And Lazarus waken'd from his four days' sleep,
Enduring life again, that Passover to keep.

And fast beside the olive-border'd way

Stands the bless'd home, where Jesus deign'd to stay, The peaceful home, to Zeal sincere

And heavenly Contemplation dear,

When Martha lov'd to wait with reverence meet,
And wiser Mary linger'd at thy sacred feet.

Still through decaying ages as they glide,
Thou lov'st thy chosen remnant to divide ;
Sprinkled along the waste of years
Full many a soft
green isle appears:

Pause where we may upon the desert road,
Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.

When withering blasts of error swept the sky,
And Love's last flower seem'd fain to droop and die,
How sweet, how lone the ray benign

On shelter'd nooks of Palestine !

Then to his early home did Love repaird,

And cheer'd his sickening heart with his own native air.

c Arianism in the fourth century.

d See St. Jerome's Works, i. 123. edit. Erasm.

Years roll away again the tide of crime

Has swept thy footsteps from the favour'd clime.
Where shall the holy Cross find rest?

On a crown'd monarch's mailed breast: Like some bright angel o'er the darkling scene, Through court and camp he holds his heavenward course

serene.

A fouler vision yet; an age of light,

Light without love, glares on the aching sight:

O who can tell how calm and sweet,

Meek Walton! shews thy green retreat, When wearied with the tale thy times disclose, The first finds thee out in thy secure repose eye

Thus bad and good their several warnings give
Of His approach, whom none may see and live:
Faith's ear, with awful still delight,

Counts them like minute bells at night,

?

Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,
While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.

But what are heaven's alarms to hearts that cower
In wilful slumber, deepening every hour,

e St. Louis in the tenth century.

That draw their curtains closer round,

The nearer swells the trumpet's sound?

Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die, Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee

nigh.

SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh. St. Luke xxi. 28.

NOT till the freezing blast is still,

Till freely leaps the sparkling rill,
And gales sweep soft from summer skies,

As o'er a sleeping infant's eyes

A mother's kiss; ere calls like these,
No sunny gleam awakes the trees,
Nor dare the tender flowerets show
Their bosoms to th' uncertain glow.

Why then, in sad and wintry time,

Her heavens all dark with doubt and crime,
Why lifts the Church her drooping head,
As though her evil hour were fled ?

Is she less wise than leaves of spring,

Or birds that cower with folded wing?
What sees she in this lowering sky
To tempt her meditative eye?

She has a charm, a word of fire,

A pledge of love that cannot tire ;
By tempests, earthquakes, and by wars,
By rushing waves and falling stars,
By every sign her Lord foretold,
She sees the world is waxing old',
And through that last and direst storm
Descries by faith her Saviour's form.

Not surer does each tender gem,
Set in the figtree's polish'd stem,
Foreshew the summer season bland,
Than these dread signs thy mighty hand:
But oh! frail hearts, and spirits dark!

The season's flight unwarn'd we mark,

f 2 Esdras xiv. 10. The world hath lost his youth, and the times begin to wax old.

fore

But miss the Judge behind-the door,
For all the light of sacred lore:

Yet is He there: beneath our eaves
Each sound his wakeful ear receives:
Hush, idle words, and thoughts of ill,
Your Lord is listening: peace, be still.
Christ watches by a Christian's hearth,
Be silent, "vain deluding mirth,”
Till in thine alter'd voice be known
Somewhat of Resignation's tone.

But chiefly ye should lift your gaze
Above the world's uncertain haze,
And look with calm unwavering eye
On the bright fields beyond the sky,
Ye, who your Lord's commission bear,
His way of mercy to prepare:

Angels He calls

ye: be

your strife

To lead on earth an Angel's life.

Think not of rest; though dreams be sweet,

Start up, and ply your heaven-ward feet.

g See St. James v. 9.