110

CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

It pass'd not—though the stormy wave

Had sunk beneath His tread ;
It pass'd not-though to Him the grave

Had yielded up its dead.
But there was sent Him from on high
A gift of strength, for man to die. *

And was His mortal hour beset

With anguish and dismay?
-How may we meet our conflict yet,

In the dark, narrow way?
How, but through Him, that path who trod?
Save, or we perish, Son of God!

* “And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.”

St. Luke, xxii. 43.

THE SUNBEAM.

Thou art no lingerer in monarch's hall,
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!
A bearer of hope unto land and sea-
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and Ocean smilesThou hast touch'd with glory his thousand islesThou hast lit up the ships, and the feathery foam, And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest-shades,
Thou art streaming on through their green arcades,
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow,
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

I look'd on the mountains-a vapor lay
Folding their heights in its dark array ;
Thou brakest forth and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.

I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its casement fell,
And it laugh'd into beauty at that bright spell.

To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not, from thy pomp to shed
A tender light on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st through the dim church-aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bath'd in a flood as of burning gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest

grave, Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave; Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest, Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer, oh! what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea !
-One thing is like thee, to mortals given,-
The faith, touching all things with hues of Heaven.

THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF

THE NILE.

In sunset's light o'er Afric thrown,

A wanderer proudly stood
Beside the well-spring, deep and lone,

Of Egypt's awful flood;
The cradle of that mighty birth,
So long a hidden thing to earth.

He heard its life's first murmuring sound,

A low mysterious tone;
A music sought, but never found

By kings and warriors gone;
He listen'd-and his heart beat high-
That was the song of victory!

The rapture of a conqueror's mood

Rush'd burning through his frame,

The depths of that green solitude

Its torrents could not tame, Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile, Round those calm fountains of the Nile.

Night came with stars across his soul

There swept a sudden change,
Ev'n at the pilgrim's glorious goal,

A shadow dark and strange,
Breath'd from the thought, so swift to fall
O’er triumph's hour—And is this all ?

No more than this !—what seem'd it now

First by that spring to stand ?
A thousand streams of lovelier flow

Bath'd his own mountain land !
Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track,
Their wild sweet voices call'd him back.

They call'd him back to many a glade,

His childhood's haunt of play, Where brightly through the beechen shade

Their waters glanc'd away ; They call'd him, with their sounding waves, Back to his fathers' hills and graves.