Hardening a heart that loathes or slights VII. A soul so pitiably forlorn, If such do on this earth abide, VIII. Alas that such perverted zeal Should spread on Britain's favored 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 IX. But turn we from these "bold, bad" men; Down Rydal Cove from Fairfield's side, Who means to charity no wrong; With this day's work, in thought and word. Heaven prosper X. it! may peace, and love, And hope, and consolation, fall, Through its meek influence, from above, To kneel together, and adore their God! XIII. ON THE SAME OCCASION. Oh! gather whencesoe'er ye safely may 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 Then to her Patron Saint a previous rite 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, 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; That obvious emblem giving to the eye 1823. XIV. THE HORN OF EGREMONT CASTLE. ERE the Brothers through the gateway Horn it was which none could sound, Save he who came as rightful Heir Heirs from times of earliest record Tried the Horn, - it owned his power; He was acknowledged: and the blast Which good Sir Eustace sounded was the last. With his lance Sir Eustace pointed, And to Hubert thus said he : "What I speak this horn shall witness For thy better memory. Hear, then, and neglect me not! The words are uttered from my heart, As my last earnest prayer ere we depart. "On good service we are going Life to risk by sea and land, In which course if Christ our Saviour Do my sinful soul demand, Hither come thou back straightway, Hubert, if alive that day; Return, and sound the Horn, that we May have a living House still left in thee !" |