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The loving ones we loved the best,
Like music all are gone!

And the wan moonlight bathes in rest
Their monumental stone.

But not when the death-prayer is said
The life of life departs;
The body in the grave is laid,
Its beauty in our hearts.

At holy midnight voices sweet
Like fragrance fill the room,
And happy ghosts with noiseless feet
Come bright'ning from the tomb.

We know who sends the visions bright, From whose dear side they came! -We veil our eyes before thy light, We bless our Saviour's name!

This frame of dust, this feeble breath
The Plague may soon destroy;
We think on Thee, and feel in death
A deep and awful joy.

Dim is the light of vanish'd years
In the glory yet to come;
O idle grief! O foolish tears!
When Jesus calls us home.

Like children for some bauble fair
That weep themselves to rest;
We part with life-awake! and there
The jewel in our breast!

LINES ON READING THE MEMOIRS OF MISS SMITH,

THE TRANSLATOR OF KLOPSTOCK'S MESSIAH.

SHORT here thy stay! for souls of holiest birth
Dwell but a moment with the sons of earth;
To this dim sphere, by God's indulgence given,
Their friends are angels, and their home is heaven.
The fairest rose in shortest time decays;
The sun, when brightest, soon withdraws his rays;
The dew that gleams like diamonds on the thorn,
Melts instantaneous at the breath of morn :
Too soon a rolling shade of darkness shrouds
The star that smiles amid the evening clouds ;
And sounds that come so sweetly on the ear,
That the soul wishes every sense could hear,
Are as the Light's unwearied pinions fleet,
As scarce as beauteous, and as short as sweet.

AN EMBLEM.

A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun,
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow,
Long had I watch'd the glory moving on,

O'er the still radiance of the lake below;
Tranquil its spirit seem'd, and floated slow,
E'en in its very motion there was rest;
While ev'ry breath of eve that chanced to blow,
Wafted the trav'ller to the beauteous west.
Emblem, methought, of the departed soul,

To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is giv❜n, And by the breath of mercy made to roll Right onward to the golden gates of heav'n, Where to the eye of faith it peaceful lies, And tells to man his glorious destinies.

MOORE.

MY BIRTHDAY.

"My birthday!"-what a different sound
That word had in my youthful ears!
And how, each time the day comes round,
Less and less white its mark appears!

When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old ;
And, as Youth counts the shining links,
That Time around him binds so fast,
Pleas'd with the task, he little thinks
How hard that chain will press at last.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,

Who said

"were he ordain'd to run

"His long career of life again,

"He would do all that he had done."-
Ah! 'tis not thus the voice, that dwells
In sober birthdays, speaks to me;
Far otherwise-of time it tells,
Lavish'd unwisely, carelessly-
Of counsel mock'd-of talents, made
Haply for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy, earthly shrines-
Of nursing many a wrong desire-

Of wandering after Love too far,

And taking every meteor fire,

That cross'd my path-way, for his star!

Fontenelle," Si je recommençais ma carriere, je ferai tout ce que j'ai fait-"

All this it tells, and, could I trace
Th' imperfect picture o'er again,
With power to add, retouch, efface,

The lights and shades, the joy and pain,
How little of the past would stay!
How quickly all should melt away-
All-but that Freedom of the Mind,

Which hath been more than wealth to me; Those friendships, in my boyhood twined, And kept till now unchangingly, And that dear home, that saving ark,

Where Love's true light at last I've found, Cheering within, when all grows dark, And comfortless, and stormy round!

STANZAS.

THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine,
My temple, Lord, that arch of thine,
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.

My choir shall be the moonlight waves, When murmuring homeward to their caves, Or, when the stillness of the sea,

Even more than music, breathes of Thee!

I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence like thy throne!
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.

Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book,

Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

I'll read thy anger in the rack

That clouds a while the day-beam's track; Thy mercy in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness, breaking through!

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity!

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love,
And meekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!

THE COMFORTER.

OH! thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,
How dark this world would be,

If, when deceiv'd and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!

The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes, are flown;
And he who has but tears to give,

Must weep those tears alone;

But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.

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