They told us things I never knew

Of Him who heaven and earth did make, And my heart felt their words were true; It burn'd within me while they spake.

Can I forget that God is love,

And sent his Son to dwell on earth? Or, that our Savior from above,

Lay in a manger at his birth?— Grew up in humble poverty,

A life of grief and sorrow led? No home to comfort Him had He; No, not a place to lay his head.

Yet He was merciful and kind,

Heal'd with a touch all sort of harms; The sick, the lame, the deaf, the blind,

And took young children in his arms.

Then He was kill'd by wicked men,

And buried in a deep stone cave; But of Himself He rose again,

On Easter-Sunday from the grave. Caught up in clouds-at God's right hand, In Heaven He took the highest place; There dying Stephen saw him stand, -Stephen, who had an angel's face.

He loves the poor-He always did;
The little ones are still his care:
I'll seek Him-let who will forbid-
I'll go to Him this night in prayer.

O soundly, soundly should I sleep,
And think no more of sufferings past,
If God would only bless, and keep,

And make me his-his own, at last.

"THOU, GOD, SEEST ME."-GEN. XVI, 13.

O GOD unseen! but not unknown!
'Thine eye is ever fix'd on me;
I dwell beneath thy secret throne,
Encompass'd by thy deity.

Throughout this universe of space
To nothing am I long allied,
For flight of time, and change of place
My strongest, dearest bonds divide.

Parents I had-but where are they?

Friends whom I knew, I know no more; Companions once that cheer'd my way Have dropt behind, or gone before.

Now I am one amidst the crowd

Of life and action hurrying round; Now left alone-for like a cloud

They came-they went, and are not found.

Even from myself sometimes I part,

-Unconscious sleep is nightly death;

Yet surely by my bed Thou art,

To prompt my pulse, inspire my heart.

Of all that I have done or said,

How little can I now recall! Forgotten things to me are dead,

With thee they live-Thou know'st them all Thou hast been with me from the womb, Witness to every conflict here; Nor wilt Thou leave me at the tomb, Before thy bar I must appear.

The moment comes, the only one

Of all my time to be foretold; Though when, and where, and how, can noDe Of all the race of man unfold.

That moment comes, when strength must fail, When, health, and hope, and comfort flown,

I must go down into the vale

And shade of death, with thee alone.

Alone with thee;-in that dread strife
Uphold me through mine agony,
And gently be this dying life
Exchanged for immortality.

Then, when th' unbodied spirit lands
Where flesh and blood have never trod,
And in the unveil'd presence stands
Of thee, my Savior, and my God:

Be mine eternal portion this,

Since thou wert always here with me,
That I may view thy face in bliss,
And be for evermore with Thee.
Sept. 22, 1828.

CHRIST CRUCIFIED.

Imitated from the Italian of Gabriele Fiamma, a poet of the Sixteenth Century.

BEHOLD the man!" Are these the gracious eyes Whose beams could kindle life among the dead! Is this the awful and majestic head

Of Him, the Lord, almighty and all-wise?

Are these the hands that stretch'd abroad the skies, And earth with verdure, heaven with stars o'erspread? Are these the feet that on the waves would tread, And calm their rage when wildest storms arise?

Ah me! how wounded, pale, disfigured now! Those eyes, the joy of Heaven, eclipsed in night; Torn, bleeding, cold, those hands, these feet, this brow: I weep for love, grief, transport, at the sight.

My Lord! my God!" for me, for me didst Thou, In shame, reproach, and torment, thus delight?

CHRIST LAID IN THE SEPULCHRE

Imitated from the same.

WHERE is the aspect, more than heaven serene,
That rapt celestial spirits with delight;
The meekness and the majesty of mien,
That won the yielding heart with gentle might!

Where is the voice, whose harmony could bind
Seas in their wrath, and demon-frenzy quell;
The eye, whose glance was sight unto “ the blind,"
And fill'd the soul with joy unspeakable?
Where is the arm that crush'd our fiercest foe-
Satan, and all the powers of darkness bound?
Where is the Servant's humble form below,
In which the eternal Son of God was found?
Lo! where his pilgrimage of mercy ends!
What glory here into the grave descends!

A RETROSPECT.

I LEFT the God of truth and light,
I left the God who gave me breath,
To wander in the wilds of night,

To perish in the snares of death!

Sweet was his service; and his yoke

Was light and easy to be borne ;Through all his bonds of love I broke ; I cast away his gifts in scorn.

I danced in folly's giddy maze;

And drank the sea, and chased the wind;But falsehood lurk'd in all her ways,

Her laughter left a pang behind.

I dream'd of bliss in pleasure's bowers, While pillowing roses stay'd my head; But serpents hiss'd among the flowers,I woke, and thorns were all my bed.

In riches then I sought for joy,

And placed in glittering ore my trust; But found that gold was all alloy,

And worldly treasure fleeting dust.

I woo'd ambition-climb'd the pole, And shone among the stars ;-but fell Headlong, in all my pride of soul,

Like Lucifer, from heaven to hell.

Now poor, and lost, and trampled down, Where shall the chief of sinners fly, Almighty Vengeance, from thy frown?

Eternal Justice, from thine eye?

Lo! through the gloom of guilty fears,
My faith discerns a dawn of grace;
The sun of righteousness appears
In Jesus' reconciling face.

My suffering, slain, and risen Lord!
In deep distress I turn to thee-
I claim acceptance on thy word,
My God! my God! forsake not me!

Prostrate before thy mercy-seat,
I dare not, if I would, despair;
None ever perish'd at thy feet,
And I will be for ever there.

MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY!

On the exploit of Arnold Winkelried at the battle of Sempach, in which the Swiss, fighting for their independence, totally defeated the Austrians, in the fourteenth century.

"MAKE way for liberty!"-he cried; Make way for liberty, and died!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seem'd to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,

Till time to dust their frames should wear;

A wood, like that enchanted grove'
In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possess'd
A spirit prison'd in its breast,
Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life;

So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Whose polish'd points before them shine,
Bright as the breakers' splendors run
Along the billows, to the Sun.

Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their native land:
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And forged their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords:
And what insurgent rage had gain'd,
In many a mortal fray maintain'd:
Marshall'd once more at Freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquer'd, he who fell,
Was deem'd a dead, or living Tell!
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew,
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burnt within,
The battle trembled to begin :

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found,
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 't were suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet,-
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes, the homes of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains above their head?

1 See Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, canto xviii.

It must not be: This day, this hour, Annihilates the oppressor's power; All Switzerland is in the field, She will not fly, she cannot yieldShe must not fall; her better fate Here gives her an immortal date. Few were the number she could boast; But every freeman was a host, And felt as though himself were he On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him.-Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmark'd he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,

Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And by the motion of his form
Anticipate the bursting storm;
And by the uplifting of his brow

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 'twas no sooner thought than done, The field was in a moment won:

"Make way for Liberty!" he cried, Then ran, with arms extended wide, As if his dearest friend to clasp; Ten spears he swept within his grasp.

Make way for Liberty!" he cried : Their keen points met from side to side: He bow'd amongst them like a tree, And thus made way for Liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly; "Make way for Liberty!" they cry, And through the Austrian phalanx dart,

As rush'd the spears through Arnold's heart;
While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic, scatter'd all:
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free: Thus death made way for Liberty!

STANZAS.

A RACE, a race on earth we run;
And hold a prize in view,

More bright than if we chased the sun
Through heaven's eternal blue.

Changes we prove, and vanish soon;

Changes from youth to age, Silent as those that shape the moon, In her brief pilgrimage.

Like constellations on their way,
That meet the morning light;

We travel up to higher day

Through shades of deeper night.

Their tasks the heavenly host fulfil;

Ere long to shine their last;We, if we do our Father's will,

Shall shine when they are past.

Knit like the social stars in love, Fair as the moon, and elear As yonder sun enthroned above, Christians through life appear. Sheffield, May 9, 1828.

THE RETREAT.

The following lines were hamed from a Pleasure-bous, a the grounds of a gentleman in Lincolnshire, where the wa found some verses addressed to himself, on his arrival there, a September, 18-.

A STRANGER sat down in the lonely retreat:-
Though kindness had welcomed him there,
Yet, weary with travel, and fainting with heat,
His bosom was sadden'd with care:
That sinking of spirit they only can know
Whose joys are all chasten'd by fears;
The streams of whose comfort, though deeply they
flow,

Still wind through the valley of tears.

What ails thee, O stranger? But open thine eye, A paradise bursts on thy view;

.

The sun in his glory is marching on high
Through cloudless and infinite blue:
The woods, in their wildest luxuriance display'd,
Are stretching their coverts of green.

While bright, from the depth of their innermost shade,
Yon mirror of waters is seen.

There richly reflected, the mansion, the lawn,
The banks and the foliage appear,

By nature's own pencil enchantingly drawn-
A landscape enshrined in a sphere!
While the fish in their element sport to and fro,
Quick-glancing, or gliding at ease,

The birds seem to fly in a concave below
Through a vista of down-growing trees.

The current, unrippled by volatile airs,
Now glitters, now darkens along;
And yonder o'erflowing incessantly bears
Symphonious accordance to song;

The song of the ring-dove enamour'd, that floats
Like soft-melting murmurs of grief;
The song of the red breast in ominous notes,
Foretelling the fall of the leaf;

The song of the bee, in its serpentine flight,
From blossom to blossom that roves;
The song of the wind in the silence of night,
When it wakens or hushes the groves:
And sweet, through the chorus of rapture and love,
Which God in his temple attends,

With the song of all nature, beneath and above,
The voice of these waters ascends!

The beauty, the music, the bliss, of that scene,
With ravishing sympathy stole

Through the stranger's dark bosom, illumined his mien,
And soothed and exalted his soul.

Cold, gloomy forebodings then vanish away,

His terrors to ecstacies turn,

As the vapors of night, at the dawning of day, With splendor and loveliness burn.

The stranger reposed in the lonely retreat,

Now smiling at phantoms gone by:

When, lo! a new welcome, in numbers most sweet,

Saluted his ear through his eye;

It came to his eye, but it went to his soul-
Some Muse, as she wander'd that way,
Had dropt from her bosom a mystical scroll,
Whose secrets I dare not betray.

Strange tones, we are told, the pale mariner hears
When the mermaids ascend from their caves,
And sing where the moon, newly-risen, appears
A column of gold on the waves:

And wild notes of wonder the shepherd entrance,
Who, dreaming, beholds in the vale,

By torch-light of glow-worms, the fairies that dance
To minstrelsy piped in the gale.

Not less to that stranger mysteriously brought,
With harmony deep and refined,

In language of silence and music of thought,
Those numbers were heard in his mind:

He listen'd and wonder'd, he trembled and wept,
While transport with tenderness vied,

It seem'd as the harp of a seraph were swept
By a spirit that sung at his side.

All ceased in a moment, and nothing was heard,
And nothing was seen through the wood,
But the twittering cry of fugitive bird,

And the sun-set that blazed on the flood:
He rose; for the shadows of evening grew long,
And narrow the glimpses between :
The owlet in ambush was whooping his song,
And the gossamer waved on the green.

Oft pausing, and hearkening, and turning his eye,
He left the sequester'd retreat,

As the stars in succession awoke through the sky,"
And the moon of the harvest shone sweet;

So pure was her lustre, so lovely and bright,
So soft on the landscape it lay,

The shadows appear'd but the slumber of light,
And the night-scene a dream of the day.

He walk'd to the mansion-though silent his tongue,
And his heart with its fullness opprest,
His spirit within him melodiously sung
The feelings that throbb'd in his breast:
"O ye, who inherit this privileged spot,
All blooming like Eden of yore,
What earth can afford is already your lot,
With the promise of life evermore!
"Here, oft as to strangers your table is spread,
May angels sit down at the board!

Here, oft as the poor to your dwelling are led,
Be charity shown to your lord!

Thus walking with God in your paradise here,
In humble communion of love,

At length may your spirits, when Christ shall appear,
Be caught up to glory above!"

LOVEST THOU ME?

LOVEST thou me?" I hear my Savior say: Oh! that my heart had power to answer "Yea; Thou knowest all things, Lord, in heaven above, And earth beneath: Thou knowest that I love!" But 't is not so; in word, in deed, in thought, I do not, cannot love thee as I ought. Thy love must give that power, thy love alone; There's nothing worthy of thee but thine own. Lord, with the love wherewith thou lovest me, Shed in my heart abroad, would I love thee,

A SIMILE ON A LADY'S PORTRAIT. A FOUNTAIN, issuing into light

Before a marble palace, threw To heaven its column, pure and bright, Returning thence in showers of dew; But soon an humbler course it took, And glid away-a nameless brook.

Flowers on its grassy margin sprung,

Flies o'er its eddying surface play'd, Birds 'midst the waving branches sung, Flocks through the verdant meadows stray'd; The weary there lay down to rest, And there the halcyon built her nest.

"Twas beautiful-to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems, And such resplendent colors catch,

As though 't were raining diadems; Yet all was cold and curious art, That charm'd the eye, but miss'd the heart.

Dearer to me the little stream

Whose unimprison'd waters run, Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun; Its lovely links have power to bind And whirl away my willing mind.

So thought I, when I saw the face,
By happy portraiture reveal'd,
Of one, adorn'd with every grace;

Her name and date from me conceal'd,
But not her story :-she had been
The pride of many a splendid scene.

She cast her glory round a court,

And frolick'd in the gayest ring, Where Fashion's high-born minions sport Like gilded insects on the wing; But thence, when love had touch'd her soul, To nature and to truth she stole.

From din, and pageantry, and strife,

'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of purer life,

And in affection's bosom reigns: No fountain scattering diamond-showers, But the sweet streamlet, edged with flowers.

A POET'S BENEDICTION.

Transmitted to a Young Lady, in a distant county, who had desired "a few lines" in the Author's own handwriting.

SPIRITS in heaven may interchange
Thoughts, without voice or sound;
Spirits on earth at will can range
Wherever man is found ;-
Their thoughts (as silent and as fleet
As summer-lightnings in the west,
When evening sinks to glorious rest)
In written symbols meet.

The motion of a feather darts
The secrets of sequester'd hearts
To kindred hearts afar,
As in the stillness of the night
Quick rays of intermingling light
Sparkle from star to star.

A spirit to a spirit speaks

Where these few letters stand!
Strangers alike,-the younger seeks
A token from the hand
That traced an unpretending song,

Whose numbers won her gentle soul,
While, like a mountain rill, they stole
In trembling harmony along:

What shall the poet's spirit send
To his unseen, unseeing friend?
-A wish as pure as e'er had birth
In thought or language of this earth.
CYNTHIA is young,-may she be old;

And fair, no doubt,-may she grow wrinkled; Her locks, in verse at least, are gold,

May they turn silver, thinly sprinkled; The rose her cheek, the fire her eye, Youth, health, and strength successive fly, And in the end-may CYNTHIA die!

"Unkind-inhuman!" Stay your tears,
I only wish you length of years;
And wish them still, with all their woes
And all their blessings, till the close:
For Hope and Fear, with anxious strife,
Are wrestlers in the ring of life;
And yesterday,-to-day,-to-morrow,—
Are but alternate joy and sorrow.

Now mark the sequel:-May your mind
In wisdom's ways true pleasure find,
Grow strong in virtue, rich in truth,
And year by year renew its youth;
Till, in the late triumphant hour,
The Spirit shall the flesh o'erpower,
This from its sufferings gain release,
And that take wing and part in peace.

FOR THE FIRST LEAF OF A LADY'S ALBUM.

FLOWER after flower comes forth in spring, Bird after bird begins to sing;

Till copse and field in richest bloom,
Sparkle with dew, and breathe perfume,—
While hill and valley, all day long,
And half the night, resound with song.
So may acquaintance, one by onę,
Come like spring-flowers to meet the sun,
And o'er these pages, pure and white,
Kind words, kind thoughts, kind prayers indie.
Which sweeter odor shall dispense
Than vernal blossoms to the sense;
Till woods and streams less fair appear
Than autographs and sketches here:
Or, like the minstrels of the grove,
Pour strains of harmony and love,
The music made by heart to heart,
In which the least can bear a part,
More exquisite than all the notes
Of nightingales' and thrushes' throats.
Thus shall this book, from end to end,
Show in succession friend on friend,
By their own living hands portray'd,
In prose and verse, in light and shade,
By pen and pencil,-till her eye,
Who owns the volume, shall descry
On many a leaf some lovely trace,
Reminding of a lovelier face;
With here and there the humbler line,
Recalling such a phiz as mine.

THE FIRST LEAF OF AN ALBUM.

Ut pictura, poesis.-Hor. de Art, Poet.
Two lovely sisters here unite
To blend improvement with delight;
Painting and poetry engage

By turns to deck the Album's page.

Here may each glowing picture be
The quintessence of Poesy,
With skill so exquisitely wrought,
As if the colors were pure thought,—
Thought from the bosom's inmost cell,
By magic tints made visible,
That, while the eye admires, the mind
Itself, as in a glass, may find.

And may the poet's verse, alike.
With all the power of Painting strike;
So freely, so divinely trace,
In every line, the line of grace;
And beautify, with such sweet art,
The image-chamber of the heart,
That Fancy here may gaze her fill,
Forming fresh scenes and shapes at will,
Where silent words alone appear,
Or, borrowing voice, but touch the ear.

Yet humble prose with these shall stand;
Friends, kindred, comrades, hand in hand,
All in this fair inclosure meet,
The lady of the book to greet,
And, with the pen or pencil, make
These leaves love-tokens, for her sake.
Sheffield, 1828.