THE CRUCIFIXION.

Bound upon the accursed tree,

Dread and awful-who is He?

By the prayer for them that slew—

"Lord! they know not what they do!"
By the spoiled and empty grave,

By the souls he died to save,
By the conquests he hath won,
By the saints before his throne,
By the rainbow round his brow,

Son of God! 'tis Thou, 'tis Thou!

HENRY HART MILMAN.

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I

The Crucifixion.

From the Italian.

ASKED the heavens: "What foe to God hath done This unexampled deed?" The heavens exclaim, "'Twas man, and we in horror snatched the sun

From such a spectacle of guilt and shame!"

I asked the sea; the sea in fury boiled,

And answered with his voice of storm, "'T was man ;

My waves in panic at the crime recoiled,

Disclosed the abyss, and from the center ran !"

I asked the earth; the earth replied, aghast,

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"'T was man, and such strange pangs my bosom rent, That still I groan and shudder at the past!"

To man, gay, smiling, thoughtless man I went, And asked him next; he turned a scornful eye, Shook his proud head, and deigned me no reply. JAMES MONTGOMERY.

Whence and Whither.

THE REIGN OF LAW.

Ετέρα μὲν ἡ τῶν ἐπουρανίων δόξα, ἑτέρα δὲ ἡ τῶν ἐπιγείων.

'HE dawn went up the sky,

THE

Like any other day;

And they had only come

To mourn Him where he lay :
"We ne'er have seen the law
Reversed 'neath which we lie;
Exceptions none are found,

And when we die, we die.

Resigned to fact we wander hither,
We ask no more the whence and whither.

"Vain questions! from the first

Put, and no answer found.
He binds us with the chain

Wherewith himself is bound.
From west to east the earth

Unrolls her primal curve;

The sun himself were vexed

Did she one furlong swerve:

The myriad years have whirled us hither, But tell not of the whence and whither.

"We know but what we see

Like cause and like event:
One constant force runs on

Transmuted, but unspent.
"Because they are, they are;

The mind may frame a plan; 'Tis from herself she draws

A special thought for man:

The natural choice that brought us hither, Is silent on the whence and whither.

WHENCE AND WHITHER.
WHENCE

"If God there be, or gods,

Without our science lies; We cannot see or touch,

Measure or analyze. Life is but what we live,

We know but what we know, Closed in these bounds alone

Whether God be, or no:

The self-moved force that bore us hither
Reveals no whence, and hints no whither.

"Ah, which is likelier truth,

That law should hold its way,

Or, for this one of all,

Life re-assert her sway?

Like any other morn

The sun goes up the sky;

No crisis marks the day,

For when we die, we die.

No fair fond hope allures us hither:

The law is dumb on whence and whither."

-Then wherefore are ye come?

Why watch a worn-out corse? Why weep a ripple past

Down the long stream of force?

If life is that which keeps

Each organism whole,

No atom may be traced

Of what ye thought the soul:

It had its term of passage hither,

But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

The forces that were Christ

Have ta'en new forms and fled;

The common sun goes up,

The dead are with the dead.

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'T was but a phantom-life

That seemed to think and will, Evolving self and God

By some subjective skill,

That had its day of passage hither,

But knew no whence, and knows no whither.

If this be all in all;

Life, but one mode of force ; Law, but the plan which binds

The sequences in course: All essence, all design

Shut out from mortal ken,—

We bow to Nature's fate,

And drop the style of men !

The summer dust the wind wafts hither,
Is not more dead to whence and whither.

But if our life be life,

And thought, and will, and love

Not vague unconscious airs

That o'er wild harp-strings move;

If consciousness be aught

Of all it seems to be,

And souls are something more

Than lights that gleam and flee,

Though dark the road that leads us thither, The heart must ask its whence and whither.

To matter or to force

The All is not confined; Beside the law of things

Is set the law of mind;

One speaks in rock and star,
And one within the brain;
In unison at times,

And then apart again :

And both in one have brought us hither,

That we may know our whence and whither.

WHENCE AND WHITHER.

The sequences of law

We learn through mind alone;
'Tis only through the soul

That aught we know is known :-
With equal voice she tells

Of what we touch and see
Within these bounds of life,
And of a life to be;

-

Proclaiming One who brought us hither,
And holds the keys of whence and whither.

O shrine of God that now

Must learn itself with awe!
O heart and soul that move
Beneath a living law!

That which seemed all the rule

Of nature, is but part;

A larger, deeper law

Claims also soul and heart.

The force that framed and bore us hither
Itself at once is whence and whither.

We may not hope to read
Or comprehend the whole

Or of the law of things,

Or of the law of soul:

E'en in the eternal stars

Dim perturbations rise;

And all the searcher's search

Does not exhaust the skies :

He who has framed and brought us hither
Holds in his hands the whence and whither

He in his science plans

What no known laws foretell;
The wandering fires and fixed

Alike are miracle :

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