XXX.

WITH trembling fingers did we weave
The holly round the Christmas hearth;
A rainy cloud possess'd the earth,
And sadly fell our Christmas-eve.

At our old pastimes in the hall

We gambol'd, making vain pretence
Of gladness, with an awful sense
Of one mute Shadow watching all.

We paused the winds were in the beech: We heard them sweep the winter land;

And in a circle hand-in-hand

Sat silent, looking each at each.

Then echo-like our voices rang;

We sung, tho' every eye was dim, A merry song we sang with him Last year: impetuously we sang :

We ceased a gentler feeling crept

Upon us surely rest is meet:

They rest,' we said, their sleep is sweet,'

And silence follow'd, and we wept.

Our voices took a higher range;

Once more we sang:

They do not die

Nor lose their mortal sympathy,

Nor change to us, although they change;

Rapt from the fickle and the frail

With gather'd power, yet the same,

Pierces the keen seraphic flame From orb to orb, from veil to veil.'

Rise, happy morn, rise holy morn,

Draw forth the cheerful day from night :
O Father! touch the east, and light

The light that shone when Hope was born.

E

XXXI.

WHEN Lazarus left his charnel-cave,

And home to Mary's house return'd, Was this demanded-if he yearn'd To hear her weeping by his grave?

Where wert thou, brother, those four days?'

There lives no record of reply,

Which telling what it is to die

Had surely added praise to praise.

From every house the neighbours met,

The streets were fill'd with joyful sound,

A solemn gladness even crown'd

The purple brows of Olivet.

Behold a man raised up by Christ!

The rest remaineth unreveal'd;

He told it not; or something seal'd

The lips of that Evangelist.

XXXII.

HER eyes are homes of silent prayer,
Nor other thought her mind admits

But, he was dead, and there he sits,
And he that brought him back is there.

Then one deep love doth supersede

All other, when her ardent gaze

Roves from the living brother's face,

And rests upon the Life indeed.

All subtle thought, all curious fears,

Borne down by gladness so complete,

She bows, she bathes the Saviour's feet With costly spikenard and with tears.

Thrice blest whose lives are faithful prayers,

Whose loves in higher love endure;

What souls possess themselves so pure,

Or is there blessedness like theirs?

XXXIII.

O THOU that after toil and storm

Mayst seem to have reach'd a purer air,
Whose faith has centre everywhere,

Nor cares to fix itself to form,

Leave thou thy sister when she prays,

Her early Heaven, her happy views ;

Nor thou with shadow'd hint confuse

A life that leads melodious days.

Her faith thro' form is pure as thine,
Her hands are quicker unto good.

Oh, sacred be the flesh and blood
To which she links a truth divine!

See thou, that countest reason ripe
In holding by the law within,

Thou fail not in a world of sin,

And ev'n for want of such a type.