Now rising-seeming now to dip,
Proudly, withal, and wondrous fair-
It passed, like some majestic ship,
Along the buoyant paths of air.

I often have beheld the clouds,
In solemn pageant, sweep along,
And gazed, where God himself enshrouds,
And listened to the tempest's song.

But this one was so dread to see,

I looked and shuddered - looked and sighed,-
Yet deemed not grief so near to me;
That very night my sweet babe died.

MYSELF.

Less than the least

Of all God's mercies, is my poesy still.

GREAT are thy gifts, my God, vouchsafed to me,
Who am unworthy of the least from thee.

Recipient am I of a gracious store

:

Of good health, reason, food and friends, and more Of comfort, than to many may befal;—

Yet these were poor, Great Giver! were these all.

I humbly trust, of joys, to which earth's bliss

Is abject misery, and her hope, despair.
Yet, though the creature of thy constant care,
Ennobled, raised, yea, soon to be a prince,
I am, and ever must be lowly, since,
Of all thy mercies, I, indeed, am least,
And most unthankful, as thou daily seest.
While some contend for Paul, Apollos some,
I will contend, in sooth, that none can come
Into thy kingdom, Lord! a greater debtor
To Mercy, than myself; though many better;
Yet louder song than theirs be mine above,

Who owe, and gladly owe, so much to Sovereign
Love.

THE INDIFFERENT.

I SAW a man who had sojourned where
The Saviour once did tabernacle. He
Familiar was with Bethlehem, Nazareth; knew
The very site of Jacob's well; had talked

Where Jesus talked, was intimate with all

The scene of his sad story. Yea, had dwelt
Hard by the Garden; and his daily course
Had taken o'er the soil of Calvary;

And yet he gaily spake of these; and smiled,
And smoothed his chin; and twisted in his hair
His dainty fingers, as with nonchalance

He took upon his lips these sacred names;
And then I thought a man might ransack heaven,
Yet, Gallio like, care not for all these things.

BROOKLINE.

I HAVE revisited thy sylvan scenes,
Brookline in this the summer of my day.
Again have revelled in thy lovely vales,
And feasted vision on thy glorious hills;
As once I revelled, feasted, in the spring
Of careless, happy boyhood. And I've bowed
Again within thy temple, and have heard,

As though Time's footfall had these years been hushed

Thy patriarch pastor's lips, like dew, distil
Gentle instruction. And the same is he,

As to young love and reverence he was —
My cheerful friend, benevolent and good.
The same thy hills and dells, those skies the same,
Of rich October; such as only bend

Over New England; and the same gray walls,
Reared in New England's infancy, are those,*
Which charmed imagination. Thou art fair,
And beautiful as ever. Fancy deems
Thy sweet retreat excused the common doom
Caused by the fall; as if the Architect
Were willing, by such specimen, to show
What Eden in its primal beauty was.

* The Aspinwall House, (as seen in the vignette,) built in 1660; now owned by Colonel Thomas Aspinwall, Consul at London, in which his great-grandfather was born. The elm near it is about one hundred and forty years old, and at three feet from its roots is twenty feet in circumference.

And yet there is a change, unseen, though felt. 'Tis in myself. I gaze not, with the heart Freely given up, as once I gave it up,

Nor questioned why. Years have stept in between Its warm idolatry, and what it worshipped.

'Tis well that change on all things is inscribed; Else to such charms as thine, its simple love Would be too strongly wed, and I forget That thou, in thy glad splendor, wilt rejoice, And send up beauty's all-perpetual hymn, In eloquence how true! - in future years, (As thou dost now rejoice) — but not for me!

THE DEVOTED.

Oн, blest is he who cares

That God have glory given;

Whose faith, and alms, and toils, and prayers,
Are leading souls to heaven.

And greatly blest is he

Who labors, prays, and weeps,
That Christ may of his travail see
Beyond the distant deeps.

Such, entering into rest,

The Chinese, saved, shall own;

The Hindoo, there, will hail him blessed,
And children of Ceylon.

ALL NIGHT IN PRAYER.

And it came to pass, in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.

Luke vi. 12.

ALL night in prayer, while mortals slept
The Saviour woke on bended knee,
And in the mountain vigils kept

Of sighs and tears, my soul, for thee.

Night spread her starry wing around
His head, that drooped for human wo,
And hastening angels sought the ground,
Wondering to see their Maker so.

-

He prayed-yet not in view of all
The griefs his prescience understood, —
The stripes, the spear, the nails, the gall,
The crown of thorns, the cross of wood.

No, nor in view of that dark hour

When God from him should turn his eye,
And hell's permitted final power
Should triumph, when it saw him die.

But sight of sin and sin's desert
Prest down his soul, and sight of men
Wounded to death, and to their hurt
Rejecting Gilead, grieved him then.