Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow on each heart. In its swift course
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man-and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous-and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shouts resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain where sword and spear and shield,
Flashed in the light of mid-day-and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crusbed and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a mist at eve-
Yet e're it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity! On, still on,
He passes, and forever. The proud bird,
The Condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest, upon his mountain crag. But Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness:
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions on the breast
Like bubbles on the water-fiery Isles
Spring blazing from the ocean and go back
To their mysterious caverns. Mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackest cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plains. New Empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations. . . . and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Plead, loveliest of her train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void. Yet Time-
Time the Tomb-Builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pityless, and pauses not,
Amid the thousand wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought!
SEE only in what contemplations the wisest of men end their most sublime inquiries! Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes Nature grasping and arresting in their course the most subtle of her elements, and the swiftest traversing the regions of boundless space exploring worlds beyond the solar way—giving out the law which binds the universe in eternal order! He rests, as by an inevitable necessity, upon the contemplation of the Great First Cause, and holds it his highest glory to have made the evidence of his existence, and the dispensations of His power and of his wisdom better understood by men. LORD BROUGHAM.
Ringdom Come.
I Do not believe the sad story
Of ages of sleep in the tomb,
I shall soar far away to the glory,
And grandeur of "Kingdom Come:"
Though the paleness of death and its stillness,
May rest on my brow for awhile,
And my spirit may lose in its chillness
The splendour of hope's happy smile :
Yet the gloom of the grave will be transient,
And light as the slumbers of earth-
And then I shall blend with the ancient
And beautiful forms of the earth:
Through the climes of the sky, and the bowers
Of bliss, evermore I shall roam,
Seeing crowns of the stars and the flowers
That glitter in "Kingdom Come."
The friends who have parted before me,
From life's gloomy sorrow and pain,
When the shadow of death passes o'er me,
Shall smile on me sweetly again;
Their voices are lost in the soundless
Retreats of their azure home-
But soon we shall meet in the boundless
Effulgence of Kingdom Come !"
THE happy arrangement of words makes one of the greatest
"Correct me: but not with anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."— Jer. x. 24.
We need not ask for suffering: when its test
Comes, we may prove too faithless to endure-
We need not ask for suffering :—it were best
We wait God's holy orderings to ensure
Our highest good. But we may ask from Him
That not one throb of grief, one dart of pain,
One burning pang of anguish, pierce in vain
This feeble being, in its faith so dim,
This fainting frame, or this o'erburthened heart:
We may implore Him. He would grace impart
And strength, to suffer still as the beloved
Of His own bosom. For of all below,
The one affliction in this world of woe
Most sad, is an affliction unimproved.
SOME favourite studies-some delightful care,
The mind with trouble and distresses share;
And by a coin, a flower, a verse, a boat,
The stagnant spirits have been made to float.
ALAS! a deeper test of Faith,
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
Adieu to Youth.
BY THOMAS HOPE.
DISTANT plans of daring pride,
Views remote of wild romance,
Whose perspective vast and wide,
Could my youthful soul entrance;
Trophies which I meant to raise,
Regions where I hoped to rove,
Schemes of pleasure and of praise,
Which my early fancy wove.
Where the Pole's resistless chill,
Bids the ocean's self stand still,
Or the tropic's fellest sun,
Man compels his shafts to shun,
You I cherished so before,
I must cherish you no more!
The Niagara's foaming fall,
China's everlasting wall;
Chimborazo's snowy top,
Which appears the sky to prop,
Hoary Hecla's watery spires;
Raging Etna's rolling fires;
Torneo's sun whose glimmering light,
Half a year still haunts the sight;
Towering Thibet's lofty plain,
Which conglomerate mounds sustain;
Sacred Ganges' secret source;
Niger's unexplored course;
Hapless Park's unravelled dream,
Quenched forever in its stream;
Deep Ellora's sculptured caves,
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