POETRY.

SONNETS IN MY LIBRARY.-1V. THE HEREAFTER (concluded).

[The writer's purpose cannot be fairly judo d without taking into account the wLole collection of ties° sonnets on " The Hereafter."]

VI.—HOPE AGAIN.

THE far-off darkness that we cannot pierce, Seen distant when we reach the other side, By love's light shall be over-canopied. Far off shall rise above all temporal curse, Above all falling-off from fair to worse, Above all death, the Church-song yet untried ; So that no surface discords then shall hide .

The under harmony of the universe. So, poised immeasurably high, the lark • O'er fields of battle, upturn'd faces white, Sings her heart out above the redden'd sod Thro' miles that stretch away in gold to God ;— So a far town of dim lamps in the dark Constructs itself a coronal of light.

VII.—VICTRIX DELEOTATIO.

An ocean child lived on a northern strand In a hut—bent, thatch'd, blown around with foam.

One found and bore him to a lovely home, Folded in a sweet valley far inland.

The boy's heart pointed seaward, as a wand Points to hid fountains. Once he chanced to roam Till he clomb upward to a mountain dome : Far off he saw a blue speck tremulous spann'd By azure sky. " The sea, the sea !" he cried, Weeping ; for sorely he had missed the dawn,

The movement and the music of the tide,—

Who loves it once in love for aye shall be With the victorious sweetness of the sea, • Its long, strange, sweet sighs slowly backward drawn.

VIII.—THE SAME.

Spiritual ocean, measurelessly broad !

Who loves thee once truly shall evermore Be drawn to thee, fair sea without a shore !

Surely and indeclinably,* not o'er-awed, Not over-mastered (for such force were fraud Where sweet love is in question) : conqueror Of these our human hearth when they are sore,

The true friend's suasion truly doth persuade—

The touch'd heart at thy magic moves, blue tide !

Thine own victorious sweetness draws us nigher.

There is no fragrance and no fall like thine.

They by thine ancient beauty who abide, Spirits emancipated, see no fire But that of rose and gold which is divine.

WILLIAM DERRY AND RAPHOE.

• St. Augustine's doctrine in his various writings on Grace. Bee also Fdnelon's "Letters;' especially Dime which close tie second volume of the eluvres