'MID pleasure, plenty, and success.
Freely we take from Him who lends; We boast the blessings we possess,
Yet scarcely thank the One who sends. But let affliction pour its smart,
How soon we quail beneath the rod! With shattered pride, and prostrate heart, We seek the long-forgotten God.
AFFLICTION has a taste as sweet
Thou pitiest, draws his comfort from distress.
That mind so poised, and centred in the good
Supreme, so kindled with devotion's flame,
Might, with prosperity's enchanting cup.
Inebriate, have forgot the All-giving hand;
Might on earth's vain and transitory joys
Have built its sole felicity, nor e'er
Winged a desire beyond.
GRACES withered by too warm a beam,
May spread and flourish in the dreary shade:
And pleasure, to voluptuous guilt denied,
May bloom ambrosial from affliction's thorn.
(See also CONSOLATION, PATIENCE.)
1 SAID, Days should speak, and multitude of years should speak wisdom. JOB, XXX11, 7. Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and shalt honor the face of the old man, and fear thy God. LEVITICUS, xix, 32.
Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment. Jos, xxxii, 8.
The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness PROVERBS, Xvi, 31.
That the aged men be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness. Tirus, ii, 2, 3. The days of our years are three score years and ten; and if, by reason of strength, they be four score years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. PSALM xc, 10.
Now also, when I am old and grey-headed, O God, forsake me not; until I have showed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come. PSALM 1xxi, 18.
And even to your old age I am he: and even to hoar hairs will I carry you. ISAIAH, xlvi, 4.
Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. PSALM IXXI, 9.
The righteous shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing. PSALM xcii, 14.
If a man live many years, and rejoice in them all; yet let him remember the days of darkness, for they shall be many. ECCLESIASTES, Xi, 8.
The grace, the gentleness of virtuous age!
Though solemn, not austere; though wisely dead
To passion, and the wildering dreams of hope,
Not unalive to tenderness and truth,-
The good old man is honored and revered,
And breathes upon the young-limbed race around
A grey and venerable charm of years.
YOUTII, with swift feet, walks onward in the way,
The land of joy lies all before his eyes;
Age, stumbling, lingers slower day by day,
Still looking back, for it behind him lies.
REASON'S proud triumph, passion's wild control
No more dispute their mastery o'er his soul;
As rest the billows on the sea-beat shore,
The war of rivalry is heard no more;
Faith's steady light alone illumes his eye,
For Time is pointing to Eternity!
OH! Youth is firmly bound to earth,
When hope beams on each comrade's glance;
His bosom-chords are tuned to mirth,
Like harp-strings in the cheerful dance;
But Age has felt those ties unbound,
Which fixed him to that spot of ground
Where all his household comforts lay;
He feels his freezing heart grow cold,
He thinks of kindred in the mould,
And cries, amid his grief untold,
"I would not live alway."
ON he moves to meet his latter end,
Angels around befriending virtue's friend;
Sinks to the grave with unperceived decay,
While resignation gently slopes the way;
And, all his prospects brightening to the last,
His heaven commences ere the world be past.
GOLDSMITHI.
WHAT folly can be ranker? Like our shadows,
Our wishes lengthen as our sun declines. YOUNG.
The rule of not too much, by temperance taught,
In what thou eat'st and drink'st, seeking from thence
Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,
Till many years over thy head return:
So mayest thou live till, like ripe fruit, thou drop
Into thy mother's lap, or be, with ease
Gathered, not harshly plucked, for death mature.
This is old age, but then thou must outlive
Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty, which will change
To withered, weak, and grey.
THE aged Christian stands upon the shore
Of Time, a storehouse of experience,
Filled with the treasures of rich heavenly lore;
I love to sit and hear him draw from thence
Sweet recollections of his journey past,
A journey crowned with blessings to the last.
MRS. ST. LEON LOUD.
As those we love decay, we die in part,
String after string is severed from the heart;
Till loosened life, at last, but breathing clay,
Without one pang is glad to fall away.
Unhappy he who latest feels the blow,
Whose eyes have wept o'er every friend, laid low,
Dragged lingering on, from partial death to death,
Till, dying, all he can resign is breath. THOMSON.
The seas are quict, when the winds are o'er,
So calm are we, when passions are no more!
For then we know how vain it was to boast
Of fleeting things, so certain to be lost.
Clouds of affection from our youthful eyes
Conceal the emptiness which age descries:
The soul's dark cottage, battered and decayed,
Lets in new light through chinks that time has made.
Stronger by weakness, wiser men become.
As they draw near to their eternal home;
Leaving the old, both worlds at once they view,
That stand upon the threshold of the new.
War should old age escape unnoticed here,
That sacred era to reflection dear?
That peaceful shore where passion dies away,
Like the last wave that ripples o'er the bay?
O, if old age were cancelled from our lot,
Full soon would man deplore the unhallowed blot!
Life's busy day would want its tranquil even,
And earth would lose her stepping-stone to Heaven.
CAROLINE GILMAN
WHEN trembling limbs refuse their weight,
And films slow gathering, dim the sight,
And clouds obscure the mental light
'Tis nature's precious boon to die.
O, I have seen, (nor hope perhaps in vain
Ere life go down, to see such sights again)
A veteran warrior in the Christian field,
Who never saw the sword he could not wield;
Grave without dulness, learned without pride,
Exact, yet not precise, though meek, keen-cyed;
A man that would have foiled, at their own play,
A dozen would-be's of the modern day;
Who, when occasion justified its use,
Had art as bright, as ready to produce;
Could fetch the records of an earlier age,
Or from philosophy's enlightened page
His rich materials, and regale your ear
With strains it was a privilege to hear:
Yet, above all, his luxury supreme,
And his chief glory was the gospel theme;
There he was copious as old Grecce or Rome,
His happy eloquence seemed there at home,-
Ambitious not to shine, or to excel,
But, to treat justly what he loved so well.
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