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THE GRAVE.

O Grave, what woe is wrought by thee! What clouded years of misery!

What loving hearts hast thou bereft:
What joyless, hopeless mourners left;
Young Innocence without a guide,
Beset with snares on every side;

Age, with white hairs and chilled blood,
Pining in friendless solitude!

Yet, than earth's mightiest mightier,
O Grave thou hast thy Vanquisher,
Long in thy night was man forlorn,
Long didst thou laugh his hope to scorn;
Vainly Philosophy might dream,
Her light was but the meteor gleam,
Till rose the Conqueror of Death,—
The humble man of Nazareth:
He stood between us and despair,
He bore, and gave us strength to bear;
The mysteries of the grave unsealed;
Our glorious destiny revealed;
Nor sage nor bard may comprehend
The heaven of rest to which we tend.
Our home is not this mortal clime;
Our life hath not its bounds in time:

And death is but the cloud that lies
Between our souls and paradise.

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O Grave! well might each thoughtful race Give thee the high and holy place:

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THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS.

Mountains and Groves were meet for thee,

Thou portal of eternity!

MARY HOWITT,

The Death of the Righteous.

How fair and how lovely it is to behold

The sun in its splendour approaching the west, Its race is near run, and refulgent as gold,

It glides through the ether as hastening to rest.

It sinks,—but in sinking 'tis only to rise,
Its splendour and glory afresh to display;
It sets, but in other and far distant skies,
It rises and reigns in the brightness of day.

Yet far more resplendent than this is the scene
Of the good man approaching the confines of time.
All loving, all peaceful, all calm and serene,
He passes away with a brightness sublime,

He dies, but no pencil can ever display,

The splendour and glory that burst on his sight, As guided by angels he speeds on his way,

Through the portals of praise to the temple of

light.

J. HARRIS.

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The Sabbath.

WHAT spell has o'er the populous city past!
The wonted current of its life is stayed:

Its sports, its gainful schemes, are earthward cast,
As though their vileness were at once displayed;
The roar of trade has ceased, and on the air
Come holy songs and solemn sounds of prayer.

Far spreads the charm! from every hamlet spire
A note of rest and heavenward thought is pealed:
By his calm hearth reclines the peasant sire;

The toil-worn steed basks in the breezy field. Within, without, through farm and cottage blest, 'Tis one bright day of gladness and of rest.

Down from the mountain dwellings, while the dew Shines on the heath-bells, and the fern is bending In the fresh breeze, in festive garbs I view

Childhood and age and buoyant youth descending. God! who has piled thy wonders round their home, "Tis in thy love they to the temple come.

A stately ship speeds o'er the mighty main-
O, many a league from our own happy land;
Yet from its heart ascends the choral strain;
For there its little isolated band,

Amid the ocean desert's awful roar

Praise Him whose love links shore to distant shore.

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