them or forgive.
Perversely curious, then, for hidden ill
Why should we break Time's charitable seals?
Once ye were holy, ye are holy still;
Your spirit freely let me drink, and live!

*See note, p. 204.

*

XXVI..

EMIGRANT FRENCH CLERGY.

EVEN while I speak, the sacred roofs of France
Are shattered into dust; and self-exiled
From Altars threatened, levelled, or defiled,
Wander the Ministers of God, as chance
Opens a way for life, or consonance

Of Faith invites. More welcome to no land
The fugitives than to the British strand,
Where Priest and Layman with the vigilance
Of true compassion greet them. Creed and test

Vanish before the unreserved embrace

Of Catholic humanity : distrest

They came, — and, while the moral tempest roars Throughout the Country they have left, our shores Give to their Faith a dreadless resting-place.

THUS all things lead to Charity secured
By THEM Who blessed the soft and happy gale
That landward urged the great Deliverer's sail,
Till in the sunny bay his fleet was moored!
Propitious hour! had we, like them, endured
Sore stress of apprehension *, with a mind
Sickened by injuries, dreading worse designed,
From month to month trembling and unassured,
How had we then rejoiced! But we have felt,
As a loved substance, their futurity:

Good, which they dared not hope for, we have seen;
A State whose generous will through earth is dealt ;
A State - which, balancing herself between
Licence and slavish order, dares be free.
*See note, p. 204.