THE RIGHT USE OF PRAYER
Therefore when thou wouldst pray, or dost thine alms,
Blow not a trump before thee; hypocrites
Do thus, vaingloriously; the common streets
Boast of their largess, echoing their psalms.
On such the laud of man, like unctuous balms,
Falls with sweet savor. Impious counterfeits!
Prating of heaven, for earth their bosom beats!
Grasping at weeds, they lose immortal palms!
God needs not iteration nor vain cries:
That man communion with his God might share
Below, Christ gave the ordinance of prayer:
Vague ambages and witless ecstasies
Avail not: ere a voice to prayer be given,
The heart should rise on wings of love to heaven.
THE CHURCH
Ay, wisely do we call her Mother—she
Who from her liberal breath breathes sustenance
To nations; a majestic charity!
No marble symbol cold, in suppliant glance
Deceitful smiling; strenuous her advance,
Yet calm; while holy ardors, fancy-free,
Direct her measured steps: in every chance
Sedate—as Una 'neath the forest tree
Encompassed by the lions. Why, alas!
Must her perverse and thoughtless children turn
From her example? Why must the sulky breath
Of Bigotry stain Charity's pure glass?
Poison the springs of Art and Science—burn
The brain through life, and sear the heart in death?
SONNET
Sad is our youth, for it is ever going,
Crumbling away beneath our very feet;
Sad is our life, for onward it is flowing
In currents unperceived, because so fleet;
Sad are our hopes, for they were sweet in sowing—
But tares, self-sown, have overtopped the wheat;
Sad are our joys, for they were sweet in blowing—
And still, oh still, their dying breath is sweet;
And sweet is youth, although it hath bereft us
Of that which made our childhood sweeter still;
And sweet is middle life, for it hath left us
A nearer good to cure an older ill;
And sweet are all things, when we learn to prize them
Not for their sake, but His who grants them, or denies them!