THE CHURCH.

I HEARD one say in sunny travel,

A braggart Frenchman, rude and vain,

He and his mates would mine St. Peter's,
And blast it with a powder-train.

I saw in thought the mighty ruin,

The wealth of Art and Record gone;

The unfading pictures wrenched and shattered;

The arches, music-knit, o'erthrown.

I thought how piteous Contadini
Would miss that genial mother-hearth;
How, from the falling water-vases,

The marble doves would flutter forth.

Then, from the ghastly vision turning,
Mine eye the silly Celt did reach :

I said, and every heart responded,

"Now, never more with me hold speech."

So thou, whose ill-conditioned learning
Would shake the aisles where Faith abides;
Where, from the vulgar world out-driven,

Devotion, crowned of ages, hides,

Wield cautiously the crushing mallet:
Not Peter's door alone you break;

But, of the temple of our sires,

A weltering heap of dust you make.

These aisles were built with holy living,

These stones were piled with thought and prayer: The world before us gave the pattern,

The world that follows is the heir;

And hearts are set, like gems incrusted,

In the fair walls; and, ruby-red,

The blood of martyrdom doth stain them, And tears more terrible to shed.

So, build thy dome in airy heaven
A shelter for new hope and joy,
And write thereon the Master-sentence,
"Come to deliver, not destroy."

THE CRUCIFIX.

IN desolations of my own

I see a figure lifted lone,

Stript, and extended felon-wise,

That yields not to the solvent skies.

Mother and friends are stolen away; Fails, too, the cordial light of day; And Darkness, and the deep Divine, Their counsels mystical intwine.

The greatest distance cannot hide, Nor Time, more potent to divide : Touch but the golden bond of prayer,

He and his agony are there.

The Angel, with the nod of Fate,
Unsmiling and compassionate,

From Life's rude banquet beckoneth

To front us with that crownèd death.

So silent, yet he stirs our veins
To madden for heroic pains;

So passive, turning human-kind,

Leagued with omnipotence of mind.

Uplifting all our weight of woe,
Bringing the vaulted heavens low,

Remembered as the immortal One

Who was, and willed to be, their Son.