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And the New Creature Walks in Light.
WHEN 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.

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;
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

woe,

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.
ANON.

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;
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.

A practical rebuker of vain strife,

Bolder in deeds than words, from beardless youth

To the white hairs of age, he made his life
A beautiful consecration to the Truth.

Virtue, neglected long, and trampled down,
Grew stronger in the echo of his name;
And, shrinking self-condemned beneath his frown,
The cheek of harlotry grew red with shame.

Serene with conscious peace, he strewed his way
With sweet humanities, the growth of love;
Shaping to right his actions, day by day,
Faithful to this world and to that above.

The ghosts of blind belief and hideous crime,
Of spirit-broken loves, and hopes betrayed,
That flit among the broken walls of Time,
Are by the True Man's exorcisms laid.

Blest is his life, who to himself is true,
And blest his death-for memory, when he
dies,

Comes, with a lover's eloquence, to renew
Our faith in manhood's upward tendencies.

Weep for the self-abased, and for the slave,
And for God's children darkened with the
smoke

Of the red altar-not for him whose grave greener than the mistletoe of the oak. ALICE CAREY.

Is

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