Who lead the choir where angels meet, When sorrow all our heart would ask, Around each pure domestic shrine The prayers of hungry souls and poor, Our unseen foes appal. Alms all around and hymns within- Where guards like these abound? O joys, that sweetest in decay, But with the silent breath Of violets drooping one by one, Are wafted high in death! in the lines which follow; or a pastoral heart that is not moved by them to deeper gratitude and more devoted earnestness?] SECOND SUNDAY AFTER EASTER.. BALAAM. He hath said, which heard the words of God, and knew the knowledge of the Most High: which saw the vision of the Almighty, falling into a trance, but having his eyes open: I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall arise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. Numbers xxiv. 16, 17. [First Morning Lesson, Church of England.] [Almighty God, who hast given thine only Son to be unto us both a sacrifice for sin, and also an ensample of godly life; give us grace that we may always most thankfully receive that, his inestimable benefit, and also daily endeavour ourselves to follow the blessed steps of his most holy life, through the same, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.] O FOR a sculptor's hand, That thou might'st take thy stand,* Thy wild hair floating on the eastern breeze, Fix'd on the desert haze, As one who deep in heaven some airy pageant sees. In outline dim and vast Their fearful shadows cast The giant forms of empires on their way To ruin: one by one They tower and they are gone, Yet in the Prophet's soul the dreams of avarice stay.t No sun or star so bright In all the world of light That they should draw to heaven his downward eye: He sees the angel's sword, Yet low upon the earth his heart and treasure lie. *[The prophet Balaam.] t["Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteous"2 Peter ii. 15.] ness. Lo from yon argent field, To him and us reveal'd, One gentle star glides down, on earth to dwell. Chain'd as they are below Our eyes may see it glow, And as it mounts again, may track its brightness well. To him it glar'd afar, A token of wild war, The banner of his Lord's victorious wrath: But close to us it gleams, Its soothing lustre streams Around our home's green walls, and on our church-way path. We in the tents abide Which he at distance eyed Like goodly cedars by the waters spread, While seven red altar-fires* Rose up in wavy spires, Where on the mount he watch'd his sorceries dark and dread. He watch'd till morning's ray On lake and meadow lay, And willow-shaded streams, that silent sweep Around the banner'd lines,† Where by their several signs The desert-wearied tribes in sight of Canaan sleep. He watch'd till knowledge came Upon his soul like flame, Not of those magic fires at random caught: * ["Build me here seven altars." Numbers xxxiii. 1.] t["And Balaam lifted up his eyes, and he saw Israel abiding in his tents, according to their tribes." Numbers xxiv. 2.] But true prophetic light Flash'd o'er him, high and bright, Flash'd once, and died away, and left his darken'd thought. And can he choose but fear, That when he fain would curse, his powerless tongue Alas! the world he loves Too close around his heart her tangling veil hath flung. Sceptre and Star divine,* Who in thine inmost shrine Hast made us worshippers, O claim thine own; O teach our love to grow Up to thy heavenly light, and reap what Thou hast sown. THIRD SUNDAY AFTER EASTER. LANGUOR AND TRAVAIL. [A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but when she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world. St. John xvi. 21. [Gospel for the Day.] [Almighty God, who showest to them that are in error the light of thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ's religion, that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.] WELL may I guess and feel Why Autumn should be sad; ["There shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel;"-prophetic types of the Messiah.] But vernal airs should sorrow heal, Spring should be gay and glad;* Yet as along this violet bank I rove, The languid sweetness seems to choke my breath, * [Keble is a dear lover of the spring. It is in harmony with his Christian hopes, and it indulges in him that keen and grateful love of life which breathes in all he writes. "That is the grand time of observation," says one of nature's shrewdest observers, the busy season with all nature, in every thing that grows and lives. How countless are the millions of little buds, which one of these 'showering and shining' days brings into leaf! They are fresh and washed by the shower; and when the warmth comes, you would absolutely think that you can both see and hear them cracking their scaly cases in which they were confined and protected for the winter; and that the little green tufts were toiling, like living and rational creatures, at strife, which should produce the finest shoot, and the fairest blossom. Then the whisking wings and the thrilling throats are, apparently, enough to put the air into a state of commotion. And they are all in the act of beautifying nature too: some are plucking the dry grass so that the fields may look green; others are gathering up the withered sticks; others, again, the lost feathers and hairs; and others, still, are pulling the lichens from the bark of the trees. The merles and the mavises are running under the hedges and the evergreens in the shrubbery, and capturing the snails in their winter habitations, before they have had time to prepare those hordes which would be the pest of the gardeners for the whole season. Other birds are inspecting the buds in the orchard, and picking off every one which contains a caterpillar or a nest of eggs, that would pour forth their destructive horde, and render the whole tree lifeless. Yonder again are the rooks, clearing the meadow of the young cockchafers, which the heat has brought nearer to the surface; and which, if they were to remain there, would soon begin to eat the roots of the grass to such extent that the turf would peel off as easily as the withered tunic of an onion. Some of them come from a distance too, far there are the white sea-gulls, with their long bent wings and their wailing screams, busy in the same field with the ploughmen, and picking up the 'animal weeds,' while the ploughs are turning down the vegetable ones. All the countless races of that time of labour and love, both native and visitant, are busy following their own purpose, or rather the law of their being, for they form no purpose of their own, or they would sometimes commit errors of judgment as we do, but they do not." Mudie's Observation of Nature, pp. 177, 178.Į |