Page images
PDF
EPUB

Not now, on Zion's height alone,
The favored worshipper may dwell,
Nor where, at sultry noon, thy Son
Sat, weary, by the patriarch's well.

From every place below the skies,
The grateful song, the fervent prayer-
The incense of the heart-may rise

To heaven, and find acceptance there.

In this thy house, whose doors we now
For social worship first unfold,
To thee the suppliant throng shall bow,
While circling years on years are rolled.

To thee shall age, with snowy hair,
And strength and beauty, bend the knee,
And childhood lisp, with reverend air,
Its praises and its prayers to thee.

O thou, to whom, in ancient time,
The lyre of prophet bards was strung,

To thee, at last, in every clime,

Shall temples rise, and praise be sung.

Evening Music of the Angels.-HILLHOUSE.

Low warblings, now, and solitary harps, Were heard among the angels, touched and tuned As to an evening hymn, preluding soft To cherub voices. Louder as they swelled, Deep strings struck in, and hoarser instruments, Mixed with clear silver sounds, till concord rose Full as the harmony of winds to heaven; Yet sweet as nature's springtide melodies To some worn pilgrim, first, with glistening eyes, Greeting his native valley, whence the sounds Of rural gladness, herds, and bleating flocks, The chirp of birds, blithe voices, lowing kine, The dash of waters, reed, or rustic pipe, Blent with the dulcet distance-mellowed bell, Come, like the echo of his early joys.

In every pause, from spirits in mid air,
Responsive still were golden viols heard,
And heavenly symphonies stole faintly down.

Vernal Melody in the Forest.-CARLOS WILCOX.*

WITH Sonorous notes

Of every tone, mixed in confusion sweet,
All chanted in the fulness of delight,

The forest rings. Where, far around enclosed
With bushy sides, and covered high above
With foliage thick, supported by bare trunks,
Like pillars rising to support a roof,

It seems a temple vast, the space within
Rings loud and clear with thrilling melody.
Apart, but near the choir, with voice distinct,
The merry mocking-bird together links
In one continued song their different notes,

*He was a true poet, and deeply interesting in his character, both as a man and a Christian. He resembled Cowper in many respects ;-in the gentleness and tenderness of his sensibilities-in the modest and retiring disposition of his mind-in its fine culture, and its original poetical cast-and not a little in the character of his poetry. It has been said with truth, that, if he had given himself to poetry as his chief occupation, he might have been the Cowper of New England. We pretend not to place his unfinished and broken compositions on a level with the works of the author of the Task; but they possess much of his spirit, and, at the same time, are original. Like Cowper, "he left the ambitious and luxuriant subjects of fiction and passion, for those of real life and simple nature, and for the developement of his own earnest feelings, in behalf of moral and religious truth." Amidst the throngs of imitators, whose names have crowded the pages of the annuals and magazines, his is never to be seen; and the merits of his poetry are almost unknown to those who regulate the criticisms of the public journals. But it is both a proof and a consequence of his original powers and his elevated feelings, that, instead of devoting his mind to the composition of short, artificial pieces for the public eye, he started at once upon a wide and noble subject, with the outline in his mind of a magnificent moral poem. The history, the scenery, and the public and domestic manners in this country, afforded scope for the composition of another Task, which, if the powers of the writer were equal to his subject, would be more for America, and the religious world, than even Cowper's was for England and his fellow men. Wilcox did not live to execute his design; but the fragments he has left us are so rich, in a vein of unaffected poetry and piety, that they make us sorrowful for what we have lost, and indignant that his merits are so little known and appreciated beyond a small circle of affectionate Christian friends.-ED.

Mr.

Adding new life and sweetness to them all.
Hid under shrubs, the squirrel, that in fields
Frequents the stony wall and briery fence,
Here chirps so shrill that human feet approach
Unheard till just upon him, when, with cries
Sudden and sharp, he darts to his retreat,
Beneath the mossy hillock or aged tree;
But oft, a moment after, re-appears,

First peeping out, then starting forth at once
With a courageous air, yet in his pranks
Keeping a watchful eye, nor venturing far
Till left unheeded.

Close of the Vision of Judgment.-HILLHOUSE.

As when, from some proud capital that crowns
Imperial Ganges, the reviving breeze
Sweeps the dank mist, or hoary river fog,
Impervious, mantled o'er her highest towers,
Bright on the eye rush Brahma's temples, capped
With spiry tops, gay-trellised minarets,

Pagods of gold, and mosques with burnished domes,
Gilded, and glistening in the morning sun,
So from the hill the cloudy curtains rolled,
And, in the lingering lustre of the eve,
Again the Savior and his seraphs shone.
Emitted sudden in his rising, flashed

Intenser light, as toward the right hand host

Mild turning, with a look ineffable,

The invitation he proclaimed in accents

Which on their ravished ears poured thrilling, like

The silver sound of many trumpets heard

Afar in sweetest jubilec; then, swift

Stretching his dreadful sceptre to the left,

That shot forth horrid lightnings, in a voice
Clothed but in half its terrors, yet to them

Seemed like the crush of Heaven, pronounced the door
The sentence uttered, as with life instinct,
The throne uprose majestically slow;

Each angel spread his wings; in one dread swell
Of triumph mingling as they mounted, trumpets,
And harps, and golden lyres, and timbrels sweet,
And many a strange and deep-toned instrument

Of heavenly minstrelsy unknown on earth,
And angels' voices, and the loud acclaim
Of all the ransomed, like a thunder-shout.
Far through the skies melodious echoes rolled,
And faint hosannas distant climes returned.

Down from the lessening multitude came faint
And fainter still the trumpet's dying peal,
All else in distance lost, when, to receive
Their new inhabitants, the heavens unfolded.
Up gazing, then, with streaming eyes, a glimpse
The wicked caught of Paradise, where streaks
Of splendor, golden gleamings, radiance shone,
Like the deep glories of declining day,

When, washed by evening showers, the huge-o be 1 sun
Breaks instantaneous o'er the illumined world.
Seen far within, fair forms moved graceful by,
Slow turning to the light their snowy wings.
A deep-drawn, agonizing groan escaped
The hapless outcasts, when upon the Lord
The glowing portals closed. Undone, they stood
Wistfully gazing on the cold gray heaven,
As if to catch, alas! a hope not there.
But shades began to gather, night approached,
Murky and lowering; round with horror rolled
On one another their despairing eyes,

That glared with anguish; starless, hopeless gloom
Fell on their souls, never to know an end.

Though in the far horizon lingered yet

A lurid gleam; black clouds were mustering there,
Red flashes, followed by low, muttering sounds,
Announced the fiery tempest doomed to hurl
The fragments of the earth again to chaos.
Wild gusts swept by, upon whose hollow wing
Unearthly voices, yells, and ghastly peals
Of demon laughter came. Infernal shapes
Flitted along the sulphurous wreaths, or plunged
Their dark, impure abyss, as sea-foul dive
Their watery element.- -O'erwhelmed with sights
And sounds of horror, I awoke; and found
For gathering storms, and signs of coming wo,
The midnight moon gleaming upon my bed
Serene and peaceful. Gladly I surveyed her
Walking in brightness through the stars of heaven
And blessed the respite ere the day of doom.

"As thy Day, so shall thy Strength be."-
MRS. SIGOURNEY.

WHEN adverse winds and waves arise,
And in my heart despondence sighs,-
When life her throng of care reveals,
And weakness o'er my spirit steals,—
Grateful I hear the kind decree,
That" as my day, my strength shall be."

When, with sad footstep, memory roves
Mid smitten joys, and buried loves,—
When sleep my tearful pillow flies,
And dewy morning drinks my sighs,—
Still to thy promise, Lord, I flee,
That" as my day, my strength shall be."

One trial more must yet be past,
One pang, the keenest, and the last;
And when, with brow convulsed and pale,
My feeble, quivering heart-strings fail,
Redeemer, grant my soul to see
That" as her day, her strength shall be."

The Pilgrims.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.

How slow yon tiny vessel ploughs the main!
Amid the heavy billows now she seems
A toiling atom,-then from wave to wave
Leaps madly, by the tempest lashed,-
Half wrecked, through gulfs profound.

-or reels,

-Moons wax and wane, But still that lonely traveller treads the deep.I see an ice-bound coast, toward which she steers With such a tardy movement, that it seems Stern Winter's hand hath turned her keel to stone, And sealed his victory on her slippery shrouds.— They land! They land!-not like the Genoese, With glittering sword and gaudy train, and eye Kindling with golden fancies.-Forth they come From their long prison,-hardy forms, that brave The world's unkindness,-men of hoary hair,

« PreviousContinue »