throne:

E’en so, the world is thronging round to gaze
On the dread vision of the latter days,
   Constrained to own Thee, but in heart
   Prepared to take Barabbas’ part:
“Hosanna” now, to-morrow “Crucify,”
The changeful burden still of their rude lawless cry.

Yet in that throng of selfish hearts untrue
Thy sad eye rests upon Thy faithful few,
   Children and childlike souls are there,
   Blind Bartimeus’ humble prayer,
And Lazarus wakened from his four days’ sleep,
Enduring life again, that Passover to keep.

And fast beside the olive-bordered way
Stands the blessed home where Jesus deigned to stay,
   The peaceful home, to Zeal sincere
   And heavenly Contemplation dear,
Where Martha loved to wait with reverence meet,
And wiser Mary lingered at Thy sacred feet.

Still through decaying ages as they glide,
Thou lov’st Thy chosen remnant to divide;
   Sprinkled along the waste of years
   Full many a soft green isle appears:
Pause where we may upon the desert road,
Some shelter is in sight, some sacred safe abode.

When withering blasts of error swept the sky,
And Love’s last flower seemed fain to droop and die,
   How sweet, how lone the ray benign
   On sheltered nooks of Palestine!
Then to his early home did Love repair,
And cheered his sickening heart with his own native air.

Years roll away: again the tide of crime
Has swept Thy footsteps from the favoured clime
   Where shall the holy Cross find rest?
   On a crowned monarch’s mailèd breast:
Like some bright angel o’er the darkling scene,
Through court and camp he holds his heavenward course serene.

A fouler vision yet; an age of light,
Light without love, glares on the aching sight:
   Oh, who can tell how calm and sweet,
   Meek Walton, shows thy green retreat,
When wearied with the tale thy times disclose,
The eye first finds thee out in thy secure repose?

Thus bad and good their several warnings give
Of His approach, whom none may see and live:
   Faith’s ear, with awful still delight,
   Counts them like minute-bells at night.
Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,
While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.

But what are Heaven’s alarms to hearts that cower
In wilful slumber, deepening every hour,
   That draw their curtains closer round,
   The nearer swells the trumpet’s sound?
Lord, ere our trembling lamps sink down and die,
Touch us with chastening hand, and make us feel Thee nigh.

Second Sunday in Advent.

And when these things begin to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth night.  St. Luke xxi. 28.

Not till the freezing blast is still,
Till freely leaps the sparkling rill,
And gales sweep soft from summer skies,
As o’er a sleeping infant’s eyes
A mother’s kiss; ere calls like these,
No sunny gleam awakes the trees,
Nor dare the tender flowerets show
Their bosoms to th’ uncertain glow.

Why then, in sad and wintry time,
Her heavens all dark with doubt and crime,
Why lifts the Church her drooping head,
As though her evil hour were fled?
Is she less wise than leaves of spring,
Or birds that cower with folded wing?
What sees she in this lowering sky
To tempt her meditative eye?

She has a charm, a word of fire,
A pledge of love that cannot tire;
By tempests, earthquakes, and by wars,
By rushing waves and falling stars,
By every sign her Lord foretold,
She sees the world is waxing old,
And through that last and direst storm
Descries by faith her Saviour’s form.

Not surer does each tender gem,
Set in the fig-tree’s polish’d stem,
Foreshow the summer season bland,
Than these dread signs Thy mighty hand:
But, oh, frail hearts, and spirits dark!
The season’s flight unwarn’d we mark,
But miss the Judge behind the door,
For all the light of sacred lore:

Yet is He there; beneath our eaves
Each sound His wakeful ear receives:
Hush, idle words, and thoughts of ill,
Your Lord is listening: peace, be still.
Christ watches by a Christian’s hearth,
Be silent, “vain deluding mirth,”
Till in thine alter’d voice be known
Somewhat of Resignation’s tone.

But chiefly ye should lift your gaze
Above the world’s uncertain haze,
And look with calm unwavering eye
On the bright fields beyond the sky,
Ye, who your Lord’s commission bear
His way of mercy to prepare:
Angels He calls ye: be your strife
To lead on earth an Angel’s life.

Think not of rest; though dreams be sweet,
Start up, and ply your heavenward feet.
Is not God’s oath upon your head,
Ne’er to sink back on slothful bed,
Never again your loans untie,
Nor let your torches waste and die,
Till, when the shadows thickest fall,
Ye hear your Master’s midnight call?

Third Sunday in Advent.

What went ye out into the wilderness to see?  A reed shaken with the wind? . . . But what went ye out for to see?  A prophet? yea, I say unto you, and more than a prophet.  St. Matthew xi. 7, 9.

   What went ye out to see
   O’er the rude sandy lea,
Where stately Jordan flows by many a palm,
   Or where Gennesaret’s wave
   Delights the flowers to lave,
That o’er her western slope breathe airs of balm.

   All through the summer night,
   Those blossoms red and bright
Spread their soft breasts, unheeding, to the breeze,
   Like hermits watching still
   Around the sacred hill,
Where erst our Saviour watched upon His knees.

   The Paschal moon above
   Seems like a saint to rove,
Left shining in the world with Christ alone;
   Below, the lake’s still face
   Sleeps sweetly in th’ embrace
Of mountains terrac’d high with mossy stone.

   Here may we sit, and dream
   Over the heavenly theme,
Till to our soul the former days return;
   Till on the grassy bed,
   Where thousands once He fed,
The world’s incarnate Maker we discern.

   O cross no more the main,
   Wandering so will and vain,
To count the reeds that tremble in the wind,
   On listless dalliance bound,
   Like children gazing round,
Who on God’s works no seal of Godhead find.

   Bask not in courtly bower,
   Or sun-bright hall of power,
Pass Babel quick, and seek the holy land—
   From robes of Tyrian dye
   Turn with undazzled eye
To Bethlehem’s glade, or Carmel’s haunted strand.

   Or choose thee out a cell
   In Kedron’s storied dell,
Beside the springs of Love, that never die;
   Among the olives kneel
   The chill night-blast to feel,
And watch the Moon that saw thy Master’s agony.

   Then rise at dawn of day,
   And wind thy thoughtful way,
Where rested once the Temple’s stately shade,
   With due feet tracing round
   The city’s northern bound,
To th’ other holy garden, where the Lord was laid.

   Who thus alternate see
   His death