"And sport'st thou thus,' a seaman cried,

• While terrors overwhelm ?'
Why should I fear ?' the boy replied,

My father's at the helm.'

So when our worldly all is reft,

Our earthly helpers gone,
We still have one sure anchor left,

God helps, and he alone.

He to our prayers will bend his ear,

He gives our pangs relief ;
He turns to smiles each trembling tear, -

To joy, each tort'ring grief.

Then turn to him, 'mid sorrows wild,

When wants and woes o'erwhelm, Remembering, like the fearless child,

Our father's at the helm.

Anon. LINES.

“ Oh that I had the wings of a dove,-that I might flee away

and be at rest.”

So prayed the Psalmist to be free

From mortal bonds and earthly thrall; And such or soon or late shall be

Full oft the heart-breathed prayer of all. And we, when life's last sands we rove

With faltering foot and aching breast, Shall sigh for wings that waft the dove

To flee away and be at rest.

While hearts are young, and hopes are high,

A fairy scene doth life appear ; Its sights are beauty to the eye;

Its sounds are music to the ear. But soon it glides from youth to age,

And, of its joys no more possessed, We, like the captive of the cage,

Would flee away and be at rest.

Is ours fair woman's angel smile,

All bright and beautiful as day ?

So of her cheek and eye, the while,

Time steals the rose, and dims the ray. She wanders to the spirits' land,

And with speechless grief opprest, As o'er the faded form we stand,

Would gladly share her place of rest.

Beyond the hills-beyond the sea,

Oh! for the pennons of a dove ; O for the morning's wings to flee

Away, and be with them we love.
When all is fled that's bright and fair,

And life is but a wintry waste,
This this at last must be our prayer,
To flee away and be at rest.

John Malcolm, Esq.

RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD.

How sweet it is, in twilight shade,

To tread the scenes of earliest youth, When all that then our bosoms swayed,

Was joy, and innocence, and truth.

The trees--the stream--the thrush's song

Recall the visions which had fled ;
And recollections, absent long,

Return, and dwell upon the dead !

The landscape glows with beauty still ;

But ah ! as o'er the scene we range,
The stedfast grove, and changeless rill,

Seem to have undergone a change ;
And though, of all the earth I ween,

They, in our eyes most fair remain,
Yet nought, 'mid all so sweet, is seen

So bright and beautiful as them!

With them the woful change is not

'Tis recollection looks behind
To feelings not to be forgot-

Engraven on the youthful mind.
Who shared those feelings, now, alas !

Within the church-yard silent lie ;
And nought remains, save forms that pass

The mirror of the memory,

Or such as, still endued with life,

Tread this wide theatre below,

Distance-pursuits—and stir, and strife,

Between us endless barriers throw. Now spacious lands, and mountains talt,

Between us lie, and billows curled ; And though one school contained us all,

Our tombs are scattered o'er the world.

The pleasures we in childhood felt

Are duller grown-less bold—less brightAnd all their fairer portions melt,

Like clouds before the mental sight. The change is not in them; the mind

Is tainted now that then was pure ; And such sweet bliss is left behind

As penitence can ne'er procure.

Who hath not felt a nameless thrill,

When friends of earlier days are met ? And rising in the mind, at will,

Scenes that we nerer can forget ? Yet the afflicting thought recurs,

That all those golden days are o'er ; And sorrow in the bosom stirs,

To think they shall return no more.