One grand Creation Hymn,

Whose notes the seraphim

Lift to the glorious height of music wing'd and crown'd.

Shall not those notes find echoes in my lyre, Faithful though faint?-Shall not my spirit's fire, If slowly, yet unswervingly, ascend

Now to its fount and end?

Shall not my earthly love, all purified,
Shine forth a heavenward guide?

An angel of bright power?-and strongly bear
My being upward into holier air,

Where fiery passion-clouds have no abode, And the sky's temple-arch o'erflows with God?

The radiant hope new-born
Expands like rising morn

In my life's life: and as a ripening rose
The crimson shadow of its glory throws
More vivid, hour by hour, on some pure stream;
So from that hope are spreading

Rich hues, o'er nature shedding,

Each day, a clearer, spiritual gleam.

Let not those rays fade from me-once enjoy'd,
Father of spirits! let them not depart!
Leaving the chill'd earth, without form and void,
Darken'd by mine own heart!

Lift, aid, sustain me! Thou, by whom alone
All lovely gifts and pure

In the soul's grasp endure;

Thou, to the steps of whose eternal throne
All knowledge flows-a sea for evermore
Breaking its crested waves on that sole shore-
O consecrate my life! that I may sing
Of Thee with joy that hath a living spring,
In a full heart of music!-Let my lays

Through the resounding mountains waft thy praise,
And with that theme the wood's green cloisters fill,
And make their quivering leafy dimness thrill
To the rich breeze of song! Oh! let me wake
The deep religion, which hath dwelt from yore,
Silently brooding by lone cliff and lake,

And wildest river shore!

And let me summon all the voices dwelling
Where eagles build, and cavern'd rills are welling,
And where the cataract's organ-peal is swelling,
In that one spirit gather'd to adore!

Forgive, O Father! if presumptuous thought
Too daringly in aspiration rise!

Let not thy child all vainly have been taught
By weakness, and by wanderings, and by sighs
Of sad confession!-lowly be my heart,

And on its penitential altar spread

The offerings worthless, till Thy grace impart
The fire from Heaven, whose touch alone can
shed

Life, radiance, virtue !-let that vital spark
Pierce my whole being, wilder'd else and dark!

Thine are all holy things-O make me Thine,
So shall I, too, be pure-a living shrine

Unto that Spirit, which goes forth from Thee,
Strong and divinely free,

Bearing thy gifts of wisdom on its flight,

And brooding o'er them with a dove-like wing,
Till thought, word, song, to Thee in worship spring,
Immortally endow'd for liberty and light.

VOL. VII. 25

THOUGHTS DURING SICKNESS.

I.-INTELLECTUAL POWERS.

O THOUGHT!

O Memory! gems for ever heaping

High in the illumined chambers of the mind,
And thou, divine Imagination! keeping

Thy lamp's lone star 'mid shadowy hosts enshrined;
How in one moment rent and disentwined,
At Fever's fiery touch, apart they fall,
Your glorious combinations!-broken all,
As the sand-pillars by the desert's wind

Scatter'd to whirling dust!-Oh, soon uncrown'd!
Well may your parting swift, your strange return,
Subdue the soul to lowliness profound,

Guiding its chasten'd vision to discern

How by meek Faith Heaven's portals must be pass'd Ere it can hold your gifts inalienably fast.

II. SICKNESS LIKE NIGHT.

THOU art like Night, O Sickness! deeply stilling
Within my heart the world's disturbing sound,
And the dim quiet of my chamber filling

With low sweet voices by Life's tumult drown'd,

Thou art like awful Night!-thou gather'st round
The things that are unseen-though close they lie,—
And with a truth, clear, startling, and profound,
Givest their dread presence to our mental eye.
-Thou art like starry, spiritual Night!
High and immortal thoughts attend thy way,
And revelations, which the common light
Brings not, though wakening with its rosy ray
All outward life:-Be welcome then thy rod,
Before whose touch my soul unfolds itself to God.

III.-ON RETZSCH'S DESIGN OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.'

WELL might thine awful image thus arise
With that high calm upon thy regal brow,
And the deep, solemn sweetness in those eyes,
Unto the glorious Artist!-Who but thou

This sonnet was suggested by the following passage out of Mrs. Jameson's Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad, in a description she gives of a visit paid to the artist Retzsch, near Dresden :—“ Afterwards he placed upon his easel a wonderous face, which made me shrink back-not with terror, for it was perfectly beautiful,—but with awe, for it was unspeakably fearful: the hair streamed back from the pale brow-the orbs of sight appeared at first two dark, hollow, unfathomable spaces, like those in a skull; but when I drew nearer and looked attentively, two lovely living eyes looked at me again out of the depth of the shadow, as if from the bottom of an abyss. The mouth was divinely sweet, but sad, and the softest repose rested on every feature. This, he told me, was the ANGEL OF DEATH."