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Many parts being out of print, a SECOND EDITION of BEAUTIFUL POETRY, revised, is now in course of publication. It will be issued in weekly numbers, at 3d. and monthly parts, at 1s., until it overtakes the current number.

The first number is now ready.

SACRED POETRY is now complete in one vol., price 3s. cloth, 5s. handsomely bound.

WIT AND HUMOUR, a Collection of the best things of the kind, is now ready, complete in one vol., price 4s. 6d., cloth.

SELECTIONS IN FRENCH LITERATURE is now complete in one vol., price 1s. 6d.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

AS BEAUTIFUL POETRY is a good medium for Advertisements, and as only a few can be inserted, the following is the Scale of Charges:

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Shortly will be published, demy 8vo., price 5s.

CHURCH FURNITURE and DECORATIONS,

Fittings and Ornaments, extracted from the Clerical Journal and Church and University Chronicle. With additional Engravings and Plates. By the Rev. EDWARD L. CUTTS, B. A., Honorary Secretary of the Essex Archæological Society; Author of "The Manual of Sepulchral Slabs and Crosses," published under the sanction of the Central Committee of the Archæological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, &c.

Copies may be obtained, postage free, direct from the publisher, or by order of any bookseller.

JOHN CROCKFORD, 29, Essex-street, Strand.

WORSHIP.

A fine composition by JOHN G. WHITTIER, a poet of America.

"Pure religion, and undefiled, before God and the Father, is this: To visit the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."—James i. 27.

THE Pagan's myths through marble lips are spoken,
And ghosts of old Beliefs still flit and moan
Round fane and altar overthrown and broken,
O'er tree-grown barrow and grey ring of stone.

Blind Faith had martyrs in those old high places,
The Syrian hill-grove and the Druid's wood,
With mothers offering to the Fiend's embraces
Bone of their bone, and blood of their own blood.

Red altars, kindling through that night of error,
Smoked with warm blood beneath the cruel eye
Of lawless Power and sanguinary Terror,
Throned on the circle of a pitiless sky;

Beneath whose baleful shadow, overcasting

All heaven above, and blighting earth below,
The scourge grew red, the lip grew pale with fasting,
And man's oblation was his fear and woe!

Then through great temples swell'd the dismal moaning
Of dirge-like music and sepulchral prayer;
Pale wizard priests, o'er occult symbols droning,
Swung their white censers in the burden'd air:

As if the pomp of rituals, and the savour

Of gums and spices, could the Unseen please; As if His ear could bend, with childish favour, To the poor flattery of the organ keys!

Feet red from war-fields trod the church-aisles holy With trembling reverence; and the oppressor there, Kneeling before his priest, abased and lowly,

Crush'd human hearts beneath his knee of prayer.

Not such the service the benignant Father
Requireth at his earthly children's hands:
Not the poor offering of vain rites, but rather
The simple duty man from man demands.

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For Earth he asks it: the full joy of Heaven
Knoweth no change of waning or increase;
The great heart of the Infinite beats even,
Untroubled flows the river of His peace.

He asks no taper lights, on high surrounding
The priestly altar and the saintly grave.
No dolorous chant nor organ music sounding,
Nor incense clouding up the twilight nave.

For he whom Jesus loved hath truly spoken:
The holier worship which he deigns to bless
Restores the lost, and binds the spirit-broken,
And feeds the widow and the fatherless!

Types of our human weakness and our sorrow!
Who lives unhaunted by his loved ones dead?
Who, with vain longing, seeketh not to borrow
From stranger eyes the home lights which have fled?

Oh, brother man! fold to thy heart thy brother;
Where pity dwells, the peace of God is there;
To worship rightly is to love each other,

Each smile a hymn, each kindly deed a prayer.

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Follow with reverent steps the great example
Of Him whose holy work was "doing good;"
So shall the wide earth seem our Father's temple,
Each loving life a psalm of gratitude.

Then shall all shackles fall; the stormy clangor
Of wild war music o'er the earth shall cease;
Love shall tread out the baleful fire of anger,
And in its ashes plant the tree of peace!

THE VISION OF A TEMPLE.

A passage from a remarkable poem by ROBERT BROWNING, entitled Christmas Eve and Easter Day, a work in his quaintest style, strangely mingling comedy with pathos and the purest poetry with the vilest doggerel. How well he can write this will show.

WHAT is it, yon building,

Ablaze in front, all paint and gilding,

With marble for brick, and stones of price
For garniture of the edifice?

Now I see: it is no dream:

It stands there, and it does not seem;
For ever, in pictures, thus it looks,
And thus I have read of it in books,
Often in England, leagues away,

And wonder'd how those fountains play,
Growing up eternally

Each to a musical water-tree,

Whose blossoms drop, a glittering boon,
Before my eyes, in the light of the moon,
To the granite lavers underneath.
Liar and dreamer in your teeth!

I, the sinner that speak to you,

Was in Rome this night, and stood, and knew
Both this and more! For see, for see,

The dark is rent, mine eye is free
To pierce the crust of the outer wall,
And I view inside, and all there, all,
As the swarming hollow of a hive,
The whole Basilica alive!

Men in the chancel, body, and nave,

Men on the pillars' architrave,

Men on the statues, men on the tombs

With popes and kings in their porphyry wombs, All famishing in expectation

Of the main-altar's consummation.

For see, for see, the rapturous moment
Approaches, and earth's best endowment
Blends with heaven's: the taper fires
Pant up, the winding brazen spires
Heave loftier yet the baldachin;
The incense-gaspings, long kept in,
Suspire in clouds; the organ blatant
Holds his breath and grovels latent,
As if God's hushing finger grazed him
(Like Behemoth when He praised him),
At the silver bell's shrill tinkling;
Quick cold drops of terror sprinkling
On the sudden pavement strew'd
With faces of the multitude.
Earth breaks up, time drops away,
In flows heaven, with its new day

Of endless life, when He who trod,
Very Man and very God,

This earth in weakness, shame and pain,
Dying the death whose signs remain
Up yonder on the accursed tree,-
Shall come again, no more to be
Of captivity the thrall,

But the one God, all in all,

King of kings, and Lord of lords,
As His servant John received the words,

"I died, and live for evermore!"

JOHN BARLEYCORN.

One of the most spirited of the lyrics of BURNS. Although it must

be familiar to every reader, this collection would be incomplete without

it.

THERE went three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high;
And they have sworn a solemn oath,
John Barleycorn shall die.

They took a plough and plough'd him down,

Put clods upon his head;

And they have sworn a solemn oath,

John Barleycorn was dead.

But the cheerful spring came kindly on,
And showers began to fall;

John Barleycorn got up again,

And sore surprised them all.

The sultry suns of summer came,
And he grew thick and strong;

His head well arm'd with pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober autumn enter'd mild,
And he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.

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