The Christian Scholar :: :: University of Virginia Library

“Wealth is like a radiant star,
He who hath it shines afar;
But well he knows what is to be,
That lawless spirits when they die
Must suffer penalty.
That sins in this the realm of Jove
One below doth judge and prove,
And o'er them sentence pass with stern necessity.
“But with sun whose wondrous light
Burns alike by day and night,
Freed from toil the good shall live,
Nor vex the watery wave nor land
With importuning hand,
In life which true peace cannot give;
But 'mid the honour'd of the Gods above,
By them who faithful oaths shall love,
A tearless age is won;
While bad men woes sustain no eye can look upon.
“But the threefold way along,
They who keep their heart from wrong,

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To old Saturn's tower of strength,
To where the Ocean gales abound
The blessed Isles around,
Their course assign'd fulfil at length.
Where on the ground, or on the glittering trees,
Or on the waters in the breeze
Bright golden flowers are borne,
Whose wreaths upon their brows and on their hands are worn.”

REFLECTION ON THE ABOVE.

So deep within our soul there lies
The shadow of lost Paradise,
Where darkness enters not, nor toil,
Nor tears, nor sorrow,—nought to soil
The mirror which reflects the eye
Of omnipresent deity:—
And in that undisturb'd repose
That none can enter but the good;
So yearns the heart that nothing knows
But her intensest solitude:
So deeply on the soul doth press
The sense of its own lowliness:
Philosophy's most noble thought,
Best image of the poet wrought.

In every heart beneath the skies
That glorious wreck of Eden lies;

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As 'neath the sea some palace seen
Looks beauteous through the blue serene,
Though now the haunt of things unclean.

And blessed they who labour still
To keep that mirror pure from ill.
We blend that vision with our sin,
And then the serpent enters in;
It is an Eden then no more,
But we again the loss deplore.