OH! beautiful beyond depicting words
To paint the hour that wafts a soul to heaven!
The world grows dim, the scenes of time depart,
The hour of peace, the walk of social joy,
The mild companion, and the deep-souled friend,
The loved and lovely-see his face no more.
The mingling spell of sun, of sea and air,
Is broken; voice and gaze, and smiles that speak,
Must perish; parents take their hushed adieu;
A wife, a child, a daughter half divine,
Or son that never drew a father's tear,-
Approach him, and his dying tones receive.
Like God's own language! 'tis an hour of awe,
Yet terrorless, when revelations flow
From faith immortal; view that pale-worn brow,
It gleams with glory!-in his eyes there dawns
A dazzling earnest of unuttered joy.
Each pang subdued, his longing soul respires
The gales of glorified eternity;
And round him, hues ethereal, harps of light,
And lineaments of earthless beauty, throng,
As, winged on melody, the saint departs,
While heaven in miniature before him shines.
AMID the pompous crowd
Of rich adorers, came a humble form;
A widow, meek as poverty doth make
Her children! with a look of sad content,
Her mite within the treasure-heap she cast:
Then, timidly as bashful twilight, stole
From out the temple. But her lowly gift
Was witnessed by an eye, whose mercy views,
In motive, all that consecrates a deed
To goodness:-so He blessed the Widow's Mite
Beyond the gifts abounding wealth bestowed.-
Thus is it, Lord! with Thee: the heart is thine,
And all the world of hidden action there
Works in thy sight, like waves beneath the sun,
Conspicuous! and a thousand nameless acts
That lurk in lovely secresy, and die
Unnoticed, like the trodden flowers which fall
Beneath a proud man's foot,-to Thee are known,
And written with a sunbeam in the Book
Of Life, where Mercy fills the brightest page!
PRIDE blasted Eden, and the world has bowed
Beneath her sceptre, which to break in dust
The God incarnate every meekness wore!
Yet what are we, that our Titanic dreams
Assault the skies with their incessant aim?
Oh! could we read Creation's book aright,
Our nothingness on each vast page would shine
Convicted!-atoms mock our deepest ken;
The winds, invisible as angel-wings,
Attend our path, and tell not whence they come;
The dust derides us!-from the floating orbs
Of night's dim world, an overwhelming ray
Of mystery pierces the distracted mind;
And ocean laugheth with resounding scorn,
When monarchs dare him, and their fleets, like foam,
From wave to wave are darted!-Gaze within,
And what is there? A tempest in repose
Of passions wild, dark energies and powers
That storm and madden at a demon's call!
THE VAST IMPORTANCE OF ITS BRIEFEST PORTION.
A MOMENT is a mighty thing,
Beyond the soul's imagining;
For in it, though we trace it not,
How much there crowds of varied lot;
How much of life, life cannot see,
Darts onward to eternity!
While vacant hours of beauty roll
Their magic o'er some yielded soul,
Ah! little do the happy guess
The sum of human wretchedness;
Or dream, amid the soft farewell
That time of them is taking,
How frequent moans the funeral knell,
What noble hearts are breaking,
While myriads to their tomb descend
Without a mourner, creed, or friend!
TRIUMPH OF THE SOUL OVER DEATH.
How greatly does the hand of time unloose
The many links that chained us to the world!
The passions which inspirit youthful hearts,
And spread a lustre o'er the brow of life,
And bid the hopes of young ambition bound,
Decay and cool, as further down the vale
Of twilight years we wend, till all-resigned,
The time-worn spirit ponders o'er the tomb
With elevating sadness, and the night
Of death is lit by those immortal stars,
Which revelation sphered in heaven.
The grace, the gentleness, of virtuous age!
Though solemn, not austere; though wisely dead
To passion, and the wildering dreams of hope,
Not unalive to tenderness and truth,-
The good old man is honoured and revered,
And breathes upon the young-limbed race around
A gray and venerable charm of years.
Nor,-glory to the Power that tunes the heart
To sympathy with time!-is all decayed;
The verdure shining o'er the path of youth,
To him who loves the bloom of days no more.
A meditative walk by wood or mead,
The lull of streams, and language of the stars
Heard in the heart alone,-the bosom-life
Of all that beautified or graced his youth,
Is yet enjoyed; and with that bliss are found
The feelings flowing from a better world.
Then, melt, ye horrors! which the grave begets,
And turn to glory, by the spell of faith
Transformed, for Christ hath overcome the tomb.-
What, though 'tis awful, when the pulse of life
Is bounding, and the blood seems liquid joy,
To look corruption in its ghastly face,
The mind is man! no sepulchre for souls
Can dust and darkness frame; like God, apart,
To calm eternity they act and think:
The shroud, the hearse, the life-alarming knell,
The grave's cold silence, and the visioned friends,
Whose dreams will hover round our chill decay,
Do haunt our living dust, and give to Death
A sting that dwells not in his own dark power.
We die in body, but we live in soul,
When flesh and spirits sunder;-then our chains
Are riven, and celestial freedom dawns!-
The fettered eagle, whom a narrow cage
Imprisoned, where so oft his haughty wings
In wild unrest, have beat its hated walls
With blood-stained plumage, while his eye-balls glared
Proudly along the blue and boundless sky
Above him,-free and fetterless at last,
On plumes of ecstasy can soar away,
And mount, and mingle with the heaven he loves!
HAS published a poem, entitled The Attributes of Deity, also A Century of Original Sacred Songs, and some prose works on religious subjects.
MAN BORN ANEW.
WHEN man to god-like being sprung,
How sweet the glorious gift he found!
While heaven with notes of gladness rung,
See Eden's beauty smiles around:
Where'er the stranger bends his view,
'Tis wondrous all, divinely new.
By hands unseen the virgin soil
Is with unlaboured plenty crowned;
But soon must Adam bow to toil,
And dress the late spontaneous ground;
For, oh! too soon the thorn appears-
Too soon he blends his bread with tears!
E'en thus when man is born anew,
And being's perfect bliss is given
Lo, a new Eden starts to view,
While angel harps rejoice in heaven
'Tis wondrous all, divinely bright,
And the new creature walks in light.
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