Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the future mars or makes, While sun is quenched, or system breaks, Above or love, hope, hate, or fear, O'er all, through all, its thoughts shall fly; Forgetting what it was to die. Byron. YOU REMEMBER, ELLEN. You remember Ellen, our hamlet's pride, Together they toiled through winds and rains, They roamed a long and a weary way, 'To night,' said the youth, we'll shelter there, The wind blows cold, the hour is late:' 'Now welcome, lady!' exclaimed the youth, This castle is thine, and these dark woods all !' She believed him wild, but his words were truth, For Ellen is Lady of Rosna Hall! And dearly the Lord of Rosna loves What William the stranger woo'd and wed; And the light of bliss, in these lonely groves, Is pure as it shone in the lonely shed. Moore. ON THE APPROACH OF DEATH. Yes, 'twill be over soon. Of life will vanish from This sickly dream my feverish brain And death my wearied spirit will redeem ; Yon landscape smile,-yon golden harvest grow; They laugh in health, and future evils brave; H. K. White. THE CHRISTIAN IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. O most delightful hour by man Experienced here below, The hour that terminates his span, His folly and his woe! Worlds should not bribe me back to tread Again life's dreary waste; To see again my day o'erspread My home henceforth is in the skies, I have no sight for you. So speaks the Christian, firm possessed Then breathes his soul into its rest, The bosom of his God. LORD BYRON. Take one example; to our purpose quite, Cowper. An heir of flattery, to titles born, And reputation, and luxurious life. Yet not content with ancestorial name; Or to be known, because his fathers were; And gazing higher, purposed in his heart In prime of youth, he bent his eagle eye. No cost was spared. What books he wished, he read : He saw. And first in school-boy days, an With years and drank from old and fabulous wells; And plucked the vine that first-born prophets plucked: And mused on famous tombs, and on the wave |