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MENTAL BEAUTY.

BY RICHARD H. VOSE.

I LOVE the hour when day is spent, And stars are in the firmament:Sweet hour of night, thy shadows roll, A heavenly calmness o'er the soul.

I love to gaze upon the deep,

When furious storms are lulled to rest; How calmly sweet those billows sleep,

And mildly smile on ocean's breast.

Oh! who can gaze upon the ocean, And see the moonbeams sparkle there, Nor feel the flame of pure devotion, Nor offer up one fervent prayer.

MENTAL BEAUTY.

And who has marked the rainbow's smile,

That emblem of our Maker's love,

And did not burn with love the while
To join the adoring train above?

But there's a beauty far more bright,
Than Ocean's gems of fairest hue-
Than starry hosts of heavenly light,
When beaming from that sky of blue.

The glorious sky shall pass away,
The mighty deep must cease to flow,
Created things shall all decay,-

This is our sentence, this our woe.

Yet earth, with Heaven can boast alone,
A brighter beauty, more refined,
Its centre is the Eternal's throne-

It is the beauty of the mind.

155

MUSIC AND MEMORY.

BY NATHANIEL L. SAWYER.

How oft some low and gentle strain,
From out the mellow horn or flute,

Rolling along the moon-lit plain,
Will waken buried years again—

Which else to memory had been mute.
Oh! music hath a magic power,
That serves to soothe a weary hour,

When perished hopes and fortunes lower;
From present care and toil it weans,
And wafts us back to halcyon scenes
Of boyhood, when the pulse ran wild,
And every vision undefiled
Beamed on the waking slumberer bright,
Instinct with ever fresh delight.

MUSIC AND MEMORY.

157

I've stood upon a sea-girt isle,

The heavens and earth were still, the while,
Lit by the mellow moonbeam's smile-
While strains of melody

Awoke my dreaming spirit there,
Dispelling each intrusive care,
As rung upon the slumbering air
The bugle o'er the sea.

The bugle hath a thrilling note,
That coming from a summer boat,
Makes many a vision round us float

Of witching 'Auld Lang Syne ;’—
It gives the heart an answering chime,
Makes youth triumphant over time,
And helps the clay-clogged soul to climb
Where Romance dwells divine.

There's music in the lone cascade,

That having swept the upland glade,

Now dashes down where years have made
A deep and wild ravine;

It minds us of life's opening spring,

Joys early ripe thick-clustering-
And mimic hopes on golden wing,
Glancing the while between!

The steeple bell that fills the air,
The organ in the house of prayer,
With voices chanting, all declare

In Sabbath morning hour,

'Mid shadows of a greener year—

The friends, whose lessening forms appear With undiminished power.

The Switzer dreams of Father-land,
While captive Judah's mourning band

By Babel's willowy stream

Hang up their harps.-From palace dome, To cottage thatched, where-e'er we roam, Soft music turns the exile home

Where passed his young life's dream.

The stars of heaven that o'er us beam,
The murmur of some gentle stream,

Will open memory's cell

And lead the wanderer back through years
Of woes and pains and wasting fears,
And joys that flash through streaming tears,
And leave him there to dwell

With youthful haunts and school-boy plays,
And hills and streams and sunny days-
Where memory ever fondly strays.

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