And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich! She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Alexander Pope. Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, oh quit this mortal frame; Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, O death! where is thy sting? EXTRACT FROM "A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS." Mrs. Browning. Help me, God help me, man! I am low, I am weak — Death loosens my sinews and creeps in my veins; My body is cleft by these wedges of pains, And I feel the externe and insensate creep in On my organized clay. I sob not, nor shriek, Yet I faint fast away! I am strong in the spirit, deep-thoughted, clear-eyed,― I could walk, step for step, with an angel beside, But the body faints sore, it is tired in the race, The rein drops from its hold It sinks back with the death in its face! On, chariot, -on, soul, Ye are all the more fleet Be alone at the goal Of the strange and the sweet! Love us, God!-love us, man! We believe, we achieve COWPER'S GRAVE. "I will invite thee, from thy envious herse To rise, and 'bout the world thy beams to spread, Ibid. That we may see there 's brightness in the dead."-Hab ngton. It is a place where poets crowned May feel the heart's decaying — It is a place where happy saints The pulse of dew upon the grass, His own did calmly number; And silent shadows from the trees Fell o'er him like a slumber. The very world by God's constraint, Beside him, true and loving! And timid hares were drawn from woods But while, in blindness he remained And things provided came without Like a sick child that knoweth not The fever gone, with leaps of heart Which closed in death, to save him. Thus! oh, not thus! no type of earth Wherein he scarcely heard the chant Of seraphs, round him breaking Or felt the new immortal throb Of soul from body parted; But felt those eyes alone, and knew "My Saviour! not deserted!" Deserted! who hath dreamt that when The cross in darkness rested, Upon the victim's hidden face No love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er Th' atoning drops averted What tears have washed them from the soul. That one should be deserted? It went up from the Holy's lips Amid his lost creation, That of the lost, no son should use Those words of desolation; That, earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, And I, on Cowper's grave, should see I wait and watch: before my eyes Beneath the oriflamme of day! Like one whose limbs are bound in trance The shining ones with plumes of snow! |