Pope translated the stanza thus: "Alas, my soul ! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it, whither art thou flying? To what unknown region? Thou art all trembling, fearful and pensive. Now what is become of thy former wit and humor? Thou shalt jest and be gay no more." Shortly afterwards he made a metrical version, and the subject became the ground for some correspondence with Steele, who, on the 4th of December, wrote to Pope: "This is to desire of you that you would please to make an ode as of a cheerful dying spirit; that is to say, the Emperor Adrian's Animula Vagula put into two or three stanzas for music." The result was the verses below, of which Pope said, in sending them to Steele: "You have it, as Cowley calls it, just warm from the brain. It came to me the first moment I waked this morning. Yet, you will see, it was not so absolutely inspiration, but that I had in my head not only the verses of Adrian, but the fine fragment Sappho, etc." Among the pieces supposed to have been in the mind of Pope was a version of the Latin lines by Thomas Flatman (about 1670), entitled "A Thought of Death."

Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring!
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O grave! where is thy victory?

1730.

O death! where is thy sting?

ALEXANDER POPE.

THE COVENANTER'S SCAFFOLD SONG.

JAMES HOGG, a rare but uneducated genius, was born in Ettrick, Scotland, Jan. 25, 1772. He was a shepherd. His reading was extensive, and at the age of twenty-four he began to write poetry. He was very successful, and became the associate of Scott and other men of letters in Edinburgh, and a contributor to Blackwood. He died Nov. 21, 1835.

SING with me! sing with me!
Weeping brethren, sing with me!
For now an open heaven I see,
And a crown of glory laid for me.
How my soul this earth despises !
How my heart and spirit rises!
Bounding from the flesh I sever!
World of sin, adieu forever!

Sing with me! sing with me!
Friends in Jesus, sing with me!
All my sufferings, all my woe,
All my griefs, I here forego.
Farewell terrors, sighing, grieving,
Praying, hearing, and believing,
Earthly trust and all its wrongings,
Earthly love and all its longings.

Sing with me! sing with me!
Blessed spirits, sing with me!

To the Lamb our songs shall be,

Through a glad eternity!

Farewell, earthly morn and even, Sun, and moon, and stars of heaven; Heavenly portals ope before me, Welcome, Christ, in all his glory!

JAMES HOGG.

AFFECTIONS OF MY SOUL

AFTER JUDGMENT GIVEN AGAINST ME IN A COURT OF JUSTICE, UPON THE EVIDENCE OF FALSE WITNESSES.

RICHARD LANGHORN, a lawyer, was unjustly condemned for high treason, chiefly on the testimony of the notorious Dr. Titus Oates, in conspiring with the Pope and others against the life of Charles II., and for the subversion of the Protestant religion. He was condemned, and ignominiously executed, July 14, 1679. Just before his death he wrote a unique and most exquisite poem, which may be found in the seventh volume of Cobbett's "State Trials," from which the following lines are extracted. The Quarterly Review said of this production: "A poem it must be called, though it is not verse. Perhaps there is not in this or any other language a poem that appears to have flowed so entirely from the heart."

IT is told me I must die;

O happy news!

Be glad, O my soul,

And rejoice in Jesus, thy Saviour.

If he intended thy perdition,

Would he have laid down his life for thee? Would he have called thee with so much love, And illuminated thee with the light of his spirit?

Would he have given thee his cross, And given thee shoulders to bear it with patience?

It is told me I must die;

O happy news!

Come on, my dearest soul;
Behold, thy Jesus calls thee!

He prayed for thee upon his cross; There he extended his arms to receive thee; There he bowed down his head to kiss thee; There he opened his heart to give thee entrance;

There he gave up his life to purchase life for thee.

It is told me I must die; O what happiness! I am going To the place of my rest; To the land of the living; To the haven of security; To the kingdom of peace; To the palace of my God;

ODE ON THE SHORTNESS OF LIFE.
MARK that swift arrow how it cuts the air,
Now it outruns thy following eye,
Use all persuasions now, and try,

If thou canst call it back, or stay it there.
That way it went, but thou shalt find
No tract is left behind.

Fool, 't is thy life, and the fond Archer thou!
Of all the time thou 'st shot away
I'll bid thee fetch but yesterday,
And it shall be too hard a task to do.
Besides repentance, what canst find
That it hath left behind?
Our life is carried with too strong a tide,
A doubtful cloud our substance bears.
And is the horse of all our years;
Each day doth on a winged whirlwind rice,
We and our glass run out, and must
Both render up our dust.

But his past life who without grief can see,
Who never thinks his end too near,
But says to fame, Thou art mine heir;
That man extends life's natural brevity:
This is, this is the only way
To outlive Nestor in a day.

1660.

ABRAHAM COWLEY.

THE FOOLISH VIRGINS.

MATT. XXV.

LATE, late, so late! and dark the night and chill!

Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.

"Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now."

No light had we for that we do repent;
And, learning this, the Bridegroom will relent.

"Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now."

No light, so late! and dark and chill the night! Oh, let us in that we may find the light!

"Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.'

WHAT is the existence of man's life
But open war or slumbered strife,
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements,
And never feels a perfect peace,

Till death's cold hand signs his release?

It is a storm, where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood:
And each loose passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,
Which beats his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower, which buds and grows,
And withers as the leaves disclose,
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep:
Then shrinks into that fatal mould,
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream, whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share,
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in a mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanished quite away.

It is a dial, which points out
The sunset as it moves about;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtile stages of time's flight:
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
His body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude,

Which doth short joys, long woes, include:
The world the stage, the prologue tears,

The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death!

HENRY KING.

MAN'S MORTALITY.

SIMON WASTELL, a native of Westmoreland, England, was born about 1560, and died about 1630. He was at one time master of a school at Northampton. He published, in 1623, "A True Christian's Daily Delight," in verse, which was reissued in 1629 in an enlarged form. The first two stanzas of the following piece are to be found in George Ellis's "Specimens of the Early English Poets," where they are printed as a fragment. Five of the stanzas have lately been put in circulation with the following circumstantial note prefixed: "The original of this poem is in Trinity College, Dublin. It was written by one of those primitive Christian bards in the reign of King Dermid, about 354. and was sung at the last grand assembly of kings, chieftains, and bards, held in the Halls of Tara. The translation is by the learned Dr. O'Donovan." The librarian of Trinity College, however, states that he is unable to find such a poem in the library, nor does he believe that Dr. O'Donovan made the translation. The Doctor was not born until 1809, whereas the poem was printed by Ellis in 1790. The style is very similar to that of a stanza beginning, "Like to the falling of a star," entitled "Sic Vita," by Bishop Henry King, author of the previous selection, who lived a generation later than Wastell.

LIKE as the damask rose you see,
Or like a blossom on a tree,
Or like a dainty flower in May,
Or like the morning to the day,
Or like the sun, or like the shade,
Or like the gourd which Jonah had;
Even such is man, whose thread is spun,
Drawn out and out, and so is done.

The rose withers, the blossom blasteth,
The flowers fade, the morning hasteth,
The sun sets, the shadow flies,
The gourd consumes, the man - he dies!
Like to the grass that 's newly sprung,
Or like a tale that 's new begun,
Or like the bird that's here to-day,
Or like the pearled dew in May,
Or like an hour, or like a span,
Or like the singing of a swan ;
Even such is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The grass withers, the tale is ended,
The bird is flown, the dew ascended,
The hour is short, the span not long,

The swan's near death, man's life is done!

Like to the bubble in the brook,

Or in a glass much like a look,

Or like the shuttle in weaver's hand,

Or like the writing on the sand,

Or like a thought, or like a dream,
Or like the gliding of the stream;
Even such is man, who lives by breath,
Is here, now there, in life and death.
The bubble 's out, the look forgot,
The shuttle's flung, the writing 's blot,
The thought is past, the dream is gone,
The waters glide, man's life is done!

Like to a blaze of fond delight,
Or like a morning clear and bright,
Or like a frost, or like a shower,
Or like the pride of Babel's tower,

Or like the hour that guides the time,
Or like to Beauty in her prime;
Even such is man, whose glory lends
That life a blaze or two and ends.

The morn 's o'ercast, joy turned to pain,
The frost is thawed, dried up the rain,
The tower falls, the hour is run,
The beauty lost, man's life is done!

Like to an arrow from the bow,
Or like the course of water-flow,
Or like the tide 'twixt flood and ebb,
Or like the spider's tender web,
Or like a race, or like a goal,
Or like the dealing of a dole;
Even such is man, whose brittle state
Is always subject unto fate.

The arrow shot, the flood soon spent,
The tide 's no tide, the web soon rent,
The race soon run, the goal soon won,
The dole soon dealt, man's life soon done!

Like to the lightning from the sky,
Or like a post that quick doth hie,
Or like a quatrain in a song,
Or like a journey three days long,
Or like the snow when summer's come,
Or like the pear, or like the plum;
Even such is man, who heaps up sorrow,
Lives but this day, and dies to-morrow.
The lightning's past, the post must go,
The song is short, the journey so,
The pear doth rot, the plum doth fall,
The snow dissolves, and so must all.
SIMON WASTELL.

DEATH-BED REFLECTIONS OF MICHEL ANGELO.

NOT that my hand could make of stubborn

stone

Whate'er of God's the shaping thought conceives;

Not that my skill by pictured lines hath shown All terrors that the guilty soul believes ;

Not that my art, by blended light and shade,
Expressed the world as it was newly made;
Not that my verse profoundest truth could
teach,

In the soft accents of the lover's speech;
Not that I reared a temple for mankind,
To meet and pray in, borne by every wind
Affords me peace: I count my gain but loss,
For the vast love that hangs upon the cross.
HARTLEY COLeridge.

THE BURIAL HOUR.

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER, the eccentric but Christian vicar of Morwenstow, was born in 1804 and died in 1875. His Life has been lately published in an entertaining volume.

SUNSET should be the time, they said,
To close their brother's narrow bed;
'Tis at that pleasant hour of day
The laborer treads his homeward way.
His work is o'er, his toil is done;
And therefore at the set of sun,
To wait the wages of the dead,
We laid our hireling in his bed.

ROBERT STEPHEN HAWKER
Vicar of Morwenstow.

THE SLEEP.

"He giveth his beloved sleep."

Ps. cxxvii. 2.

Of all the thoughts of God that are
Borne inward unto souls afar,

Along the Psalmist's music deep,
Now tell me if that any is,
For gift or grace, surpassing this

"He giveth his beloved sleep"?

What would we give to our beloved?
The hero's heart to be unmoved,

The poet's star-tuned harp to sweep,
The patriot's voice to teach and rouse,
The monarch's crown to light the brows?
"He giveth his beloved sleep."
What do we give to our beloved?
A little faith all undisproved,
A little dust to overweep,
And bitter memories to make

The whole earth blasted for our sake;