A POEM BY MRS. FRY.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
have been reading in the Nineteenth Century Mr. Justice Stephen's correction of St. Paul's "having no hope and without 'God." I have also been rehearsing, for recitation at our church tea to-night, some lines written by the late Mrs. Caroline Fry. Living, like the men of Laish, "far from the Zidonians," I do not know whether these lines are unknown or well known. But to me, after Mr. Justice Stephen's paper, they seem so sug- gestive, that, though mindful of the value of Spectatorial space, I venture here to offer them :—
"I walked by the side And gone was the charm
Of the tranquil stream Of the pictured scene,
Which the tam bad tinged And the sky so bright
With his parting beam. And the landscape green.
The water was still, And I bade them mark And so crystal clear How an idle word, That every spray Too lightly spoke Had its image there. And too deeply heard, And every reed Or a harsh reproof, That o'er it bowed, Or a look unkind, And the crimson streak, May spoil the peace And the silvery cloud, Of the heavenly mind.
And all that was bright Though sweet be the peace, And all that was fair, And holy the calm, And all that was gay And the heavenly beam Was reflected there. Be bright and warm, And they said it was like The heart that it gilds To the chastened breast Is all as weak Which religion has soothed As the wave that reflects To a holy rest— The crimson streak.
When sorrow has tamed You cannot impede The impassioned eye, The celestial ray And the bosom reflects That lights the dawn Its expected sky. Of eternal day ; Bat I took up a pebble But so you may trouble That lay beside, The bosom it cheers, And hurled it far 'Twill cease to be true On the glassy tide ; To the image it bears."
Iteturning to the Nineteenth Century, what can my friend William Rossiter—friend in his antravelled days—mean by his
• " no time is more useless" than that spent in ringing the church bells He might as well say that the time is useless which the -"Hail to thee, bright spirit" spends when
"All the earth and air With thy voice is loud."
The world could worse spare the "church-going bell" than the song of the skylark, especially if
"With a soul as strong as a mountain river Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver"
is no longer to have a human meaning.—I am, Sir, arc., Selby Vicarage, Whitson Tuesday. F. W. HARPER.
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