THE NIGHT OF THE NATIVITY.

No war, or battle's sound,

Was heard the world around:

The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood

Unstained with hostile blood;

The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye,

As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

But peaceful was the night,

Wherein the Prince of light,

His reign of peace upon the earth began: The winds, with wonder whist,

Smoothly the waters kist,

Whispering new joys to the mild ocean,

Who now hath quite forgot to rave,

While birds of calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.

The stars, with deep amaze,

Stand fixed in steadfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence;

And will not take their flight,

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer, that often warned them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow

Until their Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go.

And, though the shady gloom

Had given day her room,

The sun himself withheld his wonted speed;

And hid his head for shame,

As his inferior flame

The new-enlightened world no more should need:

He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne, or burning axletree could bear.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

Is midnight's holy hour-and silence now

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Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er

The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirred,
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand,

Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe

In mournful cadences, that come abroad

Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,

A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth for ever. 'Tis a time

For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold

And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away,

And left no shadow of their loveliness

On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale

THE CLOSING YEAR.

Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield
Flashed in the light of midday-and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton.
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;

Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,

It heralded its millions to their home

It came

In the dim land of dreams. Remorseless Time-
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power

Can stay him in his silent course, or melt

His iron heart to pity? On, still on

He presses, and for ever. The proud bird,

The condor of the Andes, that can soar

Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave

The fury of the northern hurricane,

And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain-crag, but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,

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And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind.
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles

Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and go back
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear

To heaven their bald and blackened cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of GOD,
Glitter a while in their eternal depths,

And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void :—yet Time-
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.