ASPIRATIONS FOR DEATH

New Zealand Tablet, Volume VII, Issue 394, 29 October 1880, Page 7

ASPIRATIONS FOR DEATH

(From the Spanish of " Santa Teresa "), by Lady Wilde, (Mvero porque no mvero.) Oh, soul, held prisoner out of reach Of God's great glory, in this gloom Of life as in a living tomb ; 0 God, Whose mercy I beseech, When will my spirit rend the chain Of this dark prison house of pain, Where weeping, pining, faint I lie, And die, because I cannot die. How vain this only life I know, This bitter cup from poisoned springs: These soiled and broken spirit wings, Stained with my sins and dark with woe. These fetters bound upon my feet, That fain would run their Lord to greet; And from my soul goes up the cry — I die, because I cannot die. Here all is weak and poor and frail, Even when my life with Thine is blent In Thy most holy sacrament, 1 long for death to lift the veil. And if the death-psalm, low and faint, Is chanted for some dying saint, My prayer goes upward with a sigh — I die, because I cannot die. Death brings alone the soul's release From all this weary, worldly strife; For life ia death, and death is life ; And through the grave we pass to peace, 0 mournful exile of our years, This life began and closed in tears ; In death I hope, to death I fly— And die, because I cannot die. My life is slain with sorrow's sword, And still I know it is my sin That leaves me this low world within ; Yet, dead lips cannot praise Thee, Lord ; Oh, to breathe forth my soul's desire, My burning love with lips of fire, Until that moment diaweth nigh 1 die, because I cannot die. To stand within the golden gate, Bathed in the effluent light and lov« In which the spheral systems move; To see the circling angels wait Around the great white throne of Him— The Lord of all —the Seraphim. Oh 1 blessed life beyond the sky — I die, because I cannot die. My life, O God, I give to Thee, My life, 'tis all I have to give ; And losing it begin to live The life of immortality. Are we not bound here unto Death— His bond slaves, as the spirit saith ? Oh 1 give me freedom, life on high— I die, because I cannot die. Life shrouds us with its gloomy pall, Yet still through blinding mists I see Heaven's holy light stream down on me ; O God, my God, on Thee I call, That soon before Thy face divine, Eor ever near Thee, wholly Thine, My soul may utter forth the cry — I live, and nevermore shall die I

—Kensington, Magazine,

Ireland is overcrowded, the landlord statists say, and distress is inevitable in consequence. The density of population in Ireland is 170 to the square mile. In Massachusetts it is 228 to the square mile. Why isn't there a famine, some time, in Massachusetts,— Pilot,