Page images
PDF
EPUB

If He who made all things,

And rules them, is our own,
Then every grief and trial brings
Us nearer to his throne.

Then come, my gentle bride,

And come, my child of love;
What if we've nought on earth beside?
Our portion is above.

Sweep, mighty ocean, sweep;
Ye winds, blow foul or fair;
Our God is with us on the deep,
Our home is every where.

The Time to weep.-ANONYMOUS.

THERE is a time to laugh,

When Joy may raise sows like the deep,

And twine with wreaths of flowers the cup we quaff;—— But, O, when is the season not to weep?

Is it when vernal suns

Unfold the silken flower and satin leaf?

Or when the hoar frost nips the fading ones, That frailer beings may refrain from grief?

Is it when health and bloom

Are painted on the smiling cheek of youth?
Or when disease is training for the tomb
The heart which cherishes its bitter truth?

Look not upon the brow,

That shows no furrow from the plough of
There is a bend of peace upon it now-
But, O, futurity is full of tears!

The prattling child at play

years;

May charm itself, and dry its tears awhile;
But could its vision reach beyond to-day,
And read its sorrows, think you it would smile?

Destruction has its home,

And Mirth is destined to some favorite spot;
Disease and all his brothers do not roam;
But where, O Wretchedness, where art thou not?

Thou hast thy dark abode

In the lone desert-in the prison's cell;

And in the gayest scene, where ever flowed The tide of wine and music, thou dost dwell.

Thou art where friends are torn

And held asunder by reluctant space;

And meeting friends-O, do they never mourn When Memory paints thine image on the face?

Thy inmates of the breast

All other passions—are but weak and brief;
Joy, Hope, Pride, Love and Hatred have a rest,
But thou art constant as our breath, O Grief!

Then let the trifler laugh,

And Joy lift his glad billows like the deep,

And twine with wreaths of flowers the cup we quaff; It is far better for the wise to weep.

The Autumn Evening.—PEABODY.

BEHOLD the western evening light!
It melts in deepening gloom;
So calmly Christians sink away,
Descending to the tomb.

The winds breathe low; the withering leaf
Scarce whispers from the tree;

So gently flows the parting breath,

When good men cease to be.

How beautiful on all the hills
The crimson light is shed!

"Tis like the peace the Christian gives
To mourners round his bed.

How mildly on the wandering cloud
The sunset beam is cast!

'Tis like the memory left behind

When loved ones breathe their last.

And now, above the dews of night,
The yellow star appears;
So faith springs in the heart of those
Whose eyes are bathed in tears.

But soon the morning's happier light
Its glory shall restore,

And eyelids that are sealed in death
Shall wake to close no more.

Lines on revisiting the Country.—BRYANT.

I STAND upon my native hills again,

Broad, round, and green, that, in the southern sky, With garniture of waving grass and grain,

Orchards and beechen forests, basking lie;

While deep the sunless glens are scooped between, Where brawl o'er shallow beds the streams unseen.

A lisping voice and glancing eyes are near,
And ever-restless steps of one, who now
Gathers the blossoms of her fourth bright year:
There plays a gladness o'er her fair young brow,
As breaks the varied scene upon her sight,
Upheaved, and spread in verdure and in light;

For I have taught her, with delighted eye,
To gaze upon the mountains; to behold,
With deep affection, the pure, ample sky,
And clouds along the blue abysses rolled;
To love the song of waters, and to hear
The melody of winds with charmed ear.

Here I have 'scaped the city's stifling heat,
Its horrid sounds, and its polluted air;
And, where the season's milder fervors beat,

And gales, that sweep the forest borders, bear

The song of bird and sound of running stream,
Have come awhile to wander and to dream.

Ay, flame thy fiercest, sun: thou canst not wake,
In this pure air, the plague that walks unseen;
The maize leaf and the maple bough but take

From thy fierce heats a deeper, glossier green;
The mountain wind, that faints not in thy ray,
Sweeps the blue steams of pestilence away.
The mountain wind-most spiritual thing of all
The wide earth knows-when, in the sultry time,
He stoops him from his vast cerulean hall,

He seems the breath of a celestial clime,-
As if from heaven's wide-open gates did flow
Health and refreshment on the world below.

The Spirit's Song of Consolation.*-F. W. P. GREENWOOD.

DEAR parents, grieve no more for me;

My parents, grieve no more;
Believe that I am happier far

Than even with you before.

I've left a world where wo and sin
Swell onwards as a river,

And gained a world where I shall rest

In peace and joy forever.

Our Father bade me come to him,
He gently bade me come,

And he has made his heavenly house
My dwelling place and home.
On that best day of all the seven,
Which saw the Savior rise,

I heard the voice you could not hear,
Which called me to the skies.

I saw, too, what you could not see,
Two beauteous angels stand;

They smiling stood, and looked at me,

And beckoned with their hand;

*Supposed to be addressed by the departed spirit of a boy to his parents, who had lost two other children before him.

They said they were my sisters dear,
And they were sent to bear
My spirit to their blessed abode,
To live forever there.

Then think not of the mournful time
When I resigned my breath,
Nor of the place where I was laid,
The gloomy house of death;
But think of that high world, where I
No more shall suffer pain,
And of the time when all of us
In heaven shall meet again.

Colonization of Africa.-BRAINARD.

ALL sights are fair to the recovered blind;
All sounds are music to the deaf restored;
The lame, made whole, leaps like the sporting hind;
And the sad, bowed-down sinner, with his load

Of shame and sorrow, when he cuts the cord,
And drops the pack it bound, is free again

In the light yoke and burden of his Lord.

Thus, with the birthright of his fellow man,
Sees, hears and feels at once the righted African.

'Tis somewhat like the burst from death to life;
From the grave's cerements to the robes of heaven;
From Sin's dominion, and from Passion's strife,
To the pure freedom of a soul forgiven!

When all the bonds of death and hell are riven,

And mortals put on immortality;

When fear, and care, and grief, away are driven, And Mercy's hand has turned the golden key,

And Mercy's voice has said, "Rejoice-thy soul is free!"

Fable of the Wood Rose and the Laurel.-
MONTHLY ANTHOLOGY.

IN these deep shades a floweret blows,
Whose leaves a thousand sweets disclose;

« PreviousContinue »