Swathed the sky of my own native land with a shroud, And his presence will bless this, his own chosen clime, Rev. Arthur Cleveland Coxe, D. D. THE CHIMES OF ENGLAND. HE chimes, the chimes of Motherland, THE Of England, green and old, That out from fane and ivied tower A thousand years have tolled; As breaks the hallowed day, Those chimes that tell a thousand tales, Sweet tales of olden time! And ring a thousand memories For cottager and king Those chimes—those glorious Christian chimes, How blessedly they ring! Those chimes, those chimes of Motherland, Upon a Christmas morn, Outbreaking, as the angels did, For a Redeemer born; To cot and baron's hall, The chimes of England, how they peal Where windows bathe the holy light On priestly heads that falls, And stain the florid tracery And banner-dighted walls! And then, those Easter bells, in Spring, Those glorious Easter chimes; How loyally they hail thee round, Old queen of holy times! From hill to hill, like sentinels, Responsively they cry, And sing the rising of the LORD, From vale to mountain high. I love ye, chimes of Motherland, And bless the LORD that I am sprung That England's glory tells; And heir of her ancestral fame, For thine thy mother's voice shall be, And here where GOD is King— With English chimes, from Christian spires, The wilderness shall ring. OLD CHURCHES. HAST been where the full-blossomed bay-tree is blowing, With odours like Eden's around? Hast seen where the broad-leaved palmetto is growing, Hast sat in the shade of catalpas, at noon, And ate the cool gourds of their clime; Or slept where magnolias were screening the moon, And didst mark in thy journey, at dew-dropping eve, With rooks wheeling round it, and bushes to weave Did ye ask if some lord of the cavalier kind Lived there, when the country was young? And did ye not glow when they told ye-the LORD And that bones of old Christians were under its sward, And had ye no tear-drops your blushes to steep When ye thought-o'er your country so broad, O ye that shall pass by those ruins agen, And not till their arches have echoed "Amen!" Pray God that those aisles may be crowded once more, While anthems and prayers are upsent as of yore, Ay, pray on thy knees, that each old rural fane And the dim-lighted windows reveal to thine eye Park Benjamin. GOLD. "GOLD is, in its last analysis, the sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave."-JOSEPH NAPOLEON. ASTE treasure like water, ye noble and great! WA Spend the wealth of the world to increase your estate; Pile up your temples of marble, and raise Columns and domes, that the people may gaze Pour wine into goblets all crusted with gems- The myriad stars of a tropical sky! Though from the night of the fathomless mine Little care ye for the chains of the slave, "The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave." Behold, at your gates stand the feeble and old- "The sweat of the poor and the blood of the brave?” |