THE LIGHTED BUILDING.

THERE is a building by yon river lone

And walking homewards, upon wintry nights, When on the thorn the bitter north wind smites, And in mine ear the rustling broom makes moan,Or on some mild dusk evening, ere hath shone

The moonlight on the Mourne,-the place doth seem A blank and purposeless pile beside the stream. But suddenly lit up, mine eye hath known A line of lustrous windows all ablaze ;— A palace of enchantment exquisite,

A fairy fabric self-illuminated :

Dark building of God's word! with what amaze
The heart surveys thee, what time thou art lit
As from within by Him who thee created.

CAMUS, 1862.

THOUGHTS BY THE SEA.

I.

I HAD been reading Paul's great argument,
Where, after those strange chapters, darkly penn'd,
He bursts out with & ẞálos at the end;
When-whether thought or memory might present
Such picture-lo! a galleon was bent

Under reef'd topsails through a strait to drop.
Hung o'er with cliffs that almost touch'd at top.
Dark o'er the dreary sea the vessel went,
Till instantaneously she had pass'd through

A touch of moonlight on her sails; before her, World without end, the waves; the blue sky o'er her. Behold, I thought, an image grandly true!

After Predestination's narrow road

The silver ocean of the Love of God.

II.

A hot day in September. A white mist
Clung to the vale, and up the hill a blur,
As of thin smoke, part blue, part silverer,
Stretch'd o'er the corn. The ripples lazily kiss'd
As on the bent I lay their sound to list.

Between Lough Swilly and the mountain spur
I saw a green down stretch without a stir.

A curlew was the only harmonist.

The sole shapes there were gulls, that in the heat
Strutted upon the sward a space and back,
White-plumed; and crows, like crones in shawls of black
Dropp'd glossy from the shoulders to the feet.

But far afield, howe'er the day may burn,
Harvesters work-and that is much to learn.

"A WINTER GALE IN THE

CHANNEL.”

(PAINTED BY HENRY MOORE.)

I.

I LOVE this ocean picture's pale reserve:
No tints unnatural of purpling grain,
Azure, or opal, mar the rough grey main,
The sweep, the swing, the long froth-churning curve,
The shore-ward working and confused swerve
Of yellowing water -white blooms wear such stain,
All dashed and muddied with the April rain.
No poor ambition did the painter nerve!
Well that no laboured ship or sun-burst broke
The strong monotony of that sky and surge.
Leave, only leave, the line of stormy smoke,
The sea-birds dashed upon the nearer verge,—
Brave in its truth this ocean piece shall be
The type for us of Homer's harvestless sea.

II.

Nor only this-lesson of more than art!
Who dares, strong in simplicity, despise
The evanescent beauties that arise
Before his gaze, and, in true thought apart,

Look on straight forward to life's very

heart :

Who dares, by gift supernal rendered wise, Deem truth more beautiful for all true eyes Than garish things made merely for the mart; Whether he paint or write or live his thought,

To that which he produces shall be lent An immortality of ravishment, One day it shall be own'd divinely wrought; And all the sternness of its strength shall be Like the grave beauty of this pictured sea.