In the centre of their inmost souls they wore

thee,

Where rack and torment striv'd in vain to reach

thee.

Little, alas! thought they

Who tore the fair breasts of thy friends,
Their fury but made way

For thee, and serv'd them in thy glorious ends.
What did their weapons, but with wider pores
Enlarge thy flaming breasted lovers,
More freely to transpire

That impatient fire

The heart that hides thee hardly covers?
What did their weapons, but set wide the doors
For thee fair purple doors of love's devising;
The ruby windows which enrich'd the east
Of thy so oft-repeated rising.

Each wound of theirs was thy new morning,
And re-enthron'd thee in thy rosy nest,

With blush of thine own blood thy day adorning :
It was the wit of love o'erflow'd the bounds

Of wrath, and made the way through all these wounds.

Welcome, dear, all-adored name!

For sure there is no knee

That knows not thee;

Or if there be such sons of shame,
Alas! what will they do,

When stubborn rocks shall bow,

And hills hang down their heav'n-saluting heads To seek for humble beds

Of dust, where, in the bashful shades of night, Next to their own low nothing they may lie, And couch before the dazzling light of thy dread

Majesty.

They that by love's mild dictate now
Will not adore thee,

Shall then, with just confusion, bow

And break before thee.

RICHARD CRASHAW, (1644.)

KYRIE ELEISON.

ORD, many times I am aweary quite Of mine own self, my sin, my vanity

Yet be not Thou, or I am lost outright,

Weary of me.

And hate against myself I often bear,
And enter with myself in fierce debate ;
Take Thou my part against myself, nor share
In that just hate!

Best friends might loathe us, if what things per

verse

We know of our own selves, they also knew Lord, Holy One! if Thou who knowest worse Shouldst loathe us too!

R. C. TRENCH.

THE SHADOW OF A GREAT ROCK

IN A WEARY LAND.

HE pathways of Thy land are little changed

Since Thou wert there;

The busy world through other ways hath ranged,

And left these bare.

The rocky path still climbs the glowing steep Of Olivet,

Though rains of two millenniums wear it deep, Men tread it yet.

Still to the gardens o'er the brook it leads,
Quiet and low,

Before his sheep the shepherd on it treads,
His voice they know.

The wild fig throws broad shadows o'er it still,
As once o'er Thee;

Peasants go home at evening up that hill
To Bethany.

And as when gazing Thou didst weep o'er them
From height to height,

The white roofs of discrowned Jerusalem
Burst on our sight.

These ways were strew'd with garments once and palm,

Which we tread thus ;

Here through Thy triumph on Thou passedst, calm,

On to Thy cross.

The waves have washed fresh sand upon the shore

Of Galilee ;

But chiselled on the hill-sides evermore
Thy paths we see.

Man has not changed them in that slumbering land,

Nor time effaced;

Where Thy feet trod to bless me still may stand; All can be traced.

Yet we have traces of Thy footsteps far
Truer than these;

Where'er the poor and tried and suffering are,
Thy steps faith sees.