But I love not to look on your tombs, nor the heaped up earth around,

For an awful tale of mortality,-it speaks without a sound.

I love to look on the lonely sea, ye slumber sweetest there, No foot there spurns your resting-place, or lays your dry bones bare:

So gaze we on the sea-'till mingled with the soul,
The restless billows and the sense together wildly roll.

Yet let us think of glory as we look upon the dead, And think not that in endless sleep, their bones at rest are laid;

For when the sun of faith hath risen on the ocean dark of sleep,

Their dreamy shades in its light will rise forbidding us to weep.

Ye of the lovely forms!-where is your glory now? The charnel mould is on each hand, the death-sweat on each brow:

Arise, arise ye glorious ones! better be walking dead, Than in corruption's horrors to repose your low-laid head.

Ye of the mighty arm-how powerless ye lie,
Ye of the lip of eloquence are darkly slumbering by,

Yet the angels blast shall the mighty ones, with strength again inspire,

And to the eloquent be given tongues cloven as of fire.'

But oh where are the dearest ones, we cherished above all? No voice comes from the narrow bed, no sound from the dreary pall;

'Tis silence, for no sound may pass from yonder lifeless clay, Save the echoes of the hollow tombs, that answer where they may.

There's a language in your silence, it breaks on the mental

ear,

And the quivering lip of sorrow makes its accents to ap

pear,

'Ashes to ashes,' Think ye it may speak of further trust? It cannot pierce the charnel's gloom, and there 'tis dust to dust.'

I looked around me yet again—the sun had sunk in night, The moon poured down her cataract of pale and flooding light;

Like the bright sun's fall are the living ones that sink beneath the earth,

But like the glorious moon will rise in heaven a second birth.

And when the watchers of the night, the stars shall cease to burn,

And the sun shall pass to darkness, and the moon to blood shall turn,

A glorious host of spirits, o'er the shrivelled sky shall sweep Mild as the spirit's light that passed in chaos o'er the deep. W. D.

THE MISSIONARY.

From an unpublished Poem on IDOLATRY.

Blest be the bark that o'er the ocean glides ;
And bears the self-devoted saint to some
Far distant clime of pagan ignorance,
There to disclose, with pious mind, and soul
Benevolent, the truths that can alone

'Bring peace to man. Blest be the generous hand
That freely gives his little all to smooth
The missionary's rugged path; and blest
That people, who with generous sympathy,
Stretch forth a saving arm to wrest from death,
A world of fellow-beings sunk in sin.

1

R.K. H.

MISSIONARY'S FAREWELL.

Land, where the bones of our fathers are sleeping!
Land, where our dear ones and fond ones are weeping!
Land, where the light of Jehovah is shining!
We leave thee lamenting, but not with repining.

Dark is our path o'er the dark-rolling ocean;
Dark are our hearts; but the fire of devotion
Kindles within ;—and a far distant nation
Shall learn from our lips the glad song of salvation.

Hail to the land of our toils and our sorrows!
Land of our rest!-when a few more to-morrows
Pass o'er our heads, we will seek our cold pillows,
And rest in our graves, far away o'er the billows.

FAITH.

FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

Anon.

'Tis thou that soothest the deathbed of the saint, When round his dying couch his children and Their children's children flock, a sorrowing group,

VOL. III.

F

To watch with anxious looks that last dread scene;
'Tis thou that lightest with hope his glazing eye;
And as the world recedes beneath his gaze,
'Tis thou that beam'st upon his pallid lips,
Quivering with his last breath, one blessed smile,
That seems to murmur, my Redeemer lives;'
And when his children, of their sire bereaved,
Sink in their grief o'erwhelmed, 'tis then that thou
Impartest consolation to their souls;

6

And as to heaven they raise their tearful eyes,
Repining at their fate, thou bid'st them kneel
Before the throne of grace, and humbly whisper there,
With hearts resigned, Father, thy will be done.'

6

R.K. H.

ON THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.

Another year's fast hastening to a close,
With all its chequered scenes of joys and woes,

And all the glories of its summer bloom
Are sunk for ever in dark winter's gloom;
But man, forgetful of the time that's flown,
Looks forward to the future as his own,
Nor for a moment glances o'er the page
That tells him of his sins, and of his age;
Leaves his account with conscience in arrear,
All to be settled in some future year.