JOHN QUINCY ADAMS,

THE sixth president of the United States, and one of the most learned men of his time, was a poet of no mean rank, though his political relations prevented a just estimate of his literary abilities by his contemporaries. Among his poems are "Oberon, translated from the German of Wieland;" "Dermot McMorrogh, or the Conquest of Ireland ;" and "Poems of Religion and Society," a posthumous collection of his hymns and other short pieces, with notices of his life and character. Some of the religious poems of Mr. Adams are of great excellence. He was born in Braintree, Massachusetts, in 1767, and died in the capitol, at Washington, in 1848.

/ TO A BEREAVED MOTHER.
SURE, to the mansions of the blest

When infant innocence ascends,
Some angel brighter than the rest

The spotless spirit's flight attends.
On wings of ecstasy they rise,

Beyond where worlds material roll,

Till some fair sister of the skies

Receives the unpolluted soul.

That inextinguishable beam,

With dust united at our birth,

Sheds a more dim, discolored gleam
The more it lingers upon earth.
Closed in this dark abode of clay,

The stream of glory faintly burns :

Not unobserved, the lucid ray

To its own native fount returns.

But when the Lord of mortal breath

Decrees his bounty to resume,

And points the silent shaft of death

Which speeds an infant to the tomb

No passion fierce, nor low desire,

Has quenched the radiance of the flame; Back to its God the living fire

Reverts, unclouded as it came.

Fond mourner! be that solace thine!
Let hope her healing charm impart,
And soothe, with melodies divine,

The anguish of a mother's heart.
O, think! the darlings of thy love,
Divested of this earthly clod,
Amid unnumbered saints above,

Bask in the bosom of their God.

Of their short pilgrimage on earth
Still tender images remain :
Still, still they bless thee for their birth,
Still filial gratitude retain.

Each anxious care, each rending sigh,

That wrung for them the parent's breast,

Dwells on remembrance in the sky,

Amid the raptures of the blest.

O'er thee, with looks of love, they bend;
For thee the Lord of life implore;

And oft, from sainted bliss descend,

Thy wounded quiet to restore.

Oft, in the stillness of the night

They smooth the pillow of thy bed;

Oft, till the morn's returning light,

Still watchful hover o'er thy head.

Hark! in such strains as saints employ,
They whisper to thy bosom peace;

Calm the perturbed heart to joy,

And bid the streaming sorrow cease. Then dry, henceforth, the bitter tear; Their part and thine inverted see :Thou wert their guardian angel here,

They guardian angels now to thee.

THE

HOUR-GLASS.

ALAS! how swift the moments fly!
How flash the years along!
Scarce here, yet gone already by,
The burden of a song.

See childhood, youth, and manhood pass,
And age, with furrowed brow;
Time was- -Time shall be-drain the glass-

But where in Time is now?

Time is the measure but of change;
No present hour is found;

The past, the future, fill the range

Of Time's unceasing round.

Where, then, is now? In realms above,

With God's atoning Lamb,

In regions of eternal love,

Where sits enthroned I AM.

Then, pilgrim, let thy joys and tears
On Time no longer lean;

But henceforth all thy hopes and fears
From earth's affections wean:

To God let votive accents rise;
With truth, with virtue, live;
So all the bliss that Time denies
Eternity shall give.

LORD OF ALL WORLDS.

LORD of all worlds, let thanks and praise
To thee forever fill my soul;

With blessings thou hast crowned my days,

My heart, my head, my hand control:

O, let no vain presumptions rise,
No impious murmur in my heart,
To crave the boon thy will denies,
Or shrink from ill thy hands impart.

Thy child am I, and not an hour,
Revolving in the orbs above,
But brings some token of thy power,
But brings some token of thy love;
And shall this bosom dare repine,

In darkness dare deny the dawn,
Or spurn the treasures of the mine,
Because one diamond is withdrawn?

The fool denies, the fool alone,

Thy being, Lord, and boundless might; Denies the firmament, thy throne,

Denies the sun's meridian light;

Denies the fashion of his frame,

The voice he hears, the breath he draws:

O idiot atheist! to proclaim

Effects unnumbered without cause!

Matter and mind, mysterious one,

Are man's for threescore years and ten; Where, ere the thread of life was spun ? Where, when reduced to dust again? All-seeing God, the doubt suppress; The doubt thou only canst relieve My soul thy Saviour-Son shall bless, Fly to thy gospel, and believe.

WHY SHOULD I FEAR IN EVIL DAYS.

WHY should fear in evil days,

With snares encompassed all around?
What trust can transient treasures raise
For them in riches who abound?
His brother who from death can save?

What wealth can ransom him from God?
What mine of gold defraud the grave?
What hoards but vanish at his nod?

To live forever is their dream;

Their houses by their name they call; While, borne by time's relentless stream, Around them wise and foolish fall; Their riches others must divide ;

They plant, but others reap the fruit:

In honor man cannot abide,

To death devoted, like the brute.

This is their folly, this their way;

And yet in this their sons delight;
Like sheep, of death the destined prey,
The future scorn of the upright;
grave
their beauty shall consume,
Their dwellings never see them more;
But God shall raise me from the tomb,
And life for endless time restore.

The

What though thy foe in wealth increase,
And fame and glory crown his head?
Fear not, for all at death shall cease,

Nor fame, nor glory, crown the dead:
While prospering all around thee smiled,

Yet to the grave shalt thou descend; The senseless pride of fortune's child

Shall share the brute creation's end.