Here are those I judge the best of the bishop’s Festival Hymns, printed as part of his Golden Grove, or Gide to Devotion.  In the first there is a little confusion of imagery; and in others of them will be found a little obscurity.  They bear marks of the careless impatience of rhythm and rhyme of one who though ever bursting into a natural trill of song, sometimes with more rhymes apparently than he intended, would yet rather let his thoughts pour themselves out in that unmeasured chant, that “poetry in solution,” which is the natural speech of the prophet-orator.  He is like a full river that must flow, which rejoices in a flood, and rebels against the constraint of mole or conduit.  He exults in utterance itself, caring little for the mode, which, however, the law of his indwelling melody guides though never compels.  Charmingly diffuse in his prose, his verse ever sounds as if it would overflow the banks of its self-imposed restraints.

  THE SECOND HYMN FOR ADVENT; OR,
  CHRIST’S COMING TO JERUSALEM IN TRIUMPH.

  Lord, come away;
          Why dost thou stay? 
  Thy road is ready; and thy paths made straight
      With longing expectation wait
  The consecration of thy beauteous feet. 
  Ride on triumphantly:  behold we lay
  Our lusts and proud wills in thy way. 
  Hosanna! welcome to our hearts!  Lord, here
  Thou hast a temple too, and full as dear
  As that of Sion, and as full of sin: 
  Nothing but thieves and robbers dwell therein. 
  Enter, and chase them forth, and cleanse the floor;
  Crucify them, that they may never more
          Profane that holy place
      Where thou hast chose to set thy face. 
    And then if our stiff tongues shall be
    Mute in the praises of thy deity,
    The stones out of the temple-wall
        Shall cry aloud and call
  Hosanna! and thy glorious footsteps greet.

HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY; BEING A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THREE SHEPHERDS.

1.  Where is this blessed babe
That hath made
All the world so full of joy
And expectation;
That glorious boy
That crowns each nation
With a triumphant wreath of blessedness?

2.  Where should he be but in the throng,
And among
His angel ministers that sing
And take wing
Just as may echo to his voice,
And rejoice,
When wing and tongue and all
May so procure their happiness?

3.  But he hath other waiters now: 
A poor cow
An ox and mule stand and behold,
And wonder
That a stable should enfold
Him that can thunder.

Chorus.  O what a gracious God have we! 
How good?  How great?  Even as our misery.

A HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY.

Awake, my soul, and come away;
Put on thy best array,
Lest if thou longer stay,
Thou lose some minutes of so blest a day.

                     Go run, And bid good-morrow to the sun;

Welcome his safe return To Capricorn, And that great morn Wherein
a God was born, Whose story none can tell But he whose every
word’s a miracle.