This done, we proceed with the second as with the first, and in like manner with all the rest.

Fig. 2 represents a similar flight of steps, the front receding, and the end placed towards us. As the ends of the steps (a a) are now horizontal, they are all equal in height and length, with rays (bb) drawn from each corner to the point of sight; the farther side being formed by alternate perpendiculars and horizontals from these lines. To form the railing that rises from the steps, we draw the dotted line (c c), touching the corner of each step-raising the first line of the railing (d) to such height as the eye directs; we thence draw the line (e e), parallel to (cc), which determines the remaining bars. From the upper one we draw the visual ray (ƒ), to determine the height of the opposite railing, and a parallel thence (g g), is all that is necessary to complete the drawing.

HYMNS AND POETICAL RECREATIONS.

THE COUNTENANCE OF GRIEF.

A PORTRAIT.

Look on the too expressive brow of care!
Some aching sorrow is engraven there;
Some deep complaint unutterably lies

Within that heart, and fills those sadden'd eyes.
Yet even here, an inward voice can tell
With faithfulness and truth, that "all is well!"
Though to the human eye no dawn is near,
And almost midnight darkness slumbers here,
The eye of Faith, endued with heavenly sight,
Can pierce within the veil where all is light;
Though silent desolation seems to reign,
Her ear can catch a soft angelic strain,
Pour'd with the harmony of heavenly sound
And swell'd by grateful praises all around.
Whilst nature shudders at the chastening rod,
Faith feels the arm of her sustaining God,
In patient trust, the sharpest wound receives,
For his unfailing promise she believes.

THE WANING MOON.

THOU mournful, melancholy star,

I have watch'd thee many a night—

And many a thought of seriousness

Was whisper'd from thy waning light.

Thou, like the world on which thou shin'st,
Art destin'd briefly to decay-

Returning each returning night
With wasted and diminish'd ray.

Some few nights since thy horn was full,
And mid-way through the cloudless skies,

The favourite of a gazing world,

In fearless pride I saw thee rise.

But late and scarcely heeded now,

With many a circling vapour bound, Thou com'st when others are at rest,

To tread unseen thy midnight round.

Y.

Farewell, thou melancholy star-
The tale is true of more than thee-
Who bright and brilliant for a time,
Subside into obscurity.

So pass the honours of the world

So beauty fades and life decaysAnd men forget the waning star

On which they sometime lov'd to gaze.

And even so our fondest hopes,

In life's first dawning fair and bright, Consume and waste themselves away, And leave us many a starless night.

A THOUGHT ON BEACHY-HEAD.
ENOUGH for feeling, though too brief for words,
A moment on the lofty cliff I stood,
And from the fearful precipice above,

Look'd many a fathom down upon the flood.

The moon-beam slept upon the snow-white cliff,
The chasm frown'd more darkly than by day;
No sound of living thing was on the air,
And ocean's self in seeming slumber lay.

Swiftly my spirit rose above the world,

Far as that tow'ring cliff above the tide, And soaring high o'er all created things, Tasted a freedom in the world denied:

In fancy walking nearer to the skies,

It rose to Him with whom I was aloneLife and its narrow interests pass'd away, Its cares forgotten and its wishes gone.

It was a blissful moment-God was all,

And earth was nothing-'Twas a bliss more true,

And for the one brief moment that it stay'd,
More sweet than e'er from earthly feeling grew.

'Tis even so, O God, the soul must rise

Above the world, or ere it can be free'Tis even thus thy wisdom has decreed-

Farthest from earth shall still be nearest thee

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