HY life's a warfare, thou a soldier art;
Satan's thy foeman, and a faithful heart
Thy two-edged weapon, patiènce a shield,
Heaven is thy chieftain, and the world thy field.
To be afraid to die, or wish for death,
Are words and passions of despairing breath :
Who doth the first, the day doth faintly yield;
And who the second, basely flies the field.

FRANCIS QUARles.

[FRANCIS QUARLES, a partisan of Charles I. in the great civil war, wrote a Book of Emblems," or rather a set of short poems, in illustration of a number of pictures. In many of these poems there are thoughts of value, embodied in not unpleasing verse; and the book has escaped the oblivion which has descended on the rest of the author's works. Quarles died in 1644.

To an absent Wife.

F thou wert by my side,

IF

my love!

How fast would even

ing fail

In green Bengalia's palmy

grove,

List'ning the nightingale!

If thou, my love! wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,

How gaily would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning grey,
When, on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when, by Gunga's stream,
My twilight steps I guide;

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam,
I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer;
But miss thy kind, approving eye,
Thy meek, attentive ear.

But when of morn and eve the star

Beholds me on my knee,

200

TO AN ABSENT WIFE.

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still,

O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
Or bleak Almorah's hill.

That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates,
Nor wild Malwah detain;

For sweet the bliss us both awaits.
By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark blue sea;

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay

As then shall meet in thee!

[BISHOP HEBER'S poems are few in number; nor do they constitute the chief claim of that benevolent and Christian divine to the affectionate memory of the country to which he endeared himself.]

HAVE a son, a little son, a boy just five years

old,

With eyes of thoughtful earnestness, and mind.

of gentle mould;

They tell me that unusual grace in all his ways

appears,

That my child is grave and wise of heart, beyond his

childish years.

I cannot say how this may be, I know his face is fair;
And yet his chiefest comeliness is his sweet and serious

air:

I know his heart is kind and fond, I know he loveth me,
But loveth yet his mother more, with grateful fervency :
But that which others most admire, is the thought which
fills his mind,

The food for grave, inquiring speech, he everywhere doth
find.

Strange questions doth he ask of me, when we together walk;

He scarcely thinks as children think, or talks as children

talk;

But looks on manhood's ways and works, and aptly mimics

all.

His little heart is busy still, and oftentimes perplexed With thoughts about this world of ours, and thoughts about the next.

He kneels at his dear mother's knee, she teacheth him to

pray,

C C

202

THE THREE SONS.

And strange, and sweet, and solemn, then, are the words which he will say.

Oh! should my gentle child be spared to manhood's years

like me,

A holier and a wiser man, I trust that he will be;

And when I look into his eyes, and stroke his thoughtful brow,

I dare not think what I should feel, were I to lose him now.

I have a son, a second son, a simple child of three; I'll not declare how bright and fair his little features be, How silvery sweet those tones of his, when he prattles on my knee:

I do not think his light blue eye is, like his brother's, keen; Nor his brow so full of childish thought, as his hath ever

been;

But his little heart's a fountain pure of kind and tender

feeling,

And his every look's a gleam of light, rich depths of love revealing.

When he walks with me, the country folk, who pass us in the street,

Will speak their joy, and bless my boy, who looks so mild

and sweet.

A playfellow is he to all, and yet, with cheerful tone,

He'll sing his little song of love, when left to sport alone. His presence is like sunshine sent to gladden home and hearth,

To comfort us in all our griefs, and sweeten all our mirth.