26.

Mute Memento of that union

In a Saxon Church survives,

Where a cross-legged Knight lies sculptured

As between two wedded Wives

Figures with armorial signs of race and birth, And the vain rank the Pilgrims bore while yet on earth.

THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.

A Rock there is whose homely front

The passing Traveller slights;

Yet there the Glow-worms hang their lamps, Like stars, at various heights;

And one coy Primrose to that Rock

The vernal breeze invites.

What hideous warfare hath been waged,

What kingdoms overthrown,

Since first I spied that Primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;

A lasting link in Nature's chain

From highest Heaven let down!

The Flowers, still faithful to the stems,

Their fellowship renew ;

The stems are faithful to the root,

That worketh out of view;

And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.

Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:

So blooms this lonely Plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.

Here closed the meditative Strain;

But air breathed soft that day,

The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay ;
And to the Primrose of the Rock

I gave this after-lay.

I sang, Let myriads of bright flowers,
Like Thee, in field and grove
Revive unenvied,―mightier far
Than tremblings that reprove
Our vernal tendencies to hope
In God's redeeming love:

That love which changed, for wan disease,

For sorrow that had bent

O'er hopeless dust, for withered age,

Their moral element,

And turned the thistles of a curse

To types beneficent.

Sin-blighted though we are, we too,
The reasoning Sons of Men,

From one oblivious winter called

Shall rise, and breathe again;

And in eternal summer lose

Our threescore years and ten.

To humbleness of heart descends

This prescience from on high, The faith that elevates the Just, Before and when they die;

And makes each soul a separate heaven, A court for Deity.