COMMINATION.*

THE prayers are o'er: why slumberest thou so long,
Thou voice of sacred song?

Why swell'st thou not, like breeze from mountain

cave,

High o'er the echoing nave,

The white rob'd priest, as otherwhile to guide,
Up to the altar's northern side?—

A mourner's tale of shame and sad decay
Keeps back our glorious sacrifice to-day:

The widow'd Spouse of Christ: with ashes crown'd,
Her Christmas robes unbound,

She lingers in the porch for grief and fear,
Keeping her penance drear.-

O is it nought to you? that idly gay,
Or coldly proud, ye turn away?

But if her warning tears in vain be spent,
Lo, to her alter'd eye the Law's stern fires are lent.

*

Each awful curse, that on Mount Ebal rang,
Peals with a direr clang

Out of that silver trump, whose tones of old
Forgiveness only told.

And who can blame the mother's fond affright,†
Who sporting on some giddy height

["A Commination, or denouncing of God's anger and judgments against sinners, with certain prayers, to be used on the first day of Lent, and at other times, as the ordinary shall appoint." This service is not retained in the Liturgy of the American Church.]

Alluding to a beautiful anecdote in the Greek Anthology, tom. i. 180, ed. Jacobs. See Pleasures of Memory, p. 133.

Her infant sees, and springs with hurried hand
To snatch the rover from the dangerous strand?
But surer than all words the silent spell
(So Grecian legends tell)

When to her bird, too early scap'd the nest,
She bares her tender breast.

Smiling he turns and spreads his little wing,
There to glide home, there safely cling.
So yearns our mother o'er each truant son,
So softly falls the lay in fear and wrath begun.
Wayward and spoil'd she knows ye: the keen blast,
That brac'd her youth, is past:

The rod of discipline, the robe of shame-
She bears them in your name:

Only return and love. But ye perchance
Are deeper plung'd in sorrow's trance:
Your God forgives, but ye no comfort take
Till ye have scourg'd the sins that in your conscience ache.
O heavy-laden soul! kneel down and hear
Thy penance in calm fear:

With thine own lips to sentence all thy sin;
Then, by the judge within

Absolv'd, in thankful sacrifice to part

For ever with thy sullen heart,

Nor on remorseful thoughts to brood, and stain The glory of the Cross, forgiven and cheer'd in vain.

"While on the cliff with calm delight she kneels,
And the blue vales a thousand joys recall,
See, to the last, last verge her infant steals!
O fly-yet stir not, speak not, lest it fall.
Far better taught, she lays her bosom bare,
And the fond boy springs back to nestle there!"]
Rogers, from a Greek Epigram.]

FORMS OF PRAYER TO BE USED AT SEA.

When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee. Isaiah xliii. 2.

THE shower of moonlight falls as still and clear
Upon the desert main,

As where sweet flowers some pastoral garden cheer
With fragrance after rain:

The wild winds rustle in the piping shrouds,
As in the quivering trees:

Like summer fields, beneath the shadowy clouds
The yielding waters darken in the breeze.

Thou too art here with thy soft inland tones,
Mother of our new birth;*

The lonely ocean learns thy orisons,
And loves thy sacred mirth:

When storms are high, or when the fires of war
Come lightening round our course,

Thou breath'st a note like music from afar,

Tempering rude hearts with calm angelic force.

Far, far away, the home-sick seaman's hoard,
Thy fragrant tokens live,

Like flower-leaves in a precious volume stor'd,
To solace and relieve

Some heart too weary of the restless world;
Or like thy Sabbath Cross,†

That o'er the brightening billow streams unfurl'd,
Whatever gale the labouring vessel toss.
[The Church.]

*

[The allusion is to the British flag, bearing a Cross, which is always displayed on Sundays.]

O kindly soothing in high Victory's hour,
Or when a comrade dies,

In whose sweet presence Sorrow dares not lower,
Nor Expectation rise

Too high for earth; what mother's heart could spare
To the cold cheerless deep

Her flower and hope? but thou art with him there,
Pledge of the untir'd arm and eye that cannot sleep:
The eye that watches o'er wild Ocean's dead,
Each in his coral cave,

Fondly as if the green turf wrapt his head
Fast by his father's grave.-

One moment and the seeds of life shall spring
Out of the waste abyss,

And happy warriors triumph with their King
In worlds without a sea,* unchanging orbs of bliss.

[* And there was no more sea. Rev. xxi. 1.

GUNPOWDER TREASON.*

[NOVEMBER 5.]

As thou hast testified of me at Jerusalem, so must thou also bear witness at Rome. Acts xxiii. 11.

BENEATH the burning eastern sky
The Cross was rais'd at morn:

The widow'd Church to weep stood by,
The world, to hate and scorn.

Now, journeying westward, evermore
We know the lonely Spouse
By the dear mark her Saviour bore
Trac'd on her patient brows.

At Rome she wears it, as of old
Upon th' accursed hill:

By monarchs clad in gems and gold,
She goes a mourner still.

She mourns that tender hearts should bend
Before a meaner shrine,

And upon Saint or Angel spend

The love that should be thine.

By day and night her sorrows fall
Where miscreant hands and rude

* [The 5th of November is kept as a holiday by the Church of England in commemoration of the wonderful preservation vouchsafed to her on that day, in the year 1605, by the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot.]