ildhood, or aspiration
of youth. Such poets as are born under her shadow, she takes into her
service, she sets them to write hymns, or to compose chants, or to
embellish shrines, or to determine ceremonies, or to marshal
processions; nay, she can even make schoolmen of them, as she made St.
Thomas, till logic becomes poetical."[47]

[Footnote 47: _Ibid._ 442, 443.]

And, of course, as the Catholic poet that he now was, he duly set
about to "write hymns" and "to compose chants." Since 1834, it will be
found, his original muse, amid the "encircling gloom," had been
entirely silent, but once emerging into the light of the true faith,
it struck the lyre again with those most lovely notes of
"Candlemas"--

The Angel-lights of Christmas-morn,
Which shot across the sky,
Away they pass at Candlemas,
They sparkle and they die.[48]

[Footnote 48: _Verses on Various Occasions_, p. 279, Edit. 1888. The
well-known tune to this was adapted by him, for the Birmingham Oratory
Congregation, from Reinagle's hymn tunes, brought out by subscription
at Oxford, and to which he subscribed.]

In 1849 appeared his most original and pathetic "Pilgrim Queen," or
No. 38, _Regina Apostolorum_, in the Hymn Book, the sweet music
thereto being his own composition, (or in part adaptation?)

[Music:

There sat a Lady all on the ground,
Rays of the morning circled her round;
Save thee, and hail to thee, gracious and fair,
In the chill twilight what wouldst thou there?]

In 1850 came two more exquisite hymns in honour of the Mother of God,
_i.e._, the "Month of Mary," and the "Queen of Seasons," both headed
_Rosa Mystica_ in the hymn-book. The hymns and tunes of two others, of
No. 51. "Regulars and St. Philip," (an expressive melody),

[Music:

The holy monks conceal'd from men
In midnight choir or studious cell,
In sultry field or wintry glen,
The holy monks, I love them well,
In sultry field or wintry glen,
The holy monks, I love them well.]

and No. 81, "Night" ("The red sun is gone," from the Breviary),

[Music:

The red sun is gone,
Thou light of the heart,
Blessed Three Holy One,
To Thy servants a sun
Everlasting impart.]

are also by him; and there may be others. And though this tune to No.
81 has been irreverently referred to as being "just like an old
sailor's song," the same critic has extolled its effect, and told us
how he