And trembling all about the breezy dells,
As fluttered by the wings of cherubim.
Meanwhile the bees are chanting a low hymn;
And, lost to sight, the ecstatic lark above
Sings, like a soul beatified, of love,

With, now and then, the coo of the wild pigeon ;-
O pagans, heathens, infidels, and doubters!
If such sweet sounds can't woo you to religion,
Will the harsh voices of church cads and touters?
A man may cry Church! Church! at every word,
With no more piety than other people,
A daw's not reckoned a religious bird
Because it keeps a-cawing from a steeple ;
The Temple is a good, a holy place,
But quacking only gives it an ill savor,
While saintly mountebanks the porch disgrace,
And bring religion's self into disfavor!

Some minds improve by travel; others, rather, Resemble copper wire or brass,

Which gets the narrower by going farther!

Worthless are all such pilgrimages- very!
If Palmers at the Holy Tomb contrive
The human heats and rancor to revive
That at the Sepulchre they ought to bury.
A sorry sight it is to rest the eye on,
To see a Christian creature graze at Sion,
Then homeward, of the saintly pasture full,
Rush bellowing, and breathing fire and smoke,
At crippled Papistry to butt and poke,
Exactly as a skittish Scottish bull
Hunts an old woman in a scarlet cloke.

Say, was it to my spirit's gain or loss,
One bright and balmy morning, as I went
From Liege's lovely environs to Ghent,
If hard by the wayside I found a cross,
That made me breathe a prayer upon the spot,
While Nature of herself, as if to trace
The emblem's use, had trailed around its base
The blue significant Forget-Me-Not?
Methought, the claims of Charity to urge
More forcibly along with Faith and Hope,
The pious choice had pitched upon the verge
Of a delicious slope,

Giving the eye much variegated scope !"Look round," it whispered, "on that prospect

rare,

Those vales so verdant, and those hills so blue;
Enjoy the sunny world, so fresh and fair,
But" (how the simple legend pierced me through!)
"PRIEZ POUR LES MALHEUREUX."

With sweet kind natures, as in honeyed cells, Religion lives, and feels herself at home;

But only on a formal visit dwells

Where wasps instead of bees have formed the comb.

Shun pride, O Rae! - whatever sort beside
You take in lieu, shun spiritual pride!
A pride there is of rank, -a pride of birth,
A pride of learning, and a pride of purse,
A London pride, - in short, there be on earth
A host of prides, some better and some worse;
But of all prides, since Lucifer's attaint,
The proudest swell's a self-elected Saint.

To picture that cold pride so harsh and hard,
Fancy a peacock in a poultry-yard.
Behold him in conceited circles sail,
Strutting and dancing, and now planted stiff,
In all his pomp of pageantry, as if
He felt "the eyes of Europe on his tail!
As for the humble breed retained by man,
He scorns the whole domestic clan,
He bows, he bridles,

But what the better are their pious saws To ailing souls, than dry hee-haws, Without the milk of human kindness?

THOMAS HOOD.

Zetle crep' up quite undenarne

An' peeked on thon the winder

In' there sot Sulby all alone

with no one

high to hender.

Fuch

a paragon is woman

That, you sed, it must be trul
The is always weastly better.

Thaw the best that the can do!