f my heart
That grace wrought in his name.

I cannot set at nought,
Whom I have held so dear;
I cannot make Him seem afar
That is indeed so near.

The following poem, in style almost as simple as a ballad, is at once of
the quaintest and truest. Common minds, which must always associate a
certain conventional respectability with the forms of religion, will
think it irreverent. I judge its reverence profound, and such none the
less that it is pervaded by a sweet and delicate tone of holy humour. The
very title has a glimmer of the glowing heart of Christianity:

NEW PRINCE, NEW POMP.

Behold a silly,[69] tender babe,
In freezing winter night,
In homely manger trembling lies;
Alas! a piteous sight.

The inns are full; no man will yield
This little pilgrim bed;
But forced he is with silly beasts
In crib to shroud his head.

Despise him not for lying there;
First what he is inquire:
An orient pearl is often found
In depth of dirty mire.

Weigh not his crib, his wooden dish,
Nor beasts that by him feed;
Weigh not his mother's poor attire,
Nor Joseph's simple weed.

This stable is a prince's court,
The crib his chair of state;
The beasts are parcel of his pomp,
The wooden dish his plate.

The persons in that poor attire
His royal liveries wear;
The Prince himself is come from heaven:
This pomp is praised there.

With joy approach, O Christian wight;
Do homage to thy King;
And highly praise this humble pomp,
Which he from heaven doth bring.

Another, on the same subject, he calls _New Heaven, New War_. It is
fantastic to a degree. One stanza, however, I like much:

This little babe, so few days old,
Is come to rifle Satan's fold;
All hell doth at his presence quake,
Though he himself for cold do shake;
For in this weak, unarmed wise,
The gates of hell he will surprise.

There is profoundest truth in the symbolism of this. Here is the latter
half of a poem called _St. Peters Remorse_:

Did mercy spin the thread
To weave injustice' loom?
Wert then a father to conclude
With dreadful judge's doom?

It is a small relief
To say I was thy child,
If, as an ill-deserving foe,
From grace I am exiled.

I was, I had, I could--
All words importing want;
They are but dust of dead supplies,
Where needful helps are scant.

Once to have been in