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That freedom ye, at length, bestow,

And bid me bless my envied fate: Yet tell me I am free to go ·

Where? I am desolate !

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the spring of joy,

Felt when the spirit's strength is young; Which slavery only can alloy,

The mockeries to which I clung,

The eyes, whose fond and sunny ray
Made life's dull lamp less dimly burn,
The tones I pined for, day by day,
Can ye bid them return?

"Bring back the chain! its clanking sound
Hath then a power beyond your own!
It brings young visions smiling round,
Too fondly loved too early flown!
It brings me days, when these dim eyes
Gazed o'er the wild and swelling sea,
Counting how many suns must rise
Ere one might hail me free!

"Bring back the chain! that I may think "T is that which weighs my spirits so; And, gazing on each galling link,

Dream as I dreamt

My days are gone;

of bitter woe!

of hope, of youth,

These traces now alone remain ;

(Hoarded with sorrow's sacred truth)

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"Freedom! though doomed in pain to live,
The freedom of the soul is mine ;
But all of slavery you could give,
Around my steps must ever twine.
Raise up the head which age has bent;
Renew the hopes that childhood gave ;
Bid all return kind heaven once lent,
Till then I am a slave !"

THE CHRISTENING.

BY CHARLES LAMB.

ARRAYED- —a half-angelic sight —
In vests of pure baptismal white—
The mother to the font doth bring
The little helpless, nameless thing,
With hushes soft and mild caressing,
At once to get a name and blessing.

Close by the babe the priest doth stand—
The sacred water at his hand,

Which must assoil the soul within
From every stain of Adam's sin.

The infant eyes the mystic scenes,

Nor knows what all this wonder means;

And now he smiles, as if to say,

"I am a Christian made this day."
Now, frighted, clings to nurse's hold,
Shrinking from the water cold,
Whose virtues, rightly understood,

Are, as Bethesda's waters, good.

Strange words-the World, the Flesh, the Devil;

Poor babe, what can it know of evil?

But we must silently adore

Mysterious truths, and not explore.
Enough for him, in after-times,
When he shall read these artless rhymes,
If, looking back upon this day
With easy conscience, he can say,
"I have in part redeemed the pledge
Of my baptismal privilege ;

And more and more will strive to flee

All that my sponsors kind renounced for me."

CHANGE.

BY MISS LANDON.

We say that people and that things are changed;
Alas! it is ourselves that change: the heart
Makes all around the mirror of itself.

WHERE are the flowers, the beautiful flowers That haunted your homes and your heart in the spring?

Where is the sunshine of earlier hours?

Where is the music the birds used to bring?

Where are the flowers?

springing,

-

why, thousands are

And many fair strangers are sweet on the air ; And the birds to the sunshine their welcome are

singing

Look round on our valley, and then question, "Where?"

Alas, my heart's darkness! I own it is summer,
Though little 'tis like what it once used to be:
I have no welcome to give the new-comer;
Strangely the summer seems altered to me.

'Tis my spirits are wasted-my hopes that are weary; These made the gladness and beauty of yore: To the worn and the withered even sunshine is dreary,

And the year has its spring, though our own is

no more.

THE EMIGRANT'S CABIN.

BY THOMAS PRINGLE.

WHERE the young river, from its wild ravine,
Winds pleasantly through 'Eildon's pastures green,—
With fair acacias waving on its banks;

And willows bending o'er in graceful ranks,
And the steep mountain rising close behind,
To shield us from the snowberg's wintry wind,
Appears my rustic cabin, thatch'd with reeds,
Upon a knoll amid the grassy meads;
And, close beside it, looking o'er the lea,
Our summer seat, beneath an umbra tree.

This morning, musing in that favourite seat,
My hound, old Yarrow, dreaming at my feet,
I pictured you, sage Fairbairn, at my side,
By some good Genie wafted o'er the tide ;

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