And the New Creature Walks in Light. HEN man to god-like being sprung, WHEN 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; And dress the late spontaneous ground: E'en thus when man is born anew, While angel harps rejoice in heaven- And dress with tears the wayward ground: And heaven's own bread is mixed with tears! Yet onward is no scene displayed Whose bright beginnings ne'er decay? Must still the prospect ope to fade, Still clouds o'ercast the new-born day? D No: see the last creation burst- No bitter tears its harvest leaven- A Portrait. THE happy soul hath left its fair abode: How pale the cheek where warmth and beauty glow'd! Where now those charms that held th' admiring sight? The bloom as heav'n's unclouded azure bright; Then pause:—while memory bleeds upon the tomb. Perhaps while we th' untimely stroke bemoan, She bends adoring at th' Eternal's throne; While from our eye-balls burst the streams of woe, Her happier soul can wonder why they flow; A Visit to Bethlehem in the Spirit. HE scene around me disappears, THE And, borne to ancient regions, While Time recalls the flight of years, I see angelic legions Descending in an orb of light, Amidst the dark and silent night; "Tidings, glad tidings from above, Through David's city I am led; It is; it is;—and I adore This Stranger meek and lowly, Faith through the vail of flesh can see My Lord, my God, my Saviour! JAMES MONTGOMERY. Blest is his Life, who to himself is True. PEACE to the True Man's ashes! Weep for those grown Whose days in old delusions have dim ; Such lives as his are triumphs, and their close An immortality: weep not for him. As feathers wafted from the eagle's wings Lie bright among the rocks they can not warm, So lie the flowery lays that Genius brings, In the cold turf that wraps his honoured form. A practical rebuker of vain strife, Bolder in deeds than words, from beardless youth To the white hairs of age, he made his life Virtue, neglected long, and trampled down, Serene with conscious peace, he strewed his way The ghosts of blind belief and hideous crime, Blest is his life, who to himself is true, Comes, with a lover's eloquence, to renew Weep for the self-abased, and for the slave, Of the red altar-not for him whose grave |