Such too, who bend with age and care,
And faint and tremble near the tomb.
Who sick'ning at the present scenes,
Sigh for that better state to come-
All, great Creator, all are thine;
All feel thy providential care:
And through each varying stage of life,
Alike thy constant pity share.

And whether grief oppress the heart,
Or whether joy elate the breast;
Or life still keep its little course,
Or death invite the heart to rest;
All are thy messengers, and all
Thy sacred pleasure, Lord, obey;
And all are training man to dwel!
Nearer to bliss, and nearer thee.

ON ETERNITY.

[GIBBONS.]

WHAT is Eternity? can aught
Paint its duration to the thought?
Tell ev'ry beam the sun emits,
When in sublimest noon he sits;
Tell ev'ry light-wing'd mote that strays
Within its ample round of rays.—

Tell all the leaves, and all the buds,
That crown the gardens, fields, and woods;
Tell all the spires of grass the meads
Produce when Spring propitious leads

The new-born year;-tell all the drops,
That night, upon their bended tops,
Sheds, in soft silence, to display
Their beauties with the rising day :-
Tell all the sands the ocean laves,
Tell ocean's ever-changing waves;
Or tell, with more laborious pains,
The drops its mighty mass contains:
Be this astonishing account
Augmented, with the full amount
Of all the drops the clouds have shed,
Where'er their wat'ry fleeces spread,
Through all time's long protracted tour,
From Adam to the present hour-
-Still short the sum, nor can it vie
With the more num'rous years that lie
Embosom'd in Eternity.

Were there a belt that could contain
In its vast orb, the earth and main;
With figures were it cluster'd o'er,
Without one cipher in the score;
And could your lab'ring thought assign
The total of the crowded line-

-How scant th' amount! th' attempt how vain,

To reach Duration's endless chain !

For when as many years are run,
Unbounded age is but begun.

Attend, O man, with awe divine;
For this Eternity is thire!

ON THE MORNING OF

CHRIST'S

NATIVITY.

[MILTON.]

THIS is the month, and this the happy morn,
Wherein the Son of Heav'n's eternal King,
Of wedded Maid, and Virgin Mother born,
Our great redemption from above did bring;
For so the holy sages once did sing,

That he our deadly forfeit should release,
And with his Father work us a perpetual peace.
That glorious form, that light unsufferable,
And that far-beaming blaze of majesty,

Wherewith he wont at Heav'n's high council-tablo
To sit the midst of Trinal Unity,

He laid aside; and here with us to be,
Forsook the courts of everlasting day,

And chose with us a darksome house of mortal clay.
Say heav'nly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein
Afford a prent to the Infant God?

Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain,
To welcome him to this his new abode,

Now while the Heav'n by the sun's team untrod,
Hath took no print of the approaching light,
And all the spangled host keep watch in squadrons
bright?

See how from far upon the eastern road

The star-led wizards haste with odours sweet:

O run, prevent them with thy humble ode,

And lay it lowly at his blessed feet;

Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet,

And join thy voice unto the angel quire,

From out his secret altar touch'd with hallow'd fire.

THE HYMN.

IT was the winter wild,

While the Heav'n-born child

All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lice; Nature in awe to him

Had doff'd her gaudy trim,

With her great Master so to sympathise; It was no season then for her

To wanton with the sun her lusty paramour.

Only with speeches fair

She woo's the gentle air

To hide her guilty front with innocent snow, And on her naked shame,

Pollute with sinful blame,

The saintly veil of maiden white to throw, Confounded, that her Maker's eyes

Should look so near upon her foul deformities.

But he her fears to cease,

Sent down the meek-ey'd Peace;

She, crown'd with olive green, came Wiftly sliding Down through the turning sphere

His ready harbinger,

With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, And waving wide her myrtle wand,

She strikes a universal peace through sea and land.

No war, or battle's sound

Was heard the world around:

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

Unstain'd 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,

Whisp'ring 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 fix'd in stedfast gaze,

Bending one way their precious influence,

And will not take their flight

For all the morning light,

Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence;

But in their glimmering orbs did glow,

Until the 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 bis inferior flame

The new enlighten'd world no more should need; He saw a greater sun appear

Than his bright throne, or burning axle-tree could bear.

The shepherds on the lawn,

Or e'er the point of dawn,

Sat simply chatting in a rustic row;

Full little thought they then

That the mighty Pan

Was kindly come to live with them below;

Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep,

Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep.