IV.

God gave him reverence of laws,
Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause ;-
A spirit to His rocks akin,

The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein.

V.

To Nature and to Holy Writ
Alone did God the boy commit:

Where flash'd and roar'd the torrent, oft
His soul found wings, and soar'd aloft!

VI.

The straining oar and chamois chase
Had form'd his limbs to strength and grace:
On wave and wind the boy would toss,
Was great, nor knew how great he was!

VII.

He knew not that his chosen hand,
Made strong by God, his native land
Would rescue from the shameful yoke
Of Slavery-the which he broke !

A CHRISTMAS CAROL.*

I.

HE Shepherds went their hasty way,
And found the lowly stable-shed
Where the Virgin-Mother lay:

And now they check'd their eager
tread,

For to the Babe, that at her bosom clung, the Virgin-Mother sung.

A mother's song

II.

They told her how a glorious light, Streaming from a heavenly throng, Around them shone, suspending night! While sweeter than a mother's song, Blest Angels heralded the Saviour's birth, Glory to God on high! and Peace on Earth.

III.

She listen'd to the tale divine,

And closer still the Babe she press'd;
And while she cried, the Babe is mine!

The milk rush'd faster to her breast:

Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn; Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is

born.

*Printed in 1799.

IV.

Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace,
Poor, simple, and of low estate !
That strife should vanish, battle cease,

O why should this thy soul elate?
Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,—
Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of fame and
glory?

V.

And is not War a youthful king, A stately hero clad in mail? Beneath his footsteps laurels spring; Him earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye

Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh.

VI.

"Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state! I am a woman poor and mean,

And therefore is my soul elate.

War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled,
That from the aged father tears his child!

VII.

"A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the sire and starves the son; The husband kills, and from her board

Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day.

VIII.

"Then wisely is my soul elate,

That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate,

The Mother of the Prince of Peace. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Peace, Peace on Earth, the Prince of Peace is born."

HUMAN LIFE.*

ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. A FRAGMENT.

F dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare

As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom,

Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes ! Surplus of nature's dread activity,

Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd

vase,

Retreating slow, with meditative pause,
She form'd with restless hands unconsciously!

* First printed in "Sibylline Leaves."

Blank accident! nothing's anomaly !

If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears,

The counter-weights !-Thy laughter and thy

tears

Mean but themselves, each fittest to create And to repay the other! Why rejoices

Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's

hood,

Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf,

That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? Yet what and whence thy gain, if thou withhold

These costless shadows of thy shadowy self? Be sad! be glad! be neither! seek, or shun! Thou hast no reason why! Thou can'st have none!

Thy being's being is contradiction.