VI.

Lives there a man whose sole delights
Are trivial pomp and city noise,
Hardening a heart that loathes or slights
What every natural heart enjoys?
Who never caught a noon-tide dream
From murmur of a running stream;
Could strip, for aught the prospect yields
To him, their verdure from the fields;
And take the radiance from the clouds
In which the sun his setting shrouds.

VII.

A soul so pitiably forlorn,
If such do on this earth abide,
May season apathy with scorn,
May turn indifference to pride;
And still be not unblest-compared
With him who grovels, self-debarred
From all that lies within the scope
Of holy faith and christian hope;
Or, shipwreck'd, kindles on the coast
False fires, that others may be lost.

VIII.

Alas! that such perverted zeal

Should spread on Britain's favoured ground!
That public order, private weal,

Should e'er have felt or feared a wound

From champions of the desperate law

Which from their own blind hearts they draw;

Who tempt their reason to deny

God, whom their passions dare defy,

And boast that they alone are free

Who reach this dire extremity!

IX.

But turn we from these 'bold bad' men;
The way, mild Lady! that hath led
Down to their dark opprobrious den,'

6

Is all too rough for Thee to tread.
Softly as morning vapours glide

Down Rydal-cove from Fairfield's side,
Should move the tenor of his song

Who means to charity no wrong;

Whose offering gladly would accord

With this day's work, in thought and word.

X.

Heaven

prosper it! may peace, and love,

And hope, and consolation, fall,

Through its meek influence, from above,
And penetrate the hearts of all ;
All who, around the hallowed Fane,
Shall sojourn in this fair domain;
Grateful to Thee, while service pure,
And ancient ordinance, shall endure,
For opportunity bestowed

To kneel together, and adore their God!

1823.

XXXIV.

ON THE SAME OCCASION.

Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may
The help which slackening Piety requires,
Nor deem that he perforce must go astray
Who treads upon the footmarks of his sires.

Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is by few persons exactly known; nor, that the degree of deviation from due east often noticeable in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point in the horizon, at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. These observances of our ancestors, and the causes of them, are the subject of the following stanzas.

WHEN in the antique age of bow and spear
And feudal rapine clothed with iron mail,
Came ministers of peace, intent to rear
The mother Church in yon sequestered vale;

Then, to her Patron Saint a previous rite
Resounded with deep swell and solemn close,
Through unremitting vigils of the night,
Till from his couch the wished-for Sun uprose.

He rose, and straight-as by divine command, They, who had waited for that sign to trace Their work's foundation, gave with careful hand To the high altar its determined place;

Mindful of Him who in the Orient born

There lived, and on the cross his life resigned,
And who, from out the regions of the morn,
Issuing in pomp, shall come to judge mankind.

So taught their creed ;- -nor failed the eastern sky, 'Mid these more awful feelings, to infuse

The sweet and natural hopes that shall not die,
Long as the sun his gladsome course renews.

For us hath such prelusive vigil ceased;
Yet still we plant, like men of elder days
Our christian altar faithful to the east,

Whence the tall window drinks the morning rays;

That obvious emblem giving to the eye
Of meek devotion, which ere while it gave,
That symbol of the day-spring from on high,
Triumphant o'er the darkness of the grave.

1823.