Ripe berries from their laden stalk ;
Then his desire he could not balk.
When these did once his eye engage,
He saw no more the camel's rage,
Nor dragon in the underground,
Nor game the busy mice had found.
The beast above might snort and blow,
The Dragon watch his prey below,
The mice gnaw near him as they pleased, -
The berries eagerly he seized ;
They seemed to him right good to eat;
A dainty mouthful, welcome treat,
They brought him such a keen delight,
His danger was forgotten quite.

But who, you ask, is this vain man,
Who thus forget his terror can ?
Then learn, O friend, that man art thou !
Listen and I will tell thee how.
The dragon in the well beneath,
That is the yawning gulf of death.
The camel threatening overhead
Is life's perplexity and dread.
'Tis thou who, life and death between,
Hangest on this world's sapling green;
And they who gnaw the root, the twain
Who thee and thy support would fain
Deliver unto death a prey,
These names the mice have, Night and Day.
From morn to evening gnaws the white,
And would the root unfasten quite ;
From evening till the morn comes back,
In deepest stillness gnaws the black;
And yet, in midst of these alarms,
The berry, Pleasure, has such charms,

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

7

That thou, the camel of life's woe,
That thou, the dragon death below,
That thou, the two mice, Night and Day,
And all forgettest, save the way
To get most berries in thy power,
And on the grave's cleft side devour.

BY GRECIAN ANNALS IT REMAINED UNTOLD.

R. C. Trench.

By Grecian annalş it remained untold,
But may be read in Eastern legend old,
How, when great Alexander died, he bade
That his two hands uncovered might be laid
Outside the bier, for men therewith to see
Men who had seen him in his majesty –
That he had

gone
the common way

of all,
And nothing now his own in death might call ;
Nor of the treasures of two empires aught
Within those empty hands unto the grave had brought.

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY. - Keble.

It was not, then, a poet's dream,

An idle vaunt of song,
Such as beneath the moon's soft gleam

On vacant fancies throng,

Which bids us see in heaven and earth,

In all fair things around,
Strong yearnings for a blest new birth

With sinless glories crowned ;

Which bids us hear, at each sweet pause

From care and want and toil, When dewy eve her curtain draws

Over the day's turmoil,

In the low chant of wakeful birds,

In the deep weltering flood, In whispering leaves, these solemn words, –

“God made us all for good."

All true, all faultless, all in tune,

Creation's wondrous choir Opened in mystic unison,

To last till time expire.

And still it lasts : by day and night,

With one consenting voice,
All hymn thy glory, Lord, aright,

All worship and rejoice!

Man only mars the sweet accord,

O’erpowering with “ harsh din” The music of thy works and word,

Ill matched with grief and sin.

Sin is with man at morning break,

And through the livelong day Deafens the ear that fain would wake

To Nature's simple lay.

But when eve's silent footfall steals

Along the eastern sky,
And one by one to earth reveals

Those purer fires on high,

FOURTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

9

When one by one each human sound

Dies on the awful ear,
Then Nature's voice no more is drowned,

She speaks, and we must hear.

Then pours

she on the Christian heart That warning still and deep, At which high spirits of old would start

E’en from their pagan sleep,

Just guessing, through their murky blind,

Few, faint, and bafting sight, Streaks of a brighter heaven behind

A cloudless depth of light.

Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,

Through many a dreary age, Upbore whate’er of good and wise

Yet lived in bard or sage :

They marked what agonizing throes

Shook the great mother's womb; But Reason's spells might not disclose

The gracious birth to come ;

Nor could the enchantress Hope forecast

God's secret love and power;
The travail-pangs of Earth must last

Till her appointed hour;

The hour that saw from opening heaven

Redeeming glory stream, Beyond the summer hues of even,

Beyond the mid-day beam.

Thenceforth, to eyes of high desire,

The meanest things below, As with a seraph's robe of fire

Invested, burn and glow :

The rod of heaven has touched them all,

The word from heaven is spoken : “ Rise, shine, and sing, thou captive thrall !

Are not thy fetters broken?

“ The God who hallowed thee, and blest,

Pronouncing thee all good, Hath He not all thy wrongs redrest,

And all thy bliss renewed ?

“ Why mourn'st thou still as one bereft,

Now that th' eternal Son
His blessed home in heaven hath left

To make thee all his own?'

Thou mourn'st because sin lingers still

In Christ's new heaven and earth ; Because our rebel works and will

Stain our immortal birth;

Because, as Love and Prayer grow cold,

The Saviour hides his face,
And worldlings blot the temple's gold

With uses vile and base.

Hence all thy groans and travail-pains;

Hence, till thy God return,
In Wisdom's ear thy blithest strains,

O Nature, seem to mourn!