No hallowed oils, no gums I need,
No rags of saints, no purging fire;
One rosy drop from David's seed,

Was worlds of seas to quench thine ire;
Oh precious ransom! which once paid,
That "consummatum est" was said;-

And said by Him, that said no more,
But sealed it with His sacred breath;
Thou then, that has dispunged my score,
And, dying, wert the death of death,
Be to me now, on Thee I call,

My life, my strength, my joy, my all!

SIR HENRY WOTTON.

My Life's a Preparation but to Leave
Thee.

THUS I, the object of the world's disdain,
With pilgrim face surround the weary earth;
I only relish what the world counts vain;
Her mirth's my grief, her sullen grief my
mirth ;

Her light my darkness, and her truth my error;
Her freedom is my gaol, and her delight my terror.

Fond earth! proportion not my seeming love To my long stay; let not thy thoughts deceive thee;

Thou art my prison, and my home's above;

My life's a preparation but to leave thee.

Like one that seeks a door, I walk about thee: With thee I cannot live; I cannot live without thee.

The world's a labyrinth, whose anfractuous ways

Are all composed of rubs and crooked meanders;

No resting here; he's hurried back, that stays Athought; and he that goes unguided, wanders:

Her way is dark, her path untrod, uneven, So hard's the way from earth, so hard's the way to heaven.

This gyring labyrinth is betrenched about On either hand, with streams of sulphurous fire,

Streams closely sliding, erring in and out,

But seeming pleasant to the fond deceiver; Where, if his footsteps trust their own invention, He falls without redress, and sinks without dimension.

Where shall I seek a guide? where shall I meet Some lucky hand to lead my trembling paces; What trusty lantern will direct my feet

To 'scape the danger of these dangerous places ?

What hopes have I to pass without a guide? Where one gets safely through, a thousand fall

beside.

An unrequested star did gently slide
Before the wise men to a greater light;
Backsliding Israel found a double guide,

A pillar and a cloud-by day, by night;
Yet in my desperate dangers, which be far
More great than theirs, I have no pillar, cloud,
nor star.

Oh! that the pinions of a clipping dove

Would cut my passage through the empty air; Mine eyes being sealed, how would I mount above

The reach of danger and forgotten care; My backward eyes should ne'er commit that fault, Whose lasting guilt should build a monument of salt.

Great God! Thou art the flowing spring of light;

Enrich mine eyes with thy refulgent ray: Thou art my path; direct my steps aright, I have no other light, no other way:

I'll trust my God, and Him alone pursue;
His law shall be my path, his heavenly light my
FRANCIS QUARLES.

IS

clue.

Man, thou shalt never Die!

S this thy prison-house, thy grave, then, love? And doth death cancel the great bond that holds

Commingling spirits? Are thoughts that know

no bounds,

But self-inspired rise upward, searching out
The Eternal Mind-the Father of all thought-
Are they become mere tenants of a tomb?
Dwellers in darkness, who the illuminate realms
Of uncreate life have visited, and lived?
Lived in the dreadful splendour of that throne,
Which One, with gentle hand the veil of flesh
Lifting, that hung 'twixt man and it, revealed
In glory?-throne, before which, even now,
Our souls, moved by prophetic power, bow down
Rejoicing, yet at their own natures awed?
Souls that Thee know by a mysterious sense,
Thou awful, unseen Presence-are they quenched,
Or burn they on, hid from our mortal eyes
By that bright day which ends not; as the sun
His robe of light flings round the glittering stars?

And with our frames do perish all our loves? Do those that take their root, and put forth buds, And their soft leaves, unfolded in the warmth Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty, Then fade and fall, like fair unconscious flowers? Are thoughts and passions that to the tongue give speech,

And make it send forth living harmonies,-
That to the cheek do give its living glow,
And vision in the eye the soul intense
With that for which there is no utterance—
Are these the body's accidents ?—no more
To live in it, and when that dies, go out
Like the burnt taper's flame?

Oh! listen, man!

A voice within us speaks that startling word,

"Man, thou shalt never die!"

Celestial voices Hymn it unto our souls: according harps By angel fingers touched, when the mild stars Of morning sang together, sound forth still The song of our great immortality;

Thick-clustering orbs, and this our fair domain, The tall dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas, Join in this solemn universal song.

Oh! listen ye our spirits! drink it in

From all the air! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight: 'Tis floating 'midst day's setting glories; Night Wrapped in her sable robe, with silent step Comes to our bed, and breathes it in our ears: Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful

eve,

All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast mystic instrument are touched,
By an unseen living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee.

The dying hear it; and as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.

RICHARD H. DANA.

Morning Hymn in Paradise.

THESE

HESE are Thy glorious works, Parent of good,
Almighty, thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair; thyself how wondrous then!
Unspeakable, who sitt'st above these Heavens