Dear Parents! cease that plaintive moan,
Look up, and wipe those tears away:
What though your sweetest joys are flown?
What though your choicest gourds decay?
Earth's bliss, is, but a summer's flower,
Earth's woe, a swiftly ebbing tide,
Let faith sustain each trying hour,
Jehovah hears, and will provide.
Let faith, and hope your spirits cheer,
Your God-your Saviour's ever near.
We gazed upon her youthful brow
When decked with beauty, and with bloom :
But, oh! how changed and faded now,
Thou mouldering tenant of the tomb !
In wisdom may we learn from thee-
And haste a flattering world to flee.
Alas! my son, and didst thou die,
Without a friend, or parent nigh?
No hand to wipe thy fainting brow,
To raise thee up, or lay thee low?
Thy father's God, did there sustain,
A Saviour's love, did soothe thy pain,
And we'll adore his holy name,
Who in all climes is found the same.
* These lines may be inscribed on a cenotaph to the memory of any pious youth who died abroad.
Lines to the memory of a youth who fell from a steam packet, and was drowned in the River Illonois.
He sunk (to rise no more) in that swift stream:-
Short was his life—and all his hopes a dream.
He sunk-no human power his life could save,
No hand, could snatch him from his watery grave;
A grave, indeed, he little thought to find,
When England, and his friends he left behind.
Such was his end-and yet the young still dream,
And speak of pleasure as their only theme.
And what is pleasure? but a summer's gleam—
And what the longest life ?—a rapid stream.
Heaven gives us friends to bless the present scene :
Resumes them, to prepare us for the next.
For us they languish, and for us they die :
And shall they languish, shall they die in vain ?
Men seek substantial good in vain,
Intent on things below;
For what's the sum of all their gain,
But vanity and woe?
Who seeks a world of perfect bliss,
Must never fix his heart on this.
Where is the man, that can welcome the tomb ? Where is the man, that dreads not its gloom ?The Christian, can welcome the gloom of the grave, Who knows his Redeemer, is, "mighty to save."
For those that live in faith and love,
There is a glorious rest above;
To that may every soul aspire,
With ardent hope, and strong desire.
And thou art gone! O Spirit bright!
Gone early to thy native sphere,
With kindred seraphs to unite,
And left us sad, and mourning here,
Gone in thy manhood's soaring prime,
Gone e're thy sun had reached its noon-
Gone dare we say, before thy time?
Gone-Oh! we feel for us too soon,
But not too soon for thee, thus early blest,
For thou hast enter'd thine eternal rest.
The path of "godly sorrow"-that alone, Leads to the land, where sorrow is unknown.
When" dust to dust returns,
And life's short path is trod,
The souls whom Jesus hath redeemed,
Ascend unto their God.
Farewell! loved partner of my youthful breast,
Now past the reach of sorrow to molest,-
Who can forget thy tenderness so kind?
I still have much to bring it to my mind.
Farewell! enter the joys of bliss divine,
And wear a crown of glory ever thine.
Men give to time eternity's regard,
Then shrink at death's approach.
How vain are men in life, and health,
How thoughtless of the hour of death,
When they would give the world they prized,
For that salvation they despised.
When the shore is gained at last,
Who will count the billows past?
I saw the black pall, o'er his coffin extended,
I wept, but they were not the sad tears of woe;
The prayer of my soul, which in fervor ascended,
Was-"Lord when thou callest, like him may we go."
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