This Sonnet is recommended to the perusal of all those who consider that the evils under which we groan are to be removed or palliated by measures ungoverned by moral and religious principles.

FEEL for the wrongs to universal ken
Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies;
And seek the Sufferer in his darkest den,
Whether conducted to the spot by sighs
And moanings, or he dwells (as if the wren
Taught him concealment) hidden from all
eyes

In silence and the awful modesties

Of sorrow;-feel for all, as brother Men! Rest not in hope want's icy chain to thaw By casual boons and formal charities; Learn to be just, just through impartial law;

Far as ye may, erect and equalise;

And, what ye cannot reach by statute, draw

Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice!

V

CONTINUED

WHO ponders National events shall find
An awful balancing of loss and gain,
Joy based on sorrow, good with ill com-
bined,

And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling
Mind,

With whose perfection it consists to ordain Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane, Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind By laws immutable. But woe for him Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours, And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;

And Will, whose office, by divine command, Is to control and check disordered Powers?

IV

IN ALLUSION TO VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES AND NOTICES OF THE FRENCH

REVOLUTION

PORTENTOUS change when History can ap

appear

As the cool Advocate of foul device;
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer
At consciences perplexed with scruples
nice!

They who bewail not, must abhor, the

sneer

Born of Conceit, Power's blind Idolater; Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.

VI

CONCLUDED

LONG-FAVOURED England! be not thou misled

By monstrous theories of alien growth, Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth, Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red With thy own blood, which tears in torrents shed

Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth, Or wan despair-the ghost of false hope fled

Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth, My Country! if such warning be held dear, Then shall a Veteran's heart be thrilled

with joy,

One who would gather from eternal truth,

For time and season, rules that work to cheer

Not scourge, to save the People-not destroy.

VII

MEN of the Western World! in Fate's dark book

Whence these opprobrious leaves of dire portent?

Think ye your British Ancestors forsook
Their native Land, for outrage provident;
From unsubmissive necks the bridle shook
To give, in their Descendants, freer vent
And wider range to passions turbulent,
To mutual tyranny a deadlier look?
Nay, said a voice, soft as the south wind's
breath,

Dive through the stormy surface of the flood

To the great current flowing underneath; Explore the countless springs of silent good;

So shall the truth be better understood, And thy grieved Spirit brighten strong in faith.1

VIII

Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,

One upward hand, as if she needed rest From rapture, lying softly on her breast! Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance; But not the less -nay more-that counte

nance,

While thus illumined, tells of painful strife
For a sick heart made weary of this life
By love, long crossed with adverse circum-

stance.

-Would She were now as when she hoped

to pass

At God's appointed hour to them who tread

Heaven's sapphire pavement, yet breathed well content,

Well pleased, her foot should print earth's common grass,

Lived thankful for day's light, for daily bread,

For health, and time in obvious duty spent.

1 See Notes.

THE NORMAN BOY

The subject of this poem was sent me by Mrs. Ogle, to whom I was personally unknown, with a hope on her part that I might be induced to relate the incident in verse; and I do not regret that I took the trouble; for not improbably the fact is illustrative of the boy's early piety, and may concur with my other little pieces on children to produce profitable reflection among my youthful readers. This is said however with an absolute conviction that children will derive most benefit from books which are not unworthy the perusal of persons of any age. I protest with my whole heart against those productions, so abundant in the present day, in which the doings of children are dwelt upon as if they were incapable of being interested in anything else. On this subject I have dwelt at length in the poem on the growth of my own mind.

HIGH on a broad unfertile tract of forestskirted Down,

Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own,

From home and company remote and every playful joy,

Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman Boy.

Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame,

Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came,

With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child

Whom, one bleak winter's day, she met upon the dreary Wild.

His flock, along the woodland's edge with relics sprinkled o'er

Of last night's snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more,

Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,

And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.

There was he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed,

For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made.

A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be

A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.

And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling earth and air,

I saw, within, the Norman Boy kneeling alone in prayer.

The Child, as if the thunder's voice spake with articulate call,

Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord of All;

His lips were moving; and his eyes, upraised to sue for grace,

With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that place.

How beautiful is holiness!-what wonder if the sight,

Almost as vivid as a dream, produced a dream at night?

It came with sleep and showed the Boy, no cherub, not transformed,

But the poor ragged Thing whose ways my human heart had warmed.

Me had the dream equipped with wings, so I took him in my arms,

And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms,

And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to pay,

By giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of holiday.

I whispered, "Yet a little while, dear
Child! thou art my own,
To show thee some delightful thing, in
country or in town.

What shall it be? a mirthful throng? or that holy place and calm

St. Denis, filled with royal tombs, or the Church of Notre Dame?

St. Ouen's golden Shrine? Or choose what
else would please thee most
Of any wonder Normandy, or all proud
France, can boast!"

'My Mother," said the Boy, was born near to a blessed Tree, The Chapel Oak of Allonville; good Angel, show it me!"

from heaviness be cleared,

For bodied forth before my eyes the cross

crowned hut appeared;

let loose by this reply,

For Allonville, o'er down and dale, away then did we fly;

O'er town and tower we flew, and fields in
May's fresh verdure drest;
The wings they did not flag; the Child,
though grave, was not deprest.

But who shall show, to waking sense, the gleam of light that broke Forth from his eyes, when first the Boy looked down on that huge oak, For length of days so much revered, so famous where it stands

For twofold hallowing-Nature's care, and work of human hands?

From body pains and pains of soul thou needest no release,

Thy hours as they flow on are spent, if not in joy, in peace.

Then offer up thy heart to God in thankfulness and praise,

Give to Him prayers, and many thoughts, in thy most busy days;

And in His sight the fragile Cross, on thy small hut, will be

Holy as that which long hath crowned the Chapel of this Tree;

The wide-spread boughs, for view of door, window, and stair that wound

Gracefully up the gnarled trunk; nor left we unsurveyed

The pointed steeple peering forth from the centre of the shade.

I lighted-opened with soft touch the chapel's iron door,

sumptuous Church in Rome Where thousands meet to worship God under a mighty Dome;

He sees the bending multitude, he hears the choral rites,

Yet not the less, in children's hymns and lonely prayer, delights.

God for his service needeth not proud work of human skill;