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THE SAME.

I HAVE a debt of my heart's own to Thee,
School of my Soul, old lime and cloister shade,
Which I, strange suitor, should lament to see
Fully acquitted and exactly paid.

The first ripe taste of manhood's best delights,
Knowledge imbibed, while mind and heart agree,
In sweet belated talk on winter nights,

With friends whom growing time keeps dear to me,-
Such things I owe thee, and not only these:
I owe thee the far beaconing memories

Of the young dead, who, having crossed the tide
Of Life where it was narrow, deep, and clear,
Now cast their brightness from the further side.
On the dark-flowing hours I breast in fear.

ON COWPER'S GARDEN AT OLNEY.

FROM this forlornest place, at morn and even,
Issues a voice imperative, " Begone,

All ye that let your vermin thoughts creep on
Beneath the unheeded thunders of high Heaven ;
Nor welcome they, who, when free grace is given
To flee from usual life's dominion,

Soon as the moving scene or time is gone,
Return, like penitents unfitly shriven.
But Ye, who long have wooed the memory
Of this great Victim of sublime despair,
Encompassed round with evil as with air,
Yet crying, "God is good, and sinful He,"-
Remain, and feel how better 'tis to drink

Of Truth to Madness even than shun that fountain's

brink."

ROCHE ROCK, CORNWALL.

WHEN all these order'd fields were one wet moor,
This Rock, that is for us a single sight
Of wonderment and picturesque delight,
Was the salvation of the wandering Poor ;
The Hermit here supported to his door
The tottering steps invited by the light
That, as a lower star, transpierc'd the night,
And gave a blessed rest on that hard floor;
Yet have we now a compensating gain—
The Rock has long return'd to nature's use,
Dismantled of its humanising power ;
But, 'mid the civilised and fertile plain,
We gaily climb or pleasurably muse

On God's protection of each opening hour.

TINTERN ABBEY.

THE Men who called their passion piety,
And wrecked this noble argosy of faith,-
They little thought how beauteous could be Death,
How fair the face of Time's aye-deepening sea!

Nor arms that desolate, nor years that flee,

Nor hearts that fail, can utterly deflower

This grassy floor of sacramental power,

Where we now stand communicants-even We,
We of this latter, still protéstant age,
With priestly ministrations of the Sun

And Moon and multitudinous quire of stars
Maintain this consecration, and assuage

With tender thoughts the past of weary wars,

Masking with good that ill which cannot be undone.

THE CAVE OF THE DYING DEER,

ON THE BANKS OF ULLSWATER.

To our instructed patient-seeking eyes
Each day reveals the outer world more clear,
Yet Life and Death, Nature's solemnities,
Darkly as through a glass alone appear;
Whether the thing to scan

Be meditative Man

Or the poor instincts of a dying Deer.

Vex not the inland summer-calm with storms, Beauteous Ullswater! be as calm and grave As when the snows invest the mountain forms, And thy black crystal sleeps without a wave; Triumphant Aira Force!

Hold in thy torrent-course,—

Let Nature pity where she cannot save.

The noblest Stag of all Gowbarrow's park
Is struck, but by no mortal hunter's hand;
There is no hound to see, no horn to hark,
Yet are his legs too weary-weak to stand:

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