Call up to keen activity the swains,

And ope the primrose in the noontide glare;

The village youth their summer sports shall share ; Yon sea, so fierce, with dimple scarce be curled,

But to these tombs no change shall tidings bear, Till earth behold the Archangel's wings unfurled, And the loud trumpet's voice awake a slumbering world.

VI.

Obscure the spot, and far removed from fame,
No regal sepulchre is here arrayed,

Yet, as I pass, a sigh 'twill sometimes claim ;
For here a grandsire's aged dust is laid,
Around whose knees, in infant hours, I've played,
And felt beyond the muse's power to sing,

When bowed the hoary patriarch, and paid

His due devotions to the Almighty King,

Or when with heartfelt strains the rustic dome would ring.

VII.

O! 'mid these wilds had fortune placed my cot, And bade me daily 'mong their charms to stray,

Climb the grey hill, from revelry remote,

And mark the morning bursting into day, The seasons rise and softly steal away, And oft my harp be tuned at fall of night;

When age should come-cold age-and dull decay,

To find a grave in yonder solemn site,

With hopes to rise and shine in everlasting light.

VIII.

Ye mighty oaks, that smile at ocean's blast,
With ivy circled, where the ring-dove rears
Her brood secure-ye shaggy mountains, cast
In Nature's throes, where Time a thousand years
Has wrote-thou tower that dim afar appears,
Where feudal lords in olden time would dwell;

Ye rocks, that shine with evening's crystal tears, And mournful echo yonder village bell,

Night calls me to my home-dear scenes of youth farewell!

ON THE DEATH OF MY SISTER, MRS R. PARKER.

"Now my days are swifter than a post."--JOB ix. 25.

OUR fellow-pilgrims, one by one,

We lose on life's declining way;
And soon a cheerless course we run,

With changing looks and tresses grey;
And things within, without, unfold
To us the world is waxing old.

It seems of yesterday to be,

When hand in hand we went to school;

Or gambolled on the daisy'd lea,

Or watched the minnows in the pool:
And bliss from every object drew,

For all was beautiful and new.

It seems of yesterday to be,

When looked we through the churchyard gate, Our little kindred's graves to see;

And though we distant deemed the date,

Each other viewed with sob and sigh,

And said "We one day too would die."

It seems of yesterday to be,

When in the long, dark winter night, Beside our mother's wheel sat we;

The hearth was clean, the fire was bright, And she would sing some melting lay Of men, of things long passed away.

And, when the song or tale was o'er, What simple questions we would start; Or on the fire intensely pore,

With tearful eyes and lips apart; Alas, that sweet, that soothing strain, I'll never hear on earth again.

I've lived

Upon my father's mouldering breast
my mother's dust to lay;
The tongue that hushed us both to rest,
Is silent and insensate clay;

That dreary path thou too hast gone,
And we must travel all anon.

It seems of yesterday to be,

When at thy grandsire's knee thou stood, With blossoms of the hawthorn tree, And wild-flowers dewy from the wood; And soft the good old man the while Would stroke thy head, and fondly smile.

It seems of yesterday to be,

When through the morning's dewy pane

The summer's golden light we'd see

Gild the green hills and distant main:
Those moments in their bright array,
O! God of goodness, where are they?

But where is all the bliss, the bane,
The sunny hours, the deeds sublime;
The most that mortals may attain,
In annals of departed time?
Earth's mightiest ones, forgot at last,
Are swallowed in the boundless past.

And now, within the grave's embrace-
Two little children by thy side-
Thou art; and six hast left to trace

The world's rough shore, and stem its tide, Through much unkindness, many a snare, And all without a mother's care.

And should they meet those ills of life

That rend the heart, and blanch the cheek, Perhaps, unequal to the strife,

With eyes suffused, unseen, they'll seek The spot where thou liest lone and low, To tell the senseless turf their wo.

Years shall away on viewless wing,

The sky as bright, the earth as green, And soon some laughing hour shall bring, When none shall know that thou hast been;