XXII.

But Labour's noble spirit shall awake,

From sloth-drugged sleep of sudden press-fanned power.
Remember Babel! like a giant shake

Away all firebrands from thy prosperous hour,

Or dread the destined doom of Babel's1 daring tower;
See, how the Temple rose on wiser Toil,—

Thy prudent handmaid, who her blessings shower

Upon thy head, thine own eternal foil,

As Strikes are born from Sloth, and Envy's hound, Turmoil.

XXIII.

From serpent Anarchy and Rebellion sprung,
No blessings follow in their sullen train,
As Satan, envious till Contentment's stung,

And pierced Invention's heaven-born busy brain,
And torn from Industry her guiding rein.
By calm, untiring order the Ordainer rules,
And only such shall everlasting reign;

His lessons take-but oh, beware of fools!

Who, for their selfish ends, make "Union" forge their tools.

XXIV.

See patient Industry, and her sturdy son

Success, and cheerful daughter Peace walk forth,

Enjoying blessings which contentment won,

Careful and happy in her frugal worth;

Her needle Diligence still pointing north,
To warn humanity that Duty leads
Alone to happiness, her certain birth;
Oh! Labour, listen while thy sister pleads,

And show that sure rewards will follow patient deeds.

1 "And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly, and they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they said, Let us build us a city, and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered upon the face of the whole earth. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth; and they left off to build the city."-Genesis xi.

XXV.

Great Labour, pause not in thy destined might,
But oh! remember thou wert born from Toil,-
Spurn not thy parent if thou would be right,
Nor give dull Sloth unholy cause to smile,
Nor stab Supply with knife of selfish Guile.
Let peaceful Industry and Justice guide
The future1Destiny of this glorious isle,
So may she rule with dignity and pride,
And peaceful Commerce nobler than her navies ride.

XXVI.

By sweat of brow, or brain, man wins his bread,
His normal state to toil, ordained by God,
To rain His chiefest blessings on his head,
The great physician Sleep makes light the load.
Of life-Contentment makes a blest abode,
Like Jacob's son 2 work heavenward in your toil,
Let sacred Duty be your constant goad,

The road of Labour,-Peace, pave not with guile,
If titled Care you knew, you would contented smile.

XXVII.

Be not like Babel, oh! thou god-built state,
Built up on envy of another's sphere,
Remember wisely Adam's destined fate
Comes near Truth with each revolving year;
Enjoy its blessings, and renounce thy fear,

See what the prophet's servant 3 gained by greed;

God's sleepless eye is ever watching near,

1 "Thus saith the Lord of Hosts, in those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you; for we have heard that God is with you." "And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle-bow shall be cut off: and he shall speak peace unto the heathen; and his dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river even to the ends of the earth."-Zechariah ix. "The nation and kingdom that will not serve God shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.--Isaiah lx.

2 "And Jacob called his sons, and said, Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you that which shall befall you in the last days." "Issachar is a strong ass, couching down between two burdens; and he saw that rest was good, and the land that it was pleasant, and bowed his shoulder to bear, and became a servant unto tribute."--Gen. xlix. "The sun shall be no more thy light by day; but the Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory."-Isaiah lx.

"He went in, and stood before his master; and Elisha said unto him,

To punish selfishness like a blasted seed, For every mean Gehazi gets his wage

XXVIII.

indeed!

Here let me pause and rest my rhyming wing,
Ere she essay another wavering flight,
For Soul instinctive prompts her on to sing

Of Day eternal, or of endless Night.

Oh! teach her, Truth, to use her pinions right,
In soaring to the sacred Scriptures here,

With wearied energies and waning sight,

A life of turmoil has destroyed, I fear,

The

poor poetic structure 1 which my muse would rear.

XXIX.

But, like a galley of a thousand oars,

The Hebrew Bible down the stream of Time

Hath come, and reached Truth's everlasting shores,
Proclaim its destiny-oh, Thought sublime,
Thy fragments scatter on my humble rhyme.
Let sleepless Science ever onward roll,
And bear it to its own immortal clime,
Some future spirit yet shall reach the goal,

And find eternal Truth, the science of the Soul.

Whence comest thou, Gehazi? And he said, Thy servant went no whither. And he said, Went not my heart with thee when the man turned again from his chariot to meet thee? The leprosy therefore of Naaman shall cleave unto thee, and unto thy seed for ever. And he went out from his presence a leper as white as snow."-2 Kings v. After Elisha had cured Naaman of his leprosy, and would accept of no reward, Gehazi ran meanly after Naaman's chariot pretending he was sent by his master to seek two talents of silver and two changes of garments. Naaman, like a man of honour, willingly doubled the request, and bound four talents of silver in two bags, which, with the garments, Gehazi selfishly and meanly appropriated to his own use, thus not only stealing the money, but tending to lower his master's reputation in the mind of Naaman. But his dishonesty met its just reward, for "as the partridge sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; so he that gathers riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be like a fool.' Jeremiah xvii.

The whole idea of this hurriedly written and very imperfect Canto was taken from the visit of the Channel Fleet in St. Andrew's Bay last September. That as those magnificent iron-clads had superseded our old and boasted wooden walls in matters of warfare, so, in kindred progressive spirit, questions regarding commerce, and what is vainly supposed Orthodox belief in matters of religion, are yet destined to undergo as great, nay, a greater revolution. But always for the better and truer knowledge of God and His Divine laws.

XXX.

The Present flutters, like a restless bird,
'Twixt two Eternities, the Future and the Past,
On Truth afraid to rest, by Priestcraft scared,
Well knowing that its power must cease at last.
God's sacred weapon Truth is drawing fast,
To wave around that time-honoured noble prow,
Which hangs suspended from its rugged mast;
The Hebrew statesman of the past, even now
Still holds Religion's helm, which Science takes in tow.

XXXI.

Yes! down Time's river, over Eden's bar,

On to the estuary of eternal Tay,

The galley comes, "brought to" by Truth and War,
Which steam triumphant up Saint Andrews Bay,
Whose ruins prove poor Priesthood's broken sway,
Which scowl to see yon ancient galley there,
Disarmed, alas! for it hath served its day;
Gone, both Mosaic rite and Papal prayer,
Blown by the guns of Time and Science in the air.

XXXII.

Spare, Devastation,1 spare thy giant gun,

Nor to Oblivion hurl that sacred keel

Which Time hath plowed, and Science2 all but won;

1 The "Devastation" is the heaviest turret iron-clad in the British navy. She, along with the "Sultan," " Triumph," "Resistance,' "Monarch," "Agincourt," and "Northumberland," with their paddle steam-tender "Lively," comprised the Channel Squadron which anchored in St. Andrews Bay in September 1874 (the origin of this brief and very imperfect canto). On which occasion no fewer than 12,000 people visited the "Devastation" from steamers, besides about 3000 from fishing-boats and pleasure-boats.

2 Some writers say the Bible is utterly void of scientific truth, as it jars with geology, and instance the figurative creation of the world in six days as an example; also, because the globe is represented as flat, to be seen from a high mountain, as Satan is represented as having said to Jesus; and ridicule the molten firmament of Moses, and even of Job, and laugh at the "foundations of the earth being laid in the sea," etc. But let the old Bible be properly read with the mental eye of enlightened reason and truth, without creedcrammed bigotry, or atheistical prejudice, and its ponderous metaphorical breadth of style taken into consideration, it stands peerless and alone, a book for all time and always true, though not to be read literally. Read any of the best of even modern poets literally, without allowance for their beautiful figurative imagery, and instead of poetry, their writings would sink into mere fable. But even regarding the true science of this globular world of ours, and for which Galileo was imprisoned by the orthodoxy of his day, what better