They lie at rest asleep and dead,
The dew drops cool above their head,
They knew not when past summer fled —
Amen .

They lie at rest and quite forget
The hopes and fears that wring us yet;
Their eyes are set, their heart is set —
Amen .

They lie with us, yet gone away
Hear nothing that we sob or say
Beneath the thorn of wintry may —
Miserere .

Blessed are those who have not seen,
And who have yet believed;
The witness, here that has not been,
From heaven they have received.

Blessed are those who have not known
The things that stand before them,
And for a vision of their own
Can piously ignore them.

So let me think, whate'er befall,
That in the city duly,
Some men there are who love at all,
Some women who love truly;

And that upon two million odd
Transgressors in sad plenty,
Mercy will of a gracious God
Be shown — because of twenty.

I

Fast this Life of mine was dying,
Blind already and calm as death,
Snowflakes on her bosom lying
Scarcely heaving with her breath.

II

Love came by, and having known her
In a dream of fabled lands,
Gently stooped, and laid upon her
Mystic chrism of holy hands;

III

I wish we once were wedded, — then I must be true;
You should hold my will in yours to do or to undo:
But now I hate myself Eva when I look at you.

You have seen her hazel eyes, her warm dark skin,
Dark hair — but oh those hazel eyes a devil is dancing in: —
You my saint lead up to heaven she lures down to sin.

Listen Eva I repent, indeed I do my love:
How should I choose a peacock and leave and grieve a dove? —
If I could turn my back on her and follow you above.

No it's not her beauty bloomed like an autumn peach,

Is love so prone to change and rot
We are fain to rear forget-me-not
By measure in a garden plot? —

I love its growth at large and free
By untrod path and unlopped tree,
Or nodding by the unpruned hedge,
Or on the water's dangerous edge
Where flags and meadowsweet blow rank
With rushes on the quaking bank.

Love is not taught in learning's school,
Love is not parcelled out by rule;
Hath curb or call an answer got? —
So free must be forget-me-not.
Give me the flame no dampness dulls,
The passion of the instinctive pulse,

I wish I were a little bird
That out of sight doth soar,
I wish I were a song once heard
But often pondered o'er,
Or shadow of a lily stirred
By wind upon the floor,
Or echo of a loving word
Worth all that went before,
Or memory of a hope deferred
That springs again no more.

First printed in Blackwood's Magazine , May, 1847.
W E cannot live, except thus mutually
We alternate, aware or unaware,
The reflex act of life: and when we bear
Our virtue outward most impulsively,
Most full of invocation, and to be
Most instantly compellant, certes there
We live most life, whoever breathes most air
And counts his dying years by sun and sea.
But when a soul, by choice and conscience, doth
Throw out her full force on another soul,
The conscience and the concentration both
Make mere life, Love. For Life in perfect whole

Some say that love and joy are one: and so
They are indeed in heaven, but not on earth.
Our hearts are made too narrow for the girth
Of love, which is infinity; below
The portion we can compass may bring woe;
Of this the Church bears witness from her birth:
And though a throne in heaven be more than worth
Tears, it is pain that makes them overflow.
Think of the utter grief that fell on them

HYMN I

" The Lord Jesus, although gone to the Father, and we see Him no more, is still present with His Church; and in His heavenly glory expends upon her as intense a love, as in the agony of the garden, and the crucifixion of the tree. Those eyes that wept, still gaze upon her." — Recalled words of an extempore Discourse, preached at Sidmouth , 1833.

God , named Love, whose fount Thou art,
Thy crownless Church before Thee stands,
With too much hating in her heart,

" From fading things, fond men, lift your desire."
— Drummond .

Could ye be very blest in hearkening
Youth's often danced-to melodies —
Hearing it piped, the midnight darkening
Doth come to show the starry skies, —
To freshen garden-flowers, the rain? —
It is in vain, it is in vain!

Could ye be very blest in urging
A captive nation's strength to thunder
Out into foam, and with its surging
The Xerxean fetters break asunder?
The storm is cruel as the chain! —