There drink:  and when ye are at rest,
      With that free Spirit blest,
   Who to the contrite can dispense,
   The princely heart of innocence,
If ever, floating from faint earthly lyre,
Was wafted to your soul one high desire,
   By all the trembling hope ye feel,
   Think on the minstrel as ye kneel: 

   Think on the shame, that dreadful hour
      When tears shall have no power,
   Should his own lay th’ accuser prove,
   Cold while he kindled others’ love: 
And let your prayer for charity arise,
That his own heart may hear his melodies,
   And a true voice to him may cry,
   “Thy god forgives—­thou shalt not die.”

SEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY

From whence can a man satisfy these men with bread here in the wilderness?  St. Mark viii. 4.

   Go not away, thou weary soul: 
   Heaven has in store a precious dole
Here on Bethsaida’s cold and darksome height,
   Where over rocks and sands arise
   Proud Sirion in the northern skies,
And Tabor’s lonely peak, ’twixt thee and noonday light.

   And far below, Gennesaret’s main
   Spreads many a mile of liquid plain,
(Though all seem gathered in one eager bound,)
   Then narrowing cleaves you palmy lea,
   Towards that deep sulphureous sea,
Where five proud cities lie, by one dire sentence drowned.

   Landscape of fear! yet, weary heart,
   Thou need’st not in thy gloom depart,
Nor fainting turn to seek thy distant home: 
   Sweetly thy sickening throbs are eyed
   By the kind Saviour at thy side;
For healing and for balm e’en now thine hour is come.

   No fiery wing is seen to glide,
   No cates ambrosial are supplied,
But one poor fisher’s rude and scanty store
   Is all He asks (and more than needs)
   Who men and angels daily feeds,
And stills the wailing sea-bird on the hungry shore.

   The feast is o’er, the guests are gone,
   And over all that upland lone
The breeze of eve sweeps wildly as of old —
   But far unlike the former dreams,
   The heart’s sweet moonlight softly gleams
Upon life’s varied view, so joyless erst and cold.

   As mountain travellers in the night,
   When heaven by fits is dark and bright,
Pause listening on the silent heath, and hear
   Nor trampling hoof nor tinkling bell,
   Then bolder scale the rugged fell,
Conscious the more of One, ne’er seen, yet ever near: 

   So when the tones of rapture gay
   On the lorn ear, die quite away,
The lonely world seems lifted nearer heaven;
   Seen daily, yet unmarked before,
   Earth’s common paths are strewn all o’er
With flowers of pensive hope, the wreath of man forgiven.

   The low sweet tones of Nature’s lyre
   No more on listless ears expire,
Nor vainly smiles along the shady way
   The primrose in her vernal nest,
   Nor unlamented sink to rest
Sweet roses one by one, nor autumn leaves decay.