EXTRACTS FROM SOME UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT.

HUMILITY OPPRESSED.

Blame not the world: But blame its law that makes it crime akin To be of lowly birth—to lack the gold Whereby to coat the mask to cheat the world Of sterling merit. See yon beauteous fly Breaking its plumage 'gainst the glassy pane, Till spent and weary, yearning tow'rds the sun. E'en so the lowly-born but large of soul See not, but feel, the chilling barrier Set up by Pride to mar their sky-ward flight To liberty and life.

UPWARD STRIVINGS.

See, when the simple moth doth blindly rush To reach the flame, its life oft pays the debt Of folly. Yet 'tis nobler thus to die Midst all the brightness of a waking life, Than from the world ooze out through darkened ways By beggarly instalments—none to feel Thy life but thine own poor ignoble self: And none to tell the moment of thy death Save those who profit by it.

TRUTHFULNESS.

Ne'er seek, by artful guise of words, to taint The truth with falsehood's hue. Poor, trembling Truth! Trust in her would be boundless, if our tongues Uttered the coin as fashioned in the heart. And then poor Heart would have no need to send Her champion blushes to the cheeks to tell The world how basely she had been traduced.

LOVE'S INFLUENCE.

O love sublime! How thy sweet influence agitates the soul, Voicing its hidden chords, as breathing winds Wake the rude harp to thrilling melody. All things must pass away; but love shall live For ever. 'Tis th' immortal soul of life. Scathless and beauteous midst th' incongruous mass Of desolated hearts and stricken souls, And spirits faintful 'neath a world of woe, And dusky millions in the mine of life; And all the rank corruption of the earth— Its weeds, its thorns, its sadness-breeding hate; Its selfishness, its swallow-pinioned friends; Its rottenness of core and lack of truth: When all have changed, save Nature and itself, This Heaven-sent flow'r of Eden—peerless love— Shall blossom in Evangel purity, And sanctify a host to people Heaven.

VALUE OF ADVERSITY.

Friction with sorrow rubs perception keen; And dear-bought knowledge makes us prophets all.

MISGUIDING APPEARANCES.

What! Is the graveyard sod less fresh and green— The daisies there less like the meadow flow'r— Because pollution slumbers at their roots? Judge not thou, then, by what appears to be, But what exacting Conscience tells thee is.

VIRGIN PURITY.

As fair a soul as ever came from God, And one more gentle never walkt the earth In mortal guise. Of sweet external, too: Fresh as the wakening morn with violet breath; And every action, look, thought, word, and trace, Were strung to tuneful melody. Her life Was music's echo—stealing o'er the soul Like dying strains, soft and retiringly. In childish grace to womanhood she grew, And like the virgin lily stood and smiled— Flinging around the fragrance of herself Unweeting of the blessings that she brought.

MAN'S DESTINY.

All human actions are ordained of God, And for the common good: yet men see not The strings that keep earth's puppets on the move; But whine and whimper—wondering at the ways By which unlook'd-for ends are brought about: As blind imprisoned birds bruise out their lives Against the cruel bars they cannot see.

LOVE'S INCONGRUITIES.

Experience tells the world it were as mad To link the Present with the sluggish Past, As wed the ways of winsome, wanton youth, To lean and laggard age. I pitied her: Made her the mistress of my countless wealth— Loving with doting and uxorious love. And the ripe graces of her radiant mind Shone out resplendent. But my withered life Woke to her love with sere and sickly hope; As some departed June, won with the sighs Of waning Winter, turns and spends a day For very pity with the lonely eld, Who greets her sunny visit with a glance Of cold inanity, and strives to smile. O had I known this little hour of time When life was young—or knew it not at all! Then my heart's buoyance, at such love as her's, Had blossom'd brightly—as the merry May Skips from the golden South with balmy breath, Breathing upon the dark and thorn-clad fields, Till fragrant buds peep out like love-lit eyes, And hedges redden as she walks along. As these—her love and mine. But now—alas!

RETRIBUTION.

O that the wretchedness entailed by sin Might form the prelude—not the after-piece. How few there are would brave the hurricane: How few the crimes mankind would have to count.

LOVE'S MUTABILITY.

My heart is dark again. My tree of life but yestermorn was flusht With golden fruit: to-day it creaks in pain, And wintry winds moan through its leafless boughs. Time, some hours younger, saw me clasp the sky Of hope with radiant brow: the plodding churl May see me now go stumbling in the dark, And blindly groping for the hand of Death To lead me hence. O life! O world! O woman!

A MOTHER'S ADVICE.

Mother. Clarence, my darling boy, The world to which thou yearn'st is grey with crime; And glittering Vice will bask before thy face, As serpents lie in sedgy, o'ergrown grass, In glossy beauty, whilst Life's potent glance Will thrall thy soul as with a spirit-spell: But hold thy heart, a chalice for the Good And Beautiful to crush, with pearly hands, The mellow draught which purifies the thought, And lights the soul. Thirst after knowledge, child. Thy face shall shine, then, brightly as a king's, As did the prophets' in the olden time When holding converse with the living God. As rain-drops falling from the sky above Upon the mountain-peak remain not there, But hasten down to voice the simple rill, So knowledge, born of God, should be attained By peasant as by peer—by king or slave. Have faith—large faith. Some of life's mightiest great Have peered out, like the moon from frowning hills, Then ventured forth, and walkt their splendour'd night In pale, cold majesty; while some have dasht On sun-steeds through the ocean of the world, As comets plough the shoreless sea of stars, Blinding old Earth with wreaths of splendid foam And sparkling sprays: others have strode the world Like a Colossus, and the glory-light That streamed up from the far, far end of time, Hath smote their lofty brows, and glinted down Upon the world they shadowed: some have lived And cleft their times with such a whistling swoop That plodding minds seemed reeling 'tother way— Men who had suffering-purified their souls To angel rarity, that they might scan, Like old Elijah, e'en the throne of God, And live.

Clarence. Thy voice doth marshal on my soul To battle, and to dream of noble things. Thy golden words I'll graft upon my heart Like blossoms wedded to the granite rock. But, Mother, weep not! Why should April tears Come with the sunshine of thy voice?

Mother. Bless thee, God bless thee, Clarence! May thy sorrows be Light and evanescent as vapoury wreaths That fleck the Summer blue. My dreams shall wing Their way to thee, as moonbeams pierce the night. And I will send my soul up in a cloud Of thought to Heav'n, wreathed with a Mother's prayer, For thee. Farewell—and be thou blest.

SUNRISE IN THE COUNTRY.

What a sweet atmosphere of melody And coolness falls upon the troubled heart, Like oil upon the wave. Dance on—dance on— Ye couriers of the sun—full-throated choir; And sky-ward fling your sobbing psalmody— A sunrise offering to the coming day. On—on: still higher! Still rolls the torrent down, Bearing the soul up in a cloud of sprays, The world seems deluged with a golden shower: Myriads of larks trill out their morning psalm, As though the stars were changed to silver bells Timbrelling forth their sweet melodious bursts In joyous welcome of the maiden Morn.

FAITH IN LOVE.

Man's faith in woman's love Is all the darken'd earth can boast of Heaven. That faith destroyed—farewell to happiness, And joy, and worldly hope, and all that goes To deify mankind.

UNREQUITED AFFECTION.

She was a simple cottage-girl, But lovely as a poet's richest thought Of woman's beauty—and as false as fair. I've writhed beneath the witchery of her voice As cornfields palpitate beneath the breeze— Have sued with praying hands—lavished my life Upon her image, as the bright stars pour Their trembling splendours on the cold-heart lake— Wounded my manliness upon the rock Of her too fatal beauty, like a storm That twines with sobbing fondness round the neck Of some sky-kissing hill, bursts in his love, Then slowly droops and flows about her feet A puling streamlet,—whilst a gilded cloud Is toying with the brow of his Beloved! 'Twas gold that sear'd the love-bud of her heart; To bitter ashes turned my life's sweet fruit; And sent my soul adrift upon the world A wandering, worthless wreck.

THE POET'S TROUBLES.

To be possess'd of passion's ecstasy Outswelling from the heart; the teeming brain Afire with glowing light; as when the sun Catches the tall tree-tops with Summer warmth, And draws the trembling sap with impulse sweet Through every fibre up to th' glory-crown; To feel the breath of some rare influence Of subtle life suck at the throbbing soul As though into infinity to kiss The yielding passion subtle as itself; To see the hand of God in everything; To hear His voice in every sound that comes; To long, and long, with passionate desire, To speak the language which the dream divine Incessantly implies; to live and move In Fancy's heav'n—yet know that earth still holds The fancy captive: these the daily death Of many minds that wrestle all in vain 'Gainst that which Heav'n in cruel kindness sends To teach mankind humility. Ah, me! The pow'r to feel the touch of Paradise And to enjoy it not—as hungering men Have died ere now, gazing upon the food By heartless gaolers placed beyond their reach.

ECHOES FROM THE CITY.

The modern Babylon Sleeps like a serpent coil'd up at my feet. London—huge model of the great round earth, The teeming birthplace and the mausoleum Of millions; where dark graves and drawing-rooms Gaze from each other into each; where flow'rs Of blushing life droop in the grasp of Vice Like blossoms in the fingers of a corpse; Where cank'rous gold sways, millions with a nod To abject slavery, buying men up As toys for knaves to play with in the game Of life; where Truth is kicked from foot to foot, Till in bewilderment she cries aloud And swears to save her life she is a lie; Where Love and Hate, in masquerading guise, Pell-mell dance on; chameleon Charity, In all its varying phases, crawls along— Now shrinking up dark courts in russet tint, And then, in bold and gaudy colours dresst Which publish trumpet-tongued its whereabouts, It takes a garish stand before the world And calls itself an angel. Thus for aye— For ever, rolls the dark and turbid stream In feverish unrest.

LOVE'S WILES.

When Beauty smiles upon thee—have a care. Kingdoms ere this have hinged upon a kiss From woman's lips: and smiles have won a crown. Glances from bright eyes of a gentle maid, Whose cheeks would redden at a mouse's glance, Have hearts befool'd that in their noble strength Had shaken Kingdoms down. Have thou a care.

HAZARD IN LOVE.

My sorrowing heart is like the blasted oak That claspt the dazzling lightning to its breast, Yielding its life up to the burning kiss. Springs came along and fondled all in vain, And Summers toy'd with warm and am'rous breath; But nought in life could e'er again restore The greening foliage of its early days. Man never loves but once—then 'tis a cast For life or death. If death—alas the day! If life—'twere perfect Paradise.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

And friends fell from me—all, save God, and one Beside—and she my mother—gentle, true. As the bleak wind sweeps o'er the trembling limbs Of some fair tree denuded of its dress, How oft is seen, upon the topmost spray, One lonely leaf, which braves the passing storm Of Winter, and when gladsome Spring arrives, And blossoms bloom in beauty all around, It bends its brow and silent falls away. So droopt that friend, who, through the livelong day Of icy cold that chill'd my inmost life, Sat like a bird upon the outside branch, And sweetly sang me songs of coming Spring.

"THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS."

'Tis everywhere! The babe that sees with pain The look of feign'd displeasure on the face Of doting mother; and the mother who Lays down the babe to rest—no more to wake; The youth and maiden fair who tempt the stream Of love that never brings them to the goal Their fancy pictured; hearts that droop and break: Upon life's thorny way; old age that sees Long-hoped for peace among the silent dead And deems it life to die. The shadow falls Athwart the sunny hopes of every heart, And shadowy most when gentle arms extend For love's embrace, and find it not—as night Is darkest near the dawn. Brighter the flame Of light celestial 'twixt which and our hearts The blessed Cross doth stand, sharper the shade That falls upon our lives, as greatest gains Involve the pains of great adventurings; Or, nearer Death, nearer eternal Life.