THE BEAUTIES OF CREATION.
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 the promise will 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 heartstrings fail,
Oh, may my soul, adoring, see
That as her day her strength shall be!
THE BEAUTIES OF CREATION. I PRAISED the earth in beauty seen, With garlands gay of various green; I praised the sea, whose ample field Shone glorious as a silver shield, And earth and ocean seemed to say, "Our beauties are but for a day." I praised the sun whose chariot rolled On wheels of amber and of gold: I praised the moon whose softer eye Gleamed sweetly through the summer sky; And moon and sun in answer said, "Our days of light are numbered."
O God, O good beyond compare;
If thus thy meaner works are fair:
If thus thy beauties gild the span
Of ruined earth and sinful man,
How glorious must that mansion be
Where thy redeemed shall dwell with thee!
"WHAT IS OUR LIFE?”
How short is human life! the very breath
Which frames my words, accelerates my death.
Of this short life how large a portion's fled-
To what is gone already I am dead:
As dead to all my years and minutes past,
As I to what remains shall be at last.
Can I past miseries so far forget,
To view my vanished years with fond regret?
Can I again my worn-out fancy cheat?
Indulge fresh hope, solicit new deceit?
When did true wisdom covet length of days,
Or seek its bliss in pleasure, wealth, or praise?
No, wisdom views with an indifferent eye
All finite joys, all blessings born to die.
The soul on earth is an immortal guest,
Compelled to starve at an unreal feast:
A spark which upward tends by nature's force;
A stream diverted from its parent source;
A drop dissevered from the boundless sea;
A moment parted from eternity:
A pilgrim panting for the rest to come,
An exile anxious for his native home.
NEVER give up! it is wiser and better
Always to hope than once to despair;
Fling off the load of doubt's harassing fetter,
And break the dark spell of tyrannical care.
Never give up! or the burden may sink you;
Providence kindly has mingled the cup,
And in all trials and troubles bethink you,
The watch-word of life must be "Never give
up!"
Never give up! there are merciful changes
Helping the hopeful a hundred to one,
And through the chaos High Wisdom arranges
Happy success if you'll only hope on.
Never give up! though adversity presses,
Providence wisely has mingled the cup;
And the best counsel, in all your distresses,
Is, "Trust in Jehovah, and never give up!"
LINES WRITTEN DURING A FOG.
LINES WRITTEN DURING AN INTENSE FOG.
DARKNESS upon the land! midnight at noon! Day without sunshine! night without a moon! Rayless eclipse! The tribute of the sky
When He, the Lord of nature, deigned to die! A starless void! a deep and awful gloom, Fraught with strange fears, and herald of the tomb.
Such, once before, on hardened Pharaoh lay, And filled his wisest sages with dismay;
Hid was the sun, the stars refused their light, And Egypt's noontide blaze was quenched in night.
"Lights in the hall! Lights to the regal chair!" But all was gloom and desolation there:
A palpable obscure, a gathering cloud,
Wrapped prince and people in its murky shroud.
While Israel's sons, from fear and darkness free,
Walked forth in light, confiding, Lord, in thee.
O, through this vale of sorrows, as we stray,
Do thou preserve and lead us on our way.
Guide thou our feet till death's dark hour is
past,
And make us, Lord, thy sons of light at last!
THE UNKNOWN GRAVE.
WHO sleeps below? who sleeps below?—
It is a question idle all!
Ask of the breezes as they blow:
Say, do they hear, or heed thy call?
They murmur in the trees around,
And mock thy voice-an empty sound!
Was he of high or low degree?
Did grandeur smile upon
Or, born to dark obscurity,
Dwelt he within some lonely cot,
And, from his youth to labour wed,
From toil-strung limbs wrung daily bread?
Say, died he ripe, and full of years,
Bowed down and bent by hoary eld,
When sound was silence to his ears,
And the dim eyeball sight withheld;
Like a ripe apple falling down,
Unshaken 'mid the orchard brown?
Had the kind friends that blessed his prime,
All vanished like a morning dream;
Plucked one by one by spareless time,
And scattered in oblivion's stream;
Passing away all silently,
Like snow-flakes melting in the sca?
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