Mourn, for 'tis good for all of us to mourn, In this dark valley where our way we grope; Our very sorrow proves us not forlorn ; We mourn, but not as mourners without hope. The lake is still the same, the changeful skies Look not for sorrow in the changeful skies," The mountain many-hued, or passive lake, But look to Him, who sometimes will chastise Those whom he loves, but never will forsake. ON THE LATE DR. ARNOLD. SPIRIT of the Dead! Though the pure faith of Him that was on earth Forbids me to invoke thee as of yore : (Weak souls, that dared not meet their God alone, 5 Sought countenance and kind companionship Of some particular saint, whose knees had grazed The very rock on which they knelt, whose blood Round which their fond, mistaken piety Had built a quaint confine of sculptured stone:—) In Abraham's bosom, or amid the deep Of Godhead, blended with eternal light, 10 15 * Many of the holy wells are said to have sprung from the blood of Martyrs for example, St. Winifred's in Wales. What he is now we know not: he will be To suffer for the world was His alone. But he in whom we joyed—for whom we mourn— Was never his; nor did he "pine in thought," Seeing the lady of his love possessed By a much richer and no better man. To him the lady of his love was wed, Soon as his manhood authorised a wife; And though the mother of his many babes, To him she still was young, and fair, and fresh, Yet he suffered Such pains and throes as only good men feel: 35 40 Its wayward moods and ready penitence, At least the hand that wields it; not to watch To teach the young capacious intellect 45 50 [doomed How beauteous Greece and Rome, the child* fore- 'Twas his to struggle with that perilous age A jocund and a welcome conqueror ; 55 * "Rome, the child," &c. Alluding to the heathen prophecy, that Metis, Thetis, &c., were destined to produce a child more potent than his sire, which gave Jupiter so much alarm. † Dionysus, Aphrodite-Bacchus, Venus. But the Greek divinities were not originally identical with the Roman idols, by whose names they are generally called. Dionysus, or Bacchus, was in all probability an Indian type of the sun, or rather of the great productive energy of the Universe, said to be the youngest of the gods, because his worship was last introduced into Greece. There can be no doubt that the Greeks blended the traditions of their local heroes with the astronomical mythology derived from Egypt and Phoenicia, of which the earliest form survives in India, especially among the wide-spreading Boodhists. And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea A laughing girl;—when lawless will erects And meek obedience bears the coward's brand; With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side, Defies all heaven to arms! 'Twas his to teach, Day after day, from pulpit and from desk, Is yet a sin which Jesus never did When Jesus was a child, and yet a sin For which, in lowly pain, He lived and died : For every sin which he could not prevent Stuck in him like a nail. His heart bled for it As it had been a foul sin of his own. Heavy his cross, and stoutly did he bear it, Even to the foot of holy Calvary; And if at last he sunk beneath the weight, There were not wanting souls whom he had taught The way to Paradise, that, in white robes, 60 65 70 75 80 Thronged to the gate to hail their shepherd home! 84 |