HE seas are quiet when the winds give o'er,
So calm are we when passions are no more;
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, too certain to be lost,
Clouds of affection from our younger eyes
Conceal that emptiness which age descries.

The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made :
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become,

As they draw near to their eternal home;

Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view
That stand upon the threshold of the new.

HE lark, that shuns on lofty boughs to build
Her annual nest, lies silent in the field;
But if the promise of a cloudless day,
Aurora smiling, bids her rise and play,

Then straight she shews, 't was not for want of voice,
Or power to climb, she made so low a choice:
Singing she mounts, her airy wings are stretched
T'wards heaven, as if from heaven her notes she fetched.

b

On the Morning of Christ's Dativity.

HIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heaven's Eternal King,
Of wedded Maid and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;

For so the holy sages once did sing,

That He our deadly forfeit should release,

And with His Father work us a perpetual peace.

That glorious form, that light unsufferable,

And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith He wont at Heaven's high council-table
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and, here with us to be,

Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.

Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein

Afford a present to the Infant GOD?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,

To welcome Him to this His new abode,

Now while the heaven, by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,

And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons bright?

See, how from far, upon the eastern road,

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet;

Oh, run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at His blessèd feet;

Have thou the honour first thy LORD to greet,

And join thy voice unto the Angel quire,

From out His secret altar touched with hallowed fire.

T was the Winter wild,

While the heaven-born Child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies: Nature, in awe to Him,

Had doffed her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathize:

It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.