Who hath not
Within him felt some long forgotten world
Sweep through the corner of his former self,
Or touch some jutting peak of memory? 
Or can we prove a poet’s imaginings
Are not the remnants of a higher life,
A thousand times more glorious, lying hid
Within the deepest sea of his great soul,
Till comes the all-searching breath of poesy
To bid them rise?  Oh hail, all hail the hour
When God reveals Himself, and like the sun
Illumines every epoch of our being,
And through them all the Spirit’s path shines clear
From God, through Nature, back to God again.

The Variety of Wales.

Oh where with such variety
   Her charms doth nature pour,
Or beauties lavish as on thee,
   Thou world in miniature? 
Now stern and frowning she appears,
Anon her smile most radiant wears.

Between the hills which upward soar
   Fair valleys lie afar,
Where wakes no wind, no torrents roar
   Our perfect peace to mar,
And many a mere to human eyes
Reflects the Peace of Paradise.

As ramparts high thy mountains rise
   Against the wind and rain,
To break the strength of wintry skies
   And rush of storms restrain. 
And safe beneath them smiling spreads
The green expanse of fertile meads.

Though thou art little, dearest Wales,
   Though strait thy limits are,
Upon thy mountains and thy vales
   Are beauties rich and rare: 
Thy bounds are narrowed, but to me
Sufficient thy variety.

The Sick Minister.

Even now my brethren preach the word,
   While here I helpless lie;
How the thought frets me like a cord—­
   Their work and my infirmity.

Their every effort, Father, crown with power,
   And all their utterance with Thy unction dower. 
And unto me, here in my house, be given
   Patient submission to the will of Heaven.

Time was, I thought one Sabbath’s rest would be—­
   One Sabbath’s rest with nought of toil to tire—­
Like some fair island in a stormtoss’d sea,
   Or pause in music of the eternal choir.

But it is with my heart on this fair morn,
   As with the reaper on a summer’s day,
Who hears the sickle sweeping through the corn,
   And he for weakness needs at home must stay.

’Twixt us and men, us and the world’s wild din,
   The Sabbath is a day of rest;
But betwixt us and God—­because of sin—­
   A day of labour to each earnest breast.

And think not, till thou lie beneath the sod,
   Preacher of Peace, there can be rest for thee,
Time is the week-tide of the sons of God,
   Their Sabbath is—­Eternity.

Life, like the Heavens.