That fill the skies nightly with silent pomp, Sweet conference. Inquires what strains were

they With which heaven rang, when every star in haste To gratulate the new-created earth, Sent forth a voice, and all the sons of God Shouted for joy. “Tell me, ye shining hosts That navigate a sea that knows no storms, Beneath a vault unsullied with a cloud, If from your elevation, whence ye view Distinctly scenes invisible to man, And systems of whose birth no tidings yet Have reached this nether world, ye spy a race Favoured as ours, transgressors from the womb, And hasting to a grave, yet doomed to rise, And to possess a brighter heaven than yours? As one who, long detained on foreign shores, Pants to return, and when he sees afar His country's weather-bleached and battered

rocks From the green wave emerging, darts an eye Radiant with joy towards the happy land; So I, with animated hopes behold, And many an aching wish, your beamy fires, That show like beacons in the blue abyss, Ordained to guide th’ embodied spirit home From toilsome life to never-ending rest. Love kindles as I gaze. I feel desires That give assurance of their own success, And that, infused from heaven, must thither tend."

WILLIAM COWPER.

And the New Creature Walks in Light. W HEN 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.
Then, too, the heart's unlaboured soil

Is with mysterious plenty crowned;
But soon he finds 'tis meet to toil,

And dress with tears the wayward ground:
For, oh! too soon the thorn appears,
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-
All clouds, all changes there dispersed!
No thorns that Paradise infest-

No bitter tears its harvest leaven-
No toils disturb its hallowed rest;

Unlaboured plenty lasts in heaven:
Then, oh! let Faith, let Patience, here,
With Hope unmurmuring persevere.

Thomas GRINFIELD.

A Portrait.
TITE happy soul hath left its fair abode:

llow pale the cheek where warmth and

beauty glow'd! Where now those charms that held th' admiring

sight P The bloom as heav'n's unclouded azure bright; Th'attractive smile, by nature taught to please ; The mien that temper'd dignity with ease ? Ah where! yon solemn silent vault survey, Where writhes the reptile o'er its kindred clay; There read on pride's stain'd cheek the gen’ral

doom; 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

Her happier soul can wonder why they flow;
Or smile, and pitying our mistaken sighs,
Can bless the hour that call'd her to the skies.
Yet must our sorrows stain thy mournful bier;
Such sweetness lost demands a tender tear.
Thine was the breast by conscious virtue warm’d,
The heart that pitied, and the look that charm’d;
The beam of wit from sparkling genius brought,
Its fire chastis’d by cool directing thought;
Superior sense, by passion ne'er betray'd,
The kindling transport, and the judging head;
The thought which art and candid taste refine;
The gen'rous wish ; the feeling soul was thine.

ΑΝΟΝ.

A Bisit to Bethlehem in the Spirit.

THE scene around me disappears,
1 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;

I hear celestial voices.
“ Tidings, glad tidings from above,

To every age and nation;
Tidings, glad tidings,—God is love,

To man He sent salvation:
His Son beloved, his only Son,
The work of mercy hath begun,

Give to his name the glory.”

Through David's city I am led;

Here all around are sleeping ;
A light directs to yon poor shed,

Where lonely watch is keeping :
I enter ;-ah! what glories shine!
Is this Immanuel's earthly shrine ?

Messiah's infant temple ?
It is; it is ;—and I adore

This Stranger meek and lowly,
As saints and seraphs bow before

The throne of God thrice holy;
Faith through the vail of flesh can see .
The face of thy Divinity,
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

Whose days in old delusions have grown 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.