Sad dreams that through the eyelids creep.
But never doleful dream again
Shall break the happy slumber when
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

O earth, so full of dreary noises!
O men, with wailing in your voices!
O delvéd gold, the wailers heap!
O strife, O curse, that o'er it fall!
God strikes a silence through you all,
And "giveth His beloved sleep."

His dews drop mutely on the hill,
His cloud above it saileth still,
Though on its slope men sow and reap.
More softly than the dew is shed,
Or cloud is floated overhead,
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

Ay, men may wonder while they scan
A living, thinking, feeling man,
Confirmed in such a rest to keep;
But angels say, and through the word
I think their happy smile is heard,
"He giveth His beloved sleep."

For me, my heart, that erst did go
Most like a tired child at a show,
That see through tears the mummers leap,
Would now its wearied vision close,
Would childlike on His love repose
Who "giveth His beloved sleep!"

And, friends, dear friends, when it shall be

That this low breath is gone from me,
And round my bier ye come to weep,
Let one, most loving of you all,
Say, "Not a tear must o'er her fall,
He giveth His beloved sleep."

BERTHA IN THE LANE.

PUT the broidery-frame away,
For my sewing is all done!
The last thread is used to-day,
And I need not join it on.

Though the clock stands at the noon,
I am weary! I have sewn,
Sweet, for thee, a wedding-gown.

Sister, help me to the bed,

And stand near me, dearest-sweet!
Do not shrink nor be afraid,
Blushing with a sudden heat!
No one standeth in the street!-

By God's love I go to meet, Love I thee with love complete.

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I have words thine ear to fill,
And would kiss thee at my will.

Dear, I heard thee in the spring,
Thee and Robert, through the trees,
When we all went gathering

Boughs of May-bloom for the bees.
Do not start so! think instead
How the sunshine overhead
Seemed to trickle through the shade.

What a day it was, that day!

Hills and vales did openly
Seem to heave and throb away,

At the sight of the great sky;
And the silence, as it stood
In the glory's golden flood,
Audibly did bud- and bud!

Through the winding hedge-rows green,
How we wandered, I and you,
With the bowery tops shut in,

And the gates that showed the view;
How we talked there! thrushes soft
Sang our pauses out, or oft
Bleatings took them from the croft.

Till the pleasure, grown too strong,
Left me muter evermore;
And, the winding road being long,

I walked out of sight, before;
And so, wrapt in musings fond,
Issued (past the wayside pond)
On the meadow-lands beyond.

I sat down beneath the beech

Which leans over to the lane,
And the far sound of your speech
Did not promise any pain;
And I blessed you full and free,
With a smile stooped tenderly
O'er the May-flowers on my knee.

But the sound grew into word

As the speakers drew more near— Sweet, forgive me that I heard

Had he seen thee, when he swore

He would love but me alone?
Thou wert absent, -sent before
To our kin in Sidmouth town.
When he saw thee, who art best
Past compare, and loveliest,
He but judged thee as the rest.

Could we blame him with grave words,
Thou and I, dear, if we might?
Thy brown eyes have looks like birds
Flying straightway to the light;
Mine are older. -Hush!-look out—
Up the street! Is none without?
How the poplar swings about!

And that hour- beneath the beech-
When I listened in a dream,
And he said, in his deep speech,
That he owed me all esteem,
Each word swam in on my brain
With a dim, dilating pain,
Till it burst with that last strain.

I fell flooded with a dark,

--

In the silence of a swoon: When I rose, still, cold, and stark, There was night, I saw the moon; And the stars, each in its place, And the May-blooms on the grass, Seemed to wonder what I was.

And I walked as if apart

From myself when I could stand,
And I pitied my own heart,
As if I held it in my hand
Somewhat coldly, with a sense
Of fulfilled benevolence,
And a "Poor thing" negligence,
And I answered coldly too,

When you met me at the door;
And I only heard the dew

Dripping from me to the floor;
And the flowers I bade you see
Were too withered for the bee, —
As my life, henceforth, for me.

Do not weep so→ dear-heart-warm!
It was best as it befell!

If I say he did me harm,

I speak wild, I am not well.
All his words were kind and good, -
He esteemed me! Only blod
Runs so faint in womanhood.

Then I always was too grave,

Liked the saddest ballads sung,

With that look, besides, we have
In our faces who die young.
I had died, dear, all the same,
Life's long, joyous, jostling game
Is too loud for my meek shame.

We are so unlike each other,

Thou and I, that none could guess We were children of one mother,

But for mutual tenderness.
Thou art rose-lined from the cold,
And meant, verily, to hold
Life's pure pleasures manifold.

I am pale as crocus grows

Close beside a rose-tree's root!
Whosoe'er would reach the rose
Treads the crocus underfoot;
I, like May-bloom on thorn-tree,
Thou, like merry summer-bee!
Fit, that I be plucked for thee.

Yet who plucks me?- no one mourns;
I have lived my season out,
And now die of my own thorns,

Which I could not live without.
Sweet, be merry! How the light
Comes and goes! If it be night,
Keep the candles in my sight.
Are there footsteps at the door?
Look out quickly. Yea or nay?
Some one might be waiting for

Some last word that I might say.
Nay? So best!-So angels would
Stand off clear from deathly road,
Not to cross the sight of God.

Colder grow my hands and feet:

When I wear the shroud I made,
Let the folds lie straight and neat,
And the rosemary be spread,
That if any friend should come,
(To see thee, sweet!) all the room
May be lifted out of gloom.

And, dear Bertha, let me keep

On my hand this little ring, Which at nights, when others sleep, I can still see glittering. Let me wear it out of sight, In the grave, where it will light All the dark up, day and night.

On that grave drop not a tear!
Else, though fathom-deep the place,
Through the woollen shroud I wear
I shall feel it on my face.

Rather smile there, blessed one,
Thinking of me in the sun,
Or forget me, smiling on!

Art thou near me? nearer? so!

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man,

Steadily from the outside ring,
Then notched the poor dry empty thing
In holes, as he sate by the river.

"This is the way," laughed the great god Pan,

(Laughed while he sate by the river!) "The only way since gods began To make sweet music, they could succeed."

Then dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,

He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan,
Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
To laugh, as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man.
The true gods sigh for the cost and the
pain,

For the reed that grows nevermore again
As a reed with the reeds of the river.

COWPER'S GRAVE.

IT is a place where poets crowned may feel the heart's decaying.

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 quiet sadness and no gloom I learn to think upon him,

With meekness that is gratefulness to
God whose heaven hath won him,-
Who suffered once the madness-cloud to
His own love to blind him;
But gently led the blind along where
breath and bird could find him;

And wrought within his shattered brain such quick poetic senses

As hills have language for, and stars harmonious influences!

The pulse of dew upon the grass kept his within its number; And silent shadows from the trees refreshed him like a slumber.

Wild timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home-caresses, Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses:

The

It is a place where happy saints may weep amid their praying:

Its

Yet let the grief and humbleness, as low as silence languish !

very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing, women and its men became, beside him, true and loving.

Earth surely now may give her calm to whom she gave her anguish.

O poets! from a maniac's tongue was poured the deathless singing!

O Christians! at your cross of hope a hopeless hand was clinging! O men! this man in brotherhood your weary paths beguiling, Groaned inly while he taught you peace,

and died while ye were smiling!

And now, what time ye all may read through dimming tears his story, How discord on the music fell, and darkness on the glory,

things provided came without the
sweet sense of providing,

He testified this solemn truth, while
Nor man nor nature satisfy whom only
frenzy desolated,
God created!

Like a sick child that knoweth not his
.mother while she blesses,
And drops upon his burning brow the
coolness of her kisses;
That turns his fevered eyes around, "My
mother! where's my mother?".
As if such tender words and deeds could
come from any other!-

The fever gone, with leaps of heart he sees her bending o'er him; Her face all pale from watchful love, the unweary love she bore him!Thus woke the poet from the dream his life's long fever gave him, Beneath those deep pathetic Eyes, which closed in death to save him!

Thus? O, not thus! no type of earth can image that awaking,

Wherein he scarcely heard the chant of seraphs, round him breaking,

Or felt the new immortal throb of soul from body parted;

But felt those eyes alone, and knew "My Saviour! not deserted!"

Deserted! who hath dreamt that when the cross in darkness rested

Upon the Victim's hidden face, no love was manifested?

What frantic hands outstretched have

e'er the atoning drops averted, What tears have washed them from the soul, that one should be deserted?

Deserted! God could separate from his own essence rather:

And Adam's sins have swept between the righteous Son and Father; Yea, once, Immanuel's orphaned cry his universe hath shaken, 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;

That earth's worst frenzies, marring hope, should mar not hope's fruition, And I, on Cowper's grave, should see his rapture in a vision!

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE

THACKERAY.

[1811-1863.]

AT THE CHURCH GATE. ALTHOUGH I enter not, Yet round about the spot Ofttimes I hover;

ALFRED TENNYSON.

And near the sacred gate, With longing eyes I wait,

Expectant of her.

The minster bell tolls out
Above the city's rout,

And noise and humming; They've hushed the minster bell: The organ 'gins to swell;

She's coming, she's coming!

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