where all, that had once been to me so great and mighty, then was; in what gulf the sounds of merriment, that once reverberated from the walls, the master, the domestic, the aged, and the young, had disappeared. Our early recollections are pleasing to us, because they look not on the morrow. Alas! what did that morrow leave when it had become nerged in the past' I have lately traversed the village in which I was born, without discovering a face that I knew. Houses have been demolished, fronts altered, tenements built, trees rooted up, and alterations effected, that made me feel a stranger amid the home of my fathers. The old-fashioned and roomy house, where my infant years had been watched by parental affection, had been long uninhabited: it was in decay: the storm beat through its fractured windows, and it was partly roofless. The garden, and its old elms, the scene associated with the cherished feelings of many a happy hour, lay a weedy waste : Amid thy desert walks the lapwing flies, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall! But the picture it presented in my youth exhibits it as true and vivid as ever. It is hung up in memory in all its freshness, and time cannot dilapidate its image. It is now become an essence, that defies the mutability of material things. It is fixed in ethereal colours on the tablets of the mind, and lives within the domain of spirit, within the circumference of which the universal spoiler possesses no sovereignty. LESSON LXVII. On visiting a Scene of Childhood.-BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE "I came to the place of my birth, and said, "The friends of my youth, where are they?' and Echo answered, Where are they?""" LONG years had elapsed since I gazed on the scene, I thought of the friends, who had roamed with me there, I thought of the green banks, that circled around, As the face of the sky on a blue summer night: And I thought of the trees, under which we had strayed, All eager, I hastened the scene to behold, 'Twas a dream!—not a token or trace could I view And methought the lone river, that murmured along, I paused-and the moral came home to my heart :- Then, O, let us look-let our prospects allure- O'er the blightings of Change, and the ruins of Time. LESSON LXIX. The Little Graves.-ANONYMOUS. "Twas autumn, and the leaves were dry, As through the grave-yard's lone retreat, I walked, with slow and cautious feet, Three little graves, ranged side by side, My close attention drew; O'er two, the tall grass, bending, sighed, And one seemed fresh and new. As, lingering there, I mused awhile Her form was bowed, but not with years, A prattling boy, some four years old, "Mămma',* now you must love me more, For little sister's dead; "Mamma, what made sweet sister die? She loved me when we played. You told me, if I would not cry, Vou'd show me where she's laid." a sounded as in father. ""Tis here, my child, that sister lies, "Mamma, why can't we take her up, And then she won't be dead. For sister'll be afraid to lie 'No, sister is not cold, my child; he looked down from heaven and smiled, Recalled her to the sky. "And then her spirit quickly fled To God, by whom 'twas given; Her body in the ground is dead, "Mamma, won't she be hungry there, "Papa' must go and carry some; "No, my dear child, that cannot be; ““Let little children come to me,' LESSON LXX. Life and Death.-NEW MONTHLY Magazine O FEAR not thou to die! But rather fear to live; for life But life!-the spirit shrinks to see How full, ere heaven recalls the breath, The cup of wo may be. O fear not thou to die! No more to suffer or to sin; No snares without, thy faith to try, No traitor heart within: But fear, O! rather fear, The gay, the light, the changeful scene The flattering smiles that greet thee here, From heaven thy heart to wean. Fear, lest, in evil hour, Thy pure and holy hope o'ercome, The covering throws of fell despair; O fear not thou to die! To die, and be that blessed one, Who, in the bright and beauteous sky, May feel his conflict done May feel that, never more, The tear of grief or shame shall come, For thousand wanderings from the Power Who loved, and called him home! 12 |