POETRY.

LEO XIII

KIND eyes, that with a flame so pure

From those thin temples glow, We gaze with growing awe, unsure If this be man or no.

For Time, that breaks the body frail, Adorns it and refines, And through the form's transparent veil A heavenly spirit shines.

How should an English pen essay In alien verse to paint This Anselm of a later day, Scholar and priest and saint ?

Yet even the mind's aloofness serves To make the sight more clear : Lost are St. Peter's soaring curves To him who stands too near.

See with a father's tenderness That reverent figure stand, The toiling, struggling world to bless With raised, majestic hand. Yet his benignant purpose still Those priestly robes impede, As round the gesture of his will Clings his restraining creed.

For ne'er was prejudice more blind To keener wit allied : Or such a narrow faith combined With sympathies so wide.

No newer truths his eyes discern, Whose glances, backward cast, Still from the beckoning Future turn To the forgetful Past.

Or why these busy throngs that crowd The Papal Court to-day?

These murmurs of a palace proud? This show of temporal sway? These guards, half soldier and half page, Round an unmenaced throne: The trappings of a vanished age Transmitted to our own ?

So to a shadowy sceptre he With pious fervour clings, The greatest of earth's priests would be The pettiest of her Kings: Would Rome's lost empire o'er markind In pristine might restore; And to her outworn system bind Our restless souls once more.

.Ah ! not even those deft fingers shall Reknit that broken chain, Or to the abandoned prison call The truants back again. - Not Anselm's nor Aquinas' plan Our perfect rule may be.

The almighty Power that fashioned man Made him, and left him, free.

Free ; but of creatures most forlorn, As our sad hearts know well, For he that is of woman born Must bow to Mary's spell.

Lo! in immortal beauty smiles The Virgin Mother sweet : And with a gentle magic wiles The nations to her feet.

But thou, by many a doubt cast down, Who for such peace mayst sigh, Who tired of Reason's thorny crown Wouldst lay that burden by— Since even to the bravest heart The coward moment comes, When he, whose earlier hopes depart,

Faints and almost succumbs—

Go thou where Rhone's impetuous wave Girdles her slopes of pine; Where rest the Saints who died to save The faith thou wouldst resign !

Hark! What indomitable psalm Yon Vaudois valley fills?

Auvergne has heard its measure calm, And Scotland's storm-swept hills.

Exiles for Truth they counted nought The power, the pride of Rome ; And in the trackless desert sought An altar and a home.

Theirs the poor chapel rude and bare,

Or the uncovered sod—

Enough if thence their secret prayer Went freely up to God.

EDWARD SYDNEY TYLEE.