Till I bid the bright hours chase night from her bowers, And when the gay Rover seeks Eve for his lover, And sinks to her balmy repose, I wrap their soft rest by the zephyr-fanned west, From my sentinel steep, by the night-brooded deep, When the cynosure star of the mariner Is blotted from out of the sky; And guided by me through the merciless sea, I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers, And mountain and plain glow with beauty again, Oh, if such the glad worth of my presence to earth, What glories must rest on the home of the blest, WILLIAM PITT PALMER. A Death-Bed. HER suffering ended with the day; Yet lived she at its close, And breathed the long, long night away In statue-like repose. But when the sun, in all his state, Illumed the eastern skies, She passed through glory's morning-gate, And walked in Paradise. JAMES ALDRICH, A Christmas Hymn. It was the calm and silent night! Seven hundred years and fifty-three Had Rome been growing up to might, And now was queen of land and sea. Held undisturbed their ancient reign, Centuries ago. "T was in the calm and silent night! His breast with thoughts of boundless sway; Within that province far away Went plodding home a weary boor; A streak of light before him lay, Fallen through a half-shut stable-door, How keen the stars, his only thought— Oh, strange indifference! low and high A The earth was still, but knew not why; One that shall thrill the world forever! Centuries ago! It is the calm and solemn night! A thousand bells ring out, and throw The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven, Centuries ago! ALFRED DOMMET. The Evy Green. O, A DAINTY plant is the ivy green, That creepeth o'er ruins old! Of right choice food are his meals, I ween, In his cell so lone and cold. The walls must be crumbled, the stones decayed, To pleasure his dainty whim; And the mouldering dust that years have made Creeping where no life is seen, A rare old plant is the ivy green. Fast he stealeth on, though he wears no wings, And a stanch old heart has he! How closely he twineth, how tight he clings And he joyously twines and hugs around A rare old plant is the ivy green. Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, But the stout old ivy shall never fade For the stateliest building man can raise Creeping where no life is seen, The Polish Boy. CHARLES DICKENS. WHENCE Come those shrieks so wild and shrill, That cut, like blades of steel, the air, Causing the creeping blood to chill With the sharp cadence of despair? Again they come, as if a heart Were cleft in twain by one quick blow, And every string had voice apart To utter its peculiar woe. Whence come they? From yon temple, where An altar, raised for private prayer, Now forms the warrior's marble bed The dim funereal tapers throw A holy lustre o'er his brow, What hand is that, whose icy press With pallid lip and stony brow The mother sprang with gesture wild, |