Night is the time for death; Calmly to yield the weary breath, Think of heaven's bliss and give the sign To parting friends-such death be mine! Montgomery. DEATH OF AN INFANT.1 DEATH found strange beauty on that infant brow, And dashed it out. On cheek and lip. And the rose faded. There was a tint of rose He touched the veins with ice, There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt His seal of silence. But there beamed a smile So fixed, so holy, from that cherub brow, Death gazed and left it there ;-he dared not steal Mrs. Sigourney. EARLY RISING AND PRAYER. 2 WHEN first thine eyes unveil, give thy soul leave Give him thy first thoughts then, so shalt thou keep Him company all day, and in him sleep. This subject has not often been more gracefully and tenderly handled than in the above lines. The picture here presented matches with that by the same elegant hand, in p. 87. 2 The author of these striking lines was a Welsh private gentleman, who lived in the 17th century. It is not often that more meaning is condensed into a few words. Yet never sleep the sun up; prayer should Dawn with the day: there are set awful hours Walk with thy fellow-creatures: note the hush Serve God before the world; let him not go Mornings are mysteries: the first world's youth, The sun up-i. e. when the sun is up. 2 Prevent from the Latin præ, before, and venire, to come or go-to go before. This is the primitive signification of the word, and was common in the 17th century and earlier, as is evident from the Liturgy;-" Prevent us, O Lord, by thy continual grace." 3 Heaven's gate, &c.-It is difficult to conceive of a more beautiful mode of suggesting the charms and benefits of early rising. Many a long poem on the subject is less eloquent than this one line. 4 Fellow creatures-i. e. the trees, flowers, birds, &c., created by the same hand. 5 I Am-See Exodus iii, 14. 6 Go this way-i. e. do as they do-praise God early in the morning. 8 Heaven--rhymes here, by a most extraordinary licence, with sin. Perhaps the pronunciation of "heaven" was different from ours, in Vaughan's time. 9 Shroud in, &c.—are wrapt in, or symbolized by; as when we speak of the morning of the world, of the resurrection, &c. When the world's up, and every swain abroad, Which must be carried on, and safely may : Vaughan. CHANGES.1 THE lopped tree in time may grow again, The driest soil suck in some moistening shower. The roughest storm a calm may soon allay. A chance may win that2 by mischance was lost, Who least, hath some, who most, hath never all. Southwell. THE IDEA OF A STATE. IN IMITATION OF ALCEUS. WHAT Constitutes a State ? Not high-raised battlement or laboured mound, Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned; Where, laughing at the storm, rich navies ride; The pithiness of these lines countenances Pope's assertion that poetry is emphatically the language of brevity. They are of the same date as the last. 2 That-that which. Not starred and spangled courts, Where low-bred baseness wafts perfume to pride; With powers as far above dull brutes endued, In forest, brake, or den, As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude: Men, who their duties know, But know their rights; and, knowing, dare maintain; Prevent the long-aimed blow, And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain. These constitute a State; And sovereign Law, that state's collected will, O'er thrones and globes elate, Sits empress, crowning good, repressing ill. Smit by her sacred frown, The fiend Dissension like a vapour sinks; And e'en the all-dazzling Crown Hides his faint rays, and at her bidding shrinks. Sir Wm. Jones. THE NEW MOON.1 WHEN, as the garish day is done, Few are the hearts too cold to feel The sight of that young crescent brings And childhood's purity and grace, And joys that like a rainbow chase The quiet beauty of these lines well befits their subject, and reminds us of the similar tone of Campbell's "Rainbow," and Montgomery's "Daisy.” 1 2 The captive yields him to the dream And there do thoughtful men behold And thoughts and wishes not of earth, Bryant. EPISTLE TO JOSEPH HILL, ESQ.2 Lest he should trespass, begged to go abroad. A type, &c.-The new moon is a type of purification, and restoration. The epistle to Hill is quite Horatian."-Quarterly Review. Horace's epistles are characterised by freedom and ease of style, liveliness of tone, and apt delineation of character. |