XIX.

THE LARK.

"Lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come."-Cant. ii. 11, 12.

I.

YON laverock merrily soars on high!

Will he leave the bright earth for ever?
Or thinks he such rapturous melody

Can only be fit for the clear blue sky,
Where sorrow and sighing are never ?

II.

He is gone-Ah no! for against yon light
Cloud of silver I see him yet;

And still he is winging his upward flight

To the realms where the stars will be at night,
When the sun he so loves is set.

III.

And now, had you watch'd, you might see him lie

On the cloud as it sails along;

But vain were the search of the gazer's eye,
Unless it had follow'd him through the sky,
And his mate can scarce hear his song.

IV.

But lo! he descends to the earth again;
And he comes with his own sweet notes;
Tho' slower and gentler is now the strain
Than when he so joyously left the plain;
And now on the breeze he floats.

V.

And faintlier-faintlier yet still he sings;
It is scarcely the voice of mirth;
For, hovering there with expanded wings,
He looks upon numberless mournful things,
And-ah! he is fallen to earth!

H

VI.

In silence he lies! but he teaches there,

Hardly less than on joyous wing:

Soar upward my soul from each earthly care,
And with anthems of melody fill the air,
But, descended-oh, cease to sing!

VII.

Yes cease for on earth there are hidden snares; Thou art safe but in open sky;

The fowler may capture thee unawares,

Unless thou art watching, with many prayers

To that God who will hear thy cry. *

VIII.

Yet still of the minstrel of morning learn,

And again and again ascend,

Till thy wing shall gain strength and bosom burn

For a height whence thou never may'st more

return,

And thy flight in the skies shall end.

* Psalm xci. 8.

XX.

SONNET.

Suggested by a Vase of Flowers.

How fair must be the flowers of Paradise,

Earth's to surpass in beauty !-With what skill Must Heaven have formed and blent their wondrous dyes,

When upon these the eye can gaze until
All is a dream of loveliness; and still
With every closer gaze, new beauties rise,
Anew to please, to charm, and with surprise,
Devout as deep, to animate and fill!
Oh! for a seraph's wings to flee away!

To mount, and bathe in beauty and in love-
Love as it glows beneath a heavenly ray,

And beauty as it blooms in climes above :

To dwell where God that decks the earth with

flowers,

Himself for ever dwells amid celestial bowers!

XXI.

UNITY.

"Holy Father! keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are."-John xvii. 11.

1.

OH! what should be ever the wish and the prayer By piety breathed in her closet alone,

When sighing to think what divisions are there, Where Christ prayed that all should be lovingly one?

11.

That the heavenly pages, the word of the Lord, May still be more honoured, and humbly perused, And the heavenly light that illumines the word, May still be more brightly and widely diffused.