Had wooed ; and it hath heard from lips which

late Were eloquent of love, the first harsh word, That told the wedded one her peace was flown. Farewell to the sweet sunshine! One glad day Is added now to Childhood's merry days, And one calm day to those of quiet Age. Still the fleet hours run on; and as I lean, Amid the thickening darkness, lamps are lit, By those who watch the dead, and those who

twine Flowers for the bride. The mother from the eyes Of her sick infant shades the painful light, And sadly listens to his quick-drawn breath.

Oh thou great Movement of the Universe, Or Change, or Flight of Time—for ye are one ! That bearest, silently, this visible scene Into night's shadow and the streaming rays Of starlight, whither art thou bearing me ? I feel the mighty current sweep me on, Yet know not whither. Man foretells afar The courses of the stars; the very hour He knows when they shall darken or grow bright; Yet doth the eclipse of Sorrow and of Death Come unforewarned. Who next, of those I love, Shall pass from life, or, sadder yet, shall fall From virtue? Strife with foes, or bitterer strife With friends, or shame and general scorn of

menWhich who can bear?-or the fierce rack of pain, Lie they within my path ? Or shall the years

Push me, with soft and inoffensive pace,
Into the stilly twilight of my age ?
Or do the portals of another life
Even now, while I am glorying in my strength,
Impend around me? Oh! beyond that bourne,
In the vast cycle of being which begins
At that broad threshold, with what fairer forms
Shall the great law of change and progress clothe
Its workings ? Gently—so have good men

taught
Gently, and without grief, the old shall glide
Into the new; the eternal flow of things,
Like a bright river of the fields of heaven,
Shall journey onward in perpetual peace.

W. C. BRYANT.

Voyage of the Soul. ....... The high-born soul Disdains to rest her heaven-aspiring wing Beneath its native quarry. Tired of earth And this diurnal scene, she springs aloft, Through fields of air : pursues the flying storm; Rides on the volleyed lightning through the

heavens; Or, yoked with whirlwinds and the northern blast, Sweeps the long tract of day. Then high she soars, The blue profound, and hovering round the sun, Beholds him pouring the redundant stream

Of light; beholds his unrelenting sway
Bend the reluctant planets to absolve
The fated rounds of Time. Thence far effused
She darts her swiftness up the long career
Of devious comets ; through its burning signs
Exulting measures the perennial wheel
Of Nature, and looks back on all the stars,
Whose blended light, as with a milky zone,
Invests the orient. Now amazed she views
The empyreal waste, where happy spirits hold,
Beyond this concave heaven, their calm abode;
And fields of radiance, whose unfading light
Has travelled the profound six thousand years,
Nor yet arrives in sight of mortal things.
Even on the barriers of the world untired,
She meditates the eternal depth below;
Till, half recoiling, down the headlong steep
She plunges; soon o'erwhelmed and swallowed

up
In that immense of being. There her hopes
Rest at the fated goal. For from the birth
Of mortal man, the sovereign Maker said,
That not in humble nor in brief delight,
Not in the fading echoes of renown,
Power's purple robes, nor Pleasure's flowery lap,
The soul should find enjoyment; but from these,
Turning disdainful to an equal good,
Through all the ascent of things enlarge her view,
Till every bound at length should disappear,
And infinite perfection close the scene.

AKENSIDE.

What in Thy Love Possess I Not ? W HAT in Thy love possess I not ?

My star by night, my sun by day,
My spring of life when parch'd with drought,

My wine to cheer, my bread to stay ;
My strength, my shield, my safe abode,
My robe before the throne of God!
Ah love! thy influence withdrawn,

What profits me that I am born ?
All my delight, my joy is gone,

Nor know I peace 'till Thou return:
Thee may I seek 'till I attain ;
And never may we part again.
From all eternity with love

Unchangeable Thou hast me view'd;
Ere knew this beating heart to move,

Thy tender mercies me pursu'd:
Ever with me may they abide,
And close me in on every side.

JOHN WESLEY.

We are Spirits clad in Feils.
THOUGHT is deeper than all speech;

Feeling deeper than all thought:
Souls to souls can never teach

What unto themselves was taught.

We are spirits clad in veils :

Man by man was never seen : All our deep communing fails

To remove the shadowy screen. Heart to heart was never known :

Mind with mind did never meet: We are columns left alone,

Of a temple once complete. Like the stars that gem the sky,

Far apart, though seeming near, In our light we scatter'd lie;

All is thus but starlight here. What is social company

But a babbling summer-stream ? What our wise philosophy

But the glancing of a dream ? Only when the sun of love

Melts the scatter'd stars of thought, Only when we live above

What the dim-eyed world hath taught, Only when our souls are fed

By the Fount which gave them birth, And by inspiration led

Which they never drew from earth; We, like parted drops of rain,

Swelling till they meet and run, Shall be all absorb'd again, Melting, flowing into one.

C. P. CRANCH.