Upon the sepulchre, and blooms, and smiles,
And of the triumphs of his ghastly foe
Makes his own nourishment.-For he came forth
From thine own bosom, and shall have no end.
There have been holy men who hid themselves
Deep in the woody wilderness, and gave
Their lives to thought and prayer, till they outlived
The generation born with them, nor seem'd
Less aged than the hoary trees and rocks
Around them ;—and there have been holy men
Who deem'd it were not well to pass life thus.-
But let me often to these solitudes
Retire, and in Thy presence reassure
My feeble virtue. Here its enemies,
The passions, at Thy plainer footsteps shrink
And tremble, and are still.—O God! when Thou
Dost scare the world with tempests, set on fire
The heavens with falling thunderbolts, or fill
With all the waters of the firmament
The swift dark whirlwind that uproots the woods
And drowns the villages; when at Thy call
Uprises the great deep, and throws himself
Upon the continent, and overwhelms
Its cities who forgets not, at the sight
Of these tremendous tokens of Thy power,
His pride, and lays his strifes and follies by?
Oh! from these sterner aspects of Thy face
Spare me and mine, nor let us need the wrath
Of the mad unchain'd elements to teach
Who rules them.-Be it ours to meditate
In these calm shades Thy milder majesty,
And to the beautiful order of Thy works
Learn to conform the order of our lives!
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.
NAY, 'tis not what we fancied it,
This fleeting world of ours;
We thought its skies were ever blue,
Its fields all sun and flowers.
Its streams all summer-bright and glad,
Its seas all smiles and calms,
Its path from youth to age one long
Green avenue of palms.
But clouds came up with gloom and shade,
Our sky was overcast,
The hot mist threw its blight around,
Sunshine and flowers went past.
Hopes perish'd, that had hung like wreaths,
Around youth's buoyant brow,
And joys, like wither'd autumn leaves,
Dropp'd from the shaken bough.
Yet from these clouds comes forth the light,—
Light beaming from on high;
And from these faded flowers spring up
The flowers that cannot die.
Far fairer is the land we seek,
A land without a tomb,
An everlasting resting-place,
A sure and quiet home.
Far sunnier than the hills of time
Are its eternal hills;
Far fresher than the rills of earth
Are its eternal rills.
No blight can fall upon its flowers,
No darkness fill its air;
It has a day for ever bright,
For Christ its Sun is there.
O Sun of love and peace arise!
Thy light upon us beam;
For all this life is but a sleep,
And all this world a dream.
O GOD, whose thunder shakes the sky,
Whose eye this atom globe surveys;
To Thee, my only Rock, I fly,
Thy mercy in Thy justice praise.
The mystic mazes of Thy will,
The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill;
But what the Eternal acts is right.
O teach me in the trying hour,
When anguish swells the dewy tear, To still my sorrows, own Thy power, Thy goodness love, Thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but Thee,
Encroaching, sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy look the cause away.
Then why, my soul, dost thou complain? Why drooping seek the dark recess? Shake off the melancholy chain,
For God created all to bless.
But ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals' feeble rill,
The sickness of my soul declare.
But yet, with fortitude resign'd,
I'll thank the inflicter of the blow, Forbid the sigh, compose my mind, Nor let the gush of misery flow.
The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.
THOMAS CHATTERTON, 1752-1770.
MILD arch of promise, on the evening sky
Thou shinest fair with many a lovely ray,
Each in the other melting. Much mine eye
Delights to linger on thee; for the day,
Changeful and many-weather'd, seem'd to smile,
Flashing brief splendour through the clouds a while,
Which deepen'd dark anon and fell in rain;
But pleasant is it now to pause, and view
Thy various tints of frail and watery hue,
And think the storm shall not return again.—
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