Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star

With that of summer skies!

I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,

Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark brown curls, the brow, The smooth transparent skin, Refined, as with intent to show

The holiness within ;

The grace of parting Infancy

By blushes yet untamed;

Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride:

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,

Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite Of poverty and wrong,

Doth here preserve a living light, From Hebrew fountains sprung; That gives this ragged group to cast Around the dell a gleam

Of Palestine, of glory past,

And proud Jerusalem!

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

"Not to the earth confined,

"Ascend to heaven."

WHERE Will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?

They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find;

Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aërial harmonies;

From humble violet modest thyme
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,

As if no space below the sky

Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride

If like ambition be their guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,

The spirit-quickener of the flowers,

That with moist virtue softly cleaves

The buds, and freshens the young leaves,

The Birds

pour

forth their souls in notes

Of rapture from a thousand throats,
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,
With bounty more and more enlarged,
Till the whole air is overcharged;
Give ear, O Man! to their appeal
And thirst for no inferior zeal,
Thou, who canst think, as well as feel.

Mount from the earth; aspire! aspire!
So pleads the town's cathedral choir,
In strains that from their solemn height
Sink, to attain a loftier flight;
While incense from the altar breathes
Rich fragrance in embodied wreaths;
Or, flung from swinging censer, shrouds
The taper lights, and curls in clouds.
Around angelic Forms, the still
Creation of the painter's skill,

That on the service wait concealed
One moment, and the next revealed.
-Cast off your bonds, awake, arise,
And for no transient ecstasies!

What else can mean the visual plea
Of still or moving imagery?

The iterated summons loud,

Not wasted on the attendant crowd,
Nor wholly lost upon the throng
Hurrying the busy streets along?

Alas! the sanctities combined By art to unsensualise the mind, Decay and languish; or, as creeds

And humours change, are spurned like weeds :

The solemn rites, the awful forms,

Founder amid fanatic storms;

The priests are from their altars thrust,

The temples levelled with the dust:

Yet evermore, through years renewed
In undisturbed vicissitude

Of seasons balancing their flight
On the swift wings of day and night,
Kind Nature keeps a heavenly door

Wide open for the scattered Poor.
Where flower-breathed incense to the skies

Is wafted in mute harmonies;