Mortality and Immortality,

WHAT is this BODY ?-fragile, frail
As vegetation's tenderest leaf-
Transient as April's fitful gale,

And as the flashing meteor brief.

What is the SOUL?-eternal mind,
Unlimited as thought's vast range—
By grovelling matter unconfined,

The same, while states and empires change.
When long this miserable frame

Has vanish'd from life's busy scene,
This earth shall roll, that sun shall flame,
As though THIS DUST had never been.

When suns have waned, and worlds sublime
Their final revolutions told,

This SOUL shall triumph over Time,

As though such orbs had never roll'd.

Sharon's Rose.

Go, warrior, pluck the laurel bough,
And bind it round thy reeking brow!
Ye sons of Pleasure, blithely twine
A chaplet of the purple vine !

And, Beauty, cull each blushing flower,

That ever deck'd the sylvan bower!

OSBORN.

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SHARON'S ROSE.

No wreath is bright, no garland fair,
Unless sweet Sharon's Rose be there.

The laurel branch will droop and die,
The vine its purple fruit deny,
The wreath that smiling beauty twined,
Will leave no lingering bud behind;
For Beauty's wreath, and Beauty's bloom,
In vain would shun the withering tomb,
Where nought is bright and nought is fair,
Unless sweet Sharon's Rose be there.

Bright blossom, of immortal bloom,
Of fadeless hue, and sweet perfume :
Far in the desert's dreary waste,
In lone, neglected beauty placed!
Let others seek the brilliant bower,
And cull the frail and fading flower,
But I'll to dreariest wilds repair,
If Sharon's deathless Rose be there.

When Nature's hand, with cunning care.
No more the opening bud shall rear,
But hurl'd by heaven's avenging Sire,
Descends the earth's consuming fire,
And Desolation's hurrying blast,
O'er all the sadden'd scene has pass'd,
There is a clime for ever fair,

And Sharon's Rose shall flourish there!

ANON.

The Christian.

SHINE on, thou bright sun, in

yon

summer-tinged

sky,

And blow on, thou balmy gale:

But thou canst not give joy to this sunken eye,
Nor bloom to this cheek so pale:

The primrose is lifting its golden head,
The linnet spreads its wing:

But delight with the moments of youth is fled;
The heart knows no second spring!

Time was 'twas a feeling too sweet to last-
When the present was all to me!

When no fear of the future, no pang of the past,
O'ershadow'd the day of glee;

When the whole wide world was a dream of youth; When the thought of deceit was unknown ; When the look was all love, and the vow was truth, 'Twas a vision—the vision is gone!

But, O thou Spirit of love and power,

Creator, Father, all!

Was the heart but made like the morning cloud,

To breathe, and to bloom, and to fall?

O why is our life a weary thing,

Why Pleasure the Parent of pain,

Why Friendship a vapour, a bird on the wing,
Why all but the sepulchre vain ?

L

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THE WORLD TO COME.

'Tis in mercy, thou Spirit of love and power,
To tell us our home is not here ;

That life has a brighter and loftier bower
Than this vale of the sigh and tear;

That earth's but the passage, the grave but the gate,
Which shows, when our travel is done,
Where the sons of the stars in their glory await
To lead the redeem'd to the throne.

M. E. BEAUFort.

The World to Come.

If all our hopes and all our fears
Were prison'd in life's narrow bound -
If, travellers through this vale of tears,
We saw no better world beyond-
O what could check the rising sigh?
What earthly thing could Pleasure give?

O who could venture then to die,

Or who could venture then to live?

Were life a dark and desert moor,

Where mists and clouds eternal spread

Their gloomy veil behind, before,

And tempests thunder over head ;
Where not a sunbeam breaks the gloom
And not a flow'ret smiles beneath;

Who could exist in such a tomb?

Who dwell in darkness and in death?

COMFORT UNDER AFFLICTION.

And such were life without the ray
Of our divine religion given;

'Tis this that makes our darkness day,

"Tis this that makes our earth a heaven.

Bright is the golden sun above,

And beautiful the flowers that bloom,

And all is joy, and all is love,

Reflected from the world to come!

BOWRING.

Comfort ander Affliction.

WHEN gathering clouds around I view,
And days are dark, and friends are few,
On Him I lean, who, not in vain,
Experienced every human pain.
He sees my griefs, allays my fears,
And counts and treasures up my tears.

If aught should tempt my soul to stray
From heavenly Wisdom's narrow way;
To fly the good I would pursue,
Or do the thing I would not do;
Still He who felt temptation's power,
Shall guard me in that dang'rous hour.

If wounded love my bosom swell,
Despised by those I prized too well;

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