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And in Thy season, Master blest,
Grant me a little sleep and rest;
Then, wakening,—in a sweeter place,'
Thy sunlight pouring on my face.

Lord, let me breathe! Lord, let me be!
Give me Thy light, and let me see!
And now and then, to make me strong,
A little sleep, but not too long.

Thus, Lord, for ever let me range

Through pain, through tears, through strife,

through change,

Make me full blessed in Thy light,

But never at the price of Sight!

VIII.

ON MY OWN TENTATIVES.

"Hard hand, hold mine! deep eyes, look into these!

Strong soul, befriend a troubled modern's song!

Thou poor man, beaten on by rain and breeze,
Thou who shalt rule the nations, make me strong."

AN INVOCATION TO LAZARUus.

ON MY OWN TENTATIVES.

[graphic]

SHALL offer no apology for now entering upon the discussion of so personal a matter as the purport of my

own poetical writings. If I am selfconscious and interested here (and I by no means hope wholly to escape misconstruction) I have been so all along; for while discussing the poetic character, describing the Student's vocation, inquiring what is and what is not Literary Morality, and finally bringing the whole matter to the test of spiritual and theological light, I have been steadily proceeding in this direction. Whom should these thoughts guide, if they are not to be as lamps to my own feet? Whom should I dare

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to rebuke, if I were fearful of setting an example? I must utter my message at any cost-believing, as I do, that, although I may utterly fail to clothe my aspirations or opinions in artistic or permanent forms, yet that those aspirations and opinions are fraught with the deepest importance,- -are destined sooner or later to bear fruit that will make art nobler, and deeply gladden the spirits of men.

In three volumes of ambitious verse,* consisting chiefly of tentative attempts to picture contemporary scenes, I have been doing my best to show that actual life, independent of accessories, is the true material for poetic art; that, further, actual national life is the perfectly approven material for every British poet; and that, in a word, the further the poet finds it necessary to recede from his own time, the less trustworthy is his imagination, the more constrained his sympathy, and the smaller his chance of creating true and durable types for human contemplation. The

*I do not here include "Undertones," which belongs to a totally different category,

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