*

AMBITION.

LXX.

SLEEP.

UNWEARIED God, before whose face

The night is clear as day,

Whilst we, poor worms, o'er life's brief race
Now creep, and now delay;

We with death's foretaste alternate

Our labour's dint and sorrow's weight,

Save, in that fever-troubled state

When pain and care hold sway.

Dread Lord! Thy glory, watchfulness,

Is but disease in man;

Oh! hence upon our hearts impress

Our place in the world's plan!

*

Pride grasps the powers by Heaven displayed;

But ne'er the rebel effort made

But fell beneath the sudden shade

Of nature's withering ban.

LXXI.

THE ELEMENTS.

πολλὰ τὰ δεῖνα, κοῦδεν

ἀνθρώπου δεινότερον πέλει.

MAN is permitted much

To scan and learn

In Nature's frame;

Till he well nigh can tame

Brute mischiefs, and can touch

Invisible things, and turn

All warring ills to purposes of good.

Thus as a God below,

He can control,

d.

And harmonize, what seems amiss to flow

As severed from the whole

And dimly understood.

But o'er the elements

One Hand alone,

One Hand has sway.

What influence day by day

In straiter belt prevents

The impious Ocean, thrown

Alternate o'er the ever-sounding shore?

Or who has eye to trace

How the Plague came?

Forerun the doublings of the Tempest's race?

Or the Air's weight and flame

On a set scale explore?

Thus GoD has willed

That man, when fully skilled
Still gropes in twilight dim;
Encompassed all his hours

By fearfullest powers

Inflexible to him:

That so he may discern

His feebleness,

And e'en for earth's success

TO HIM in wisdom turn,

Who holds for us the Keys of either home, Earth and the world to come.

ACTIVITY.

LXXII.

"Freely ye have received: freely give."

"GIVE any boon for peace!

Why should our fair-eyed Mother e'er engage
In the world's course and on a troubled stage,
From which her very call is a release?
No! in thy garden stand,

And tend with pious hand
The flowers thou findest there,

Which are thy proper care,

O man of God! in meekness and in love,
And waiting for the blissful realms above."

Alas! for thou must learn,

Thou guileless one! rough is the holy hand; Runs not the Word of Truth through every land, A sword to sever, and a fire to burn?