AN HOUR WITH GOD. ONE hour with Thee, my God! when daylight breaks One hour with Thee, when busy day begins Her never-ceasing round of bustling care, One hour with Thee, when rides the glorious sun One hour with Thee, when saddened twilight flings The sweet enthralling sense of thy deep love; One hour with Thee, my God! when softly night Are telling forth thy praise to men below; I'll spend in prayer one joyful hour with Thee! From the Journal of Commerce. THE following Ode breathes a spirit which must commend itself to every patriotic citizen. It was written by the Rev. Dr. Gilman, of Charleston, and was sung at the 4th of July celebration, in 1832, by the Union Party of that city. I had the satisfaction to be present, and to assist in the choir. The procession had moved to the Baptist church to listen to an oration by Col. Drayton, one of the influential men of the Unionists, while the Nullifiers were headed by the great Hayne, by Hamilton, and others. I recollect one sentence of Col. Drayton's speech, which it may not be amiss to mention. Endeavoring to demonstrate the impracticability of nullification, Col. Drayton said: "To be in the Union and out of it, simultaneously, is not in the power of Omnipotence itself." Hail, our country's natal morn! Hallowed Jubilee ! Who would sever Freedom's shrine? THERE'S LIGHT BEHIND THE CLOUD! In the lone and weary nights, my child, When all around is drear; O, never think, my gentle boy, In that gloomy, trying hour, Soon will those dark clouds roll away, There is an Eye above, my child, That slumbers not, nor sleeps: And though in trouble's darkest hour Chambers' Journal, Thy noble heart forever, ever more? Cold in the earth-and fifteen wild Decembers, Or art thou near allied Yet moving voiceless through the heavens wide- Vain is each prying thought, To find the source and nature of thy ray, Worketh unchanging through all space and time, And He thy home hath cast From those brown hills, have melted into spring : 'Mid seas of ice, unchanged by Summer's ray- Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee, No second morn has ever shone for me; Then did I check the tears of useless passion- Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten Down to that tomb already more than mine. Ellis Bell. From the Journal of Commerce. THE AURORA BOREALIS. When Earth is veiled in darkness to the eye, 'Tis not the twilight beam, But a strange, shifting glow, Light of the dreary North, Fain would we know thy far and hidden springs, Art thou the icy smile Of Arctic oceans, streaming in the sky? On a far northern shore, With giant craters gaping to a sea, 'Mid frigid deserts, stretching far and vast, Yet doth thy nightly glow Thou cheerest Siberia's gloom, EDWIN S. HIGBIE. Exeter, N. Y., Feb. 9th, 1850. From Chambers' Journal MY EEN ARE DIM WI' TEARS. My een are dim wi' tears, John My heart is sair wi' wae, I lie an' watch the stars, John, I hae looed ye weel and lang, John Ye're hand leed seeking mine, John, An' your een leed looking love, John, An' your gifts, what did they pruve, John, An' your step leed coming here, John, For mony a happy year, John, For I thocht the time would come, John, An' pray to God in heaven, From the National Era. THE MEN OF OLD. BY J. G. WHITTIER. WELL Speed thy mission, bold Iconoclast! The effigies of old confessors lie, God's witnesses; the voices of his will Heard in the distant march of centuries still! Such from the terrors of the guilty drew In heaven's sweet peace!) forbid, of old, the sale And coining from the abbey's golden hoard The captive's freedom, answered to the prayer Or threat of those whose fierce zeal for the Lord Stifled their love of man; " An earthen dish The last sad supper of the Master bore: Most miserable sinners, do ye wish More than your Lord, and grudge his dying poor What your own pride and not his need require? Souls, than these shining gauds, he values more; Mercy, not sacrifice, his heart desires." O, faithful worthies! resting far behind Pride And Vanity stand shrined and deified, We need, methinks, the prophet-hero still, And startling tyrants with the fear of hell! We need the souls of fire, the hearts of that old. time. "I AM SO HAPPY!" I SEE the faded writing, dated oh! so long ago; The clear round text is fairly traced by childish fingers slow; 'Tis but a simple record of inconstant hopes and fears, But one short sentence written there I blot with falling tears. It is this "I am so happy." But twenty years have flown Since those pleasant words were writ to a loving playmate gone; This is the hand that traced them, they were innocent and true, This is the heart so buoyant then, as rosy moments flew. I gaze upon the characters, I ponder o'er them yet; The many intervening years I struggle to forget; O, but to realize them now for one short fleeting hour, The dark, dark shadows of this life ceasing awhile to lour ! "I am so happy"-well-a-day! those strange and thrilling words Sound soft and sweetly as the song of wild and woodland birds, In twilight glades at evening fall, when, 'mid the shiv'ring leaves, A whispering of import sad our busy fancy weaves. May I not be a child once more? My second birth must be No day-dream of a sickly mind, but blest reality; Then, then again those glorious words with truth I may indite "I am so happy"-traced within in characters of light. LAST WISHES OF A CHILD. THE following beautiful little poem was written by James T. Fields for the Boston Book for 1850. "All the hedges are in bloom, And the warm west wind is blowing- Let me go where flowers are growing! Piping through the casement wide? "Bear me to the willow-brook Let me hear the merry mill- Ere my beating heart is still. "Faint and fainter grows my breath- Still the hedges are in bloom, And the warm west wind is blowing; Still we sit in silem gloom O'er her grave the grass is growing. From the Journal of Commerce. A CEMETERY WITHOUT A MONUMENT. MANY a tear has been dropped in memory of Capt. Ira Bursley, who, with his noble crew, after sending all the passengers ashore from the ill-fated Hottinguer, went down with her to the "6 cemetery without a monument." Like the lamented Dustan, on board the Atlantic, he staid by his vessel until the last efforts were put forth to save the lives of others. One is reminded of Cooper's description of long Tom Coffin, which, though fiction, has proved the mournful truth concerning many a brave sailor. In looking over a volume of poems by Brainard, I copied his LAMENT FOR LONG TOM. Let us think of them that sleep By thy wild and stormy steep, Thy cruise is over now, Thou art anchored by the shore, And never more shalt thou Hear the storm around thee roar; Death has shaken out the sands of thy glass. The sea-grass round thy bier Shall bend beneath the tide, Where thy manly limbs abide; But the granite rock thy tombstone shall be. At the piping of all hands, When the Judgment signal's spread; When the islands and the lands And the seas give up their dead, And the North and the South shall come : From the Ohio State Journal. I'VE wandered far from thee, mother, I've left the land that gave me birth, And time since then has rolled its years, And marked them on my brow, I'm thinking on the day, mother, You watched the dawning of my youth, Then brightly was my heart lit up While your bright fancy honors wove To deck thy darling boy. These lines were written by a convict in the Ohio Penitentiary, and inscribed, "To my mother." I'm thinking of the day, mother, I'm far away from thee, mother; Are all now torn from me; I'm lonely and forsaken now, Yet still I would not have thee know I know you would not chide, mother, I would not have thee know, mother, O, I have wandered far, mother, But, ah! there is a thought, mother, And while I wipe the tear away, A voice that speaks of heaven and thee, Ohio Penitentiary, Jan. 17, 1850. ALPHA. From the Missionary. MALLEUS DOMINI. Is not my word, saith the Lord, like a hammer, that breaketh the rock in pieces?-Jeremiah xxiii. 29. SLEDGE of the Lord, beneath whose stroke I hear thy pond'rous echoes ring, And fall, a crushed and crumbled thing. Meekly, these mercies I implore, Through Him, whose cross our sorrows bore : On earth, thy new-creating grace; In heaven, the very lowest place. O, might I be a living stone, G. W. D. From the Daily News. THE MUSIC GRINDERS. You 're sitting on your window-seat, Beneath a cloudless moon; You hear a sound, that seems to wear And nearer, nearer still, the tide Of music seems to come, There's something like a human voice, And something like a drum ; You sit in speechless agony, Until your ear is numb. Poor "home, sweet home," should seem to be A very dismal place; Your "auld acquaintance," all at once, Is altered in the face; Their discords sting through Burns and Moore You think they are crusaders sent And break the legs of Time. The music all is ground, And silence, like a poultice, comes It cannot be it is—it is! A hat is going round. No! pay the dentist when he leaves That stunned you with his paw, But, if you are a portly man, To turn them out of town; And if you are a slender man, Or, if you cannot make a speech, Go very quietly in and drop BOOK OF LIGHT.* GENTLEST Sister, I am weary- All that sometimes makes me blest *Poems of Alice and Phoebe Carey. Why this feeling of unrest. But all day have been around me Seeing not despair's swift lightning- Out beneath the jewelled arches And to soothe day's dusty marches, |