Are very good. surely the "good creature " too Faithful those friends to me, And I must drink,—I love it-for I deem A man unfit to sit in yon brave State House, Be faithful to his tried constituents!" THE OLD NORTH BURIAL GROUND IN PORTSMOUTH, N. H. I STAND where I have stood before in boyhood's sunny prime, The same yet not the same, but one who wears the touch of Time; And gaze around on what was then familiar to the eye, But whose inconstant features tell that years have journeyed by, Since o'er this venerable ground a truant child I played, And chased the bee and plucked the flower, where ancient dust is laid; And hearkened, in my wondering mood, when tolled the passing bell, And started at the coffin's cry, as clods upon it fell. These mossy tombs I recollect, the same o'er which I pored, The same these rhymes and texts, with which my memory was stored; These humble tokens, too, that lean, and tell where resting bones Are hidden, though their date and name have perished from the stones. How rich these precincts with the spoils of ages buried here! What hearts have ached, what eyes have given this conscious earth the tear How many friends, whose welcome cheered their now deserted doors, Have, since my last sojourning, swelled these melancholy stores! Yon spot, where in the sunset ray a single white stone gleams, I've visited, I cannot tell how often, in my dreams, That spot o'er which I wept, though then too young my loss to know, As I beheld my father's form sepulchred far below. How freshly every circumstance, though seas swept wide between, And years had vanished since that hour, in vagaries I've seen! The lifted lid that countenance-the funeral array, As vividly as if the scene were but of yesterday. How pleasant seem the moments now, as up their shadows come, Spent in that domicil which wore the sacred name of home,― How in the vista years have made, they shine with mellowed light, To which meridian bliss has nought so beautiful and bright! How happy were those fireside hours-how happy summer's walk, When listening to my father's words or joining in the talk; How passed like dreams those early hours, till down upon us burst The avalanche of grief, and laid our pleasures in the dust! They tell of loss, but who can tell how thorough is the stroke By which the tie of sire and son in death's forever broke? They tell of Time! - though he may heal the heart that's wounded sore, The household bliss thus blighted, Time! canst thou again restore? Yet if this spot recals the dead, and brings from memory's leaf A sentence wrote in bitterness, of raptures, bright and brief, I would not shun it, nor would lose the moral it will give, To teach me by the withered past, for better hopes to live. And though to warn of future wo, or whisper future bliss, One comes not from the spirit world, a witness unto this, Yet from memorials of his dust, 'tis wholesome thus to learn And print upon our thought the state to which we must return. Wherever then my pilgrimage in coming days shall be, My frequent visions, favorite ground! shall backward glance to thee; The holy dead, the bygone hours, the precepts early given, Shall sweetly soothe and influence my homeward way to heaven. 1837. PURITY. Oh, glorious TнHOU! thy throne of power Could not remain one single hour, Were not its deep foundations laid On laws of holiness, obeyed. The heavens that look upon this globe, What, then, is man, who drinks up sin? Oh, from the tree which shadows heaven, Let some benignant branch be given ;— At Marah, be again revealed, And, Lord! the fountain shall be healed. THE FUTURE. My God, I would not long to see Or what bright scenes may rise. Watts. Ir in Thy book, within whose lids is sealed Among the unaltered weal and wo of men, |