The sweet, unconscious tenderness of flowers; The boundless awe of star-encircled night; The tear that trickles down an old man’s cheek; Ocean’s loud pulse, that makes our own beat high; The vocal throb of a great multitude; The pause when we have heard and said “Farewell,” And feel the pressure of a hand that’s gone; The thought that we have wronged our truest friend, When he is sleeping in the arms of Death; The silent, fathomless anguish that engulfs Him who has found the precious power to love, And sees that all he loves is torn from him; His dying moments who is void of hope; Jezebel; Nero; Judas; any one Of all the hideous things that crawled through life In human form;--what mortal could express All that he feels in one or all of these, Giving the very image of his thought? Life, Death, Hell, Judgment, Resurrection, GOD-- Who can express their meaning? Who can bound Awe that is infinite in finite words? Thus much of us must ever be concealed-- Spite of the high ambition to be born Of what is noblest in us,--till His breath Who woke the morning stars to sing their song, Awakes our souls to fuller utterance. JEPHTHAH. JUDGES xi. I. Rejoice ye tribes of Israel, the Lord was on your side, Your fierce and daring enemies have fallen in their pride. In vain the heathen strove against Jehovah’s awful word, For Ammon’s proud, presumptuous sons have perished by the sword. II. From Aroer to Minnith and to Abel’s fertile plain Of twenty noble cities the “mighty men” are slain; Rejoice, thou son of Gilead, the Lord hath heard thy vow,-- Thy foes are crushed, thy father’s sons before thy presence bow. III. It is an hour of triumph to the warrior and his band, An hour of stern rejoicing to all the chosen land, When the conqueror of Ammon, the valiant of his race, Beholds once more, with well-earned joy, his long-lost native place. IV. But who is this advancing with gay attendant crowd? O Jephthah! dost remember now the vow that thou hast vowed? Why is thy face so ghastly pale? why sinks thy noble head? Thy daughter’s blood must now atone for all that thou hast shed! V. Honour and pomp and victory are all forgotten now, And clouds of darkest anguish sweep across the father’s brow. He speaks--his words are words of death: he orders--is obeyed-- And lonely mountains mourn the fate of Israel’s queenly maid. VI. Rejoice, ye tribes of Israel, the Lord was on your side, Your fierce presumptuous enemies have fallen in their pride? But, Jephthah, thou art childless now, lift up thy voice and weep! No sound of wailing can disturb thy daughter’s dreamless sleep! MAY, 1858. DE PROFUNDIS.