IV.-MATTer and MIND.

F in the vast material world

IF

No atom ever perished,-though

In multitudinous changes hurl'd

Upwards and downwards, to and fro, And all that in the present orb'd

From silent growth and sudden storms, Is but a former past absorb'd

In ever-shifting frames and forms,—
If He who made the worlds that were
And makes the worlds that are to be,
Has with all-wise, all-potent care
Preserved the smallest entity
Imperishable-though it pass

From shape to shape, by heat or cold
Dispersed, attracted, monad mass-
A wind-blown sand, a solid mould,—
Shall He not save those noble things,
Those elements of mind and thought,
Whose marvellous imaginings

Have the great deeds of progress wrought?
Those instincts, be they what they may,
Of which the soul of man is made,
By which he works his wondrous way
Up to light's very fountain head?

From earth's untold materials, man

Can build, unbuild, can break or bind; But from mind's elements who can

Transform, create another mind?

Who rear new piles of thought from aught
Of thought surviving its decay-

Who ever from the grave has brought
A spirit that had passed away?

L

If God have left no blank,-no void
Unfilled, if in Creation's reign
Nothing is born to be destroyed

Or perish—but to live again ;--
If in the cycles of the earth

No atom of that earth can die-
The soul, which is of nobler birth,
Must live, and live eternally.

V.-THE REIGN OF LAW.
ITTLE by little groping through

All nature's arteries and veins,

Our varied musings lead us to

Some general law, that all contains. Through fictions and through fancies rude Some safe conclusions we may draw, That all, when rightly understood, All, all is order-all is law. And if by contradictions vexed,

And pulled by various strings astray, In darkness lost, by doubt perplexed, We cannot see nor feel our way, Still let us know the Hand that guides, Will guide us through the clouds of night, That over all things law presides,—

The law of love, the law of light.

VI.—UNCHANGING CHANGES.
UR lives are into cycles cast,

they last,

But are dim dreamings when they're past.
The summers of the past have left
No traces,-rolling years have cleft
All memories,—of all signs bereft.

All melted are the winter snows,

And where they perished, whence they rose, No now existing record shows.

And yet there reigns eternal Law,
And seasons after seasons draw
Their lines without a fault or flaw.

So man, the noblest work of God,
Treads where his vanished fathers trod,
And views the skies and turns the sod.

Where'er he looks, above, around,
Scattered o'er earth's prolific ground
The seeds of coming man are found.

It was so-is so-so shall be
While rolls the ever-flowing sea
Into thy gulf, Eternity!

VII.-RESURRECTION.

PRING is but another birth,

SPRING

RING is but are on earlier springs.

Which to renovated earth

Other resurrection brings.

God hath moulded all that God's

Power could mould, from mortal dust; Flowers and fruits, from clouds and clods, Life from ruin and from rust.

'Twas a wondrous hand that laid
In the seed the unborn tree;
Bud and blossom in the blade,
Future ripened fruit to be.

Still more wondrous was the might
That, from night's obscurest shrine,
Brought forth intellectual light,

Souls with thoughts and hopes divine.

Yes! 'twas a transcendent power
Which, for earth's contracted whole,
Gave to heaven a worthy dower,
Gave an ever-living soul.

Less than earth to heaven, and less
Than to ages moments seem,

Is the world we now possess,

To the world of which we dream.

Earthly love is faint and small,

When compared with the embrace
Of a love encircling all,

Through all time and o'er all space.

VIII.-CONFIDENCE.

[S it not strange that men who loudest boast
Of the unshaken basis of their faith,

Are those who tremble most and threaten most,
If any thought or word of doubt gainsayeth
Their bold asseverations? They are lost

In their perplexities, if e'er the torch
Of light intrude into their dark recess;
They fly like midnight spectres from the porch
Of Truth's resplendent temples, where the sun
Shines with mist-scattering majesty upon
Their fears, their follies, and their feebleness.
Sad contrast to that greatly gifted one
Whose counsel was, "Prove all things and hold fast
By what is good!-for what is good will last."

Henry Francis Lyte.

1793-1847.

HENRY FRANCIS LYTE was born at Ednam, a village situated on the Eden, a tributary of the Tweed near Kelso, Roxburghshire, on the 1st of June, 1793. He was educated at Portora, Inniskillen, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he distinguished himself in three successive years by taking the English poem prize. Though at first intending to follow the medical profession he entered the Church (1815), and accepted a curacy at Taghmon, near Wexford, afterwards removing to Marazion, Cornwall (1817), where he married. Subsequently he held curacies at Lymington, Hampshire (1819), and Charlton, Devon, and finally took charge of the new parish of Lower Brixham, Devoushire, where he ministered for five-and-twenty years. His "Tales on the Lord's Prayer in Verse," written at Lymington, were published in 1826, his "Poems Chiefly Religious" in 1833, and his "Spirit of the Psalms," a metrical version of the Psalter, in 1834. His "Remains," containing poems, sermons, letters, etc., and a memoir by his daughter, was published in 1850, and a volume of his Miscellaneous Poems in 1868. He also published an edition of the poems of Henry Vaughan, with a memoir, in 1847.

Lyte had a tender feeling for nature and a sense of the sublime, but he lacked originality and the