HUMAN LIFE.

HAT is this mystery of Human Life?
In rude or civilized society,

Alike, a pilgrim's progress through this world
To that which is to come, by the same stages;
With infinite diversity of fortune

To each distinct adventurer by the way!
Life is the transmigration of a soul

Through various bodies, various states of being:
New manners, passions, tastes, pursuits, in each;
In nothing, save in consciousness, the same.
Infancy, adolescence, manhood, age,
Are alway moving onward, alway losing
Themselves in one another, lost at length,
Like undulations on the strand of death.
The sage of threescore years and ten looks back,—
With many a pang of lingering tenderness,
And many a shuddering conscience-fit,-
He hath been, is not, cannot be again:
Nor trembles less with fear and hope to think
What he is now, but cannot long continue,
And what he must be through uncounted ages.-
The Child;—we know no more of happy childhood
Than happy childhood knows of wretched eld;
And all our dreams of its felicity

-on what

Are incoherent as its own crude visions:

We but begin to live from that fine point

Which memory dwells on, with the morning star,
The earliest note we heard the cuckoo sing,
Or the first daisy that we ever plucked,

When thoughts themselves were stars, and birds,

and flowers,

Pure brilliance, simplest music, wild perfume.
Thenceforward, mark the metamorphoses!

The Boy, the Girl, when all was joy, hope, promise;
Yet who would be a Boy, a Girl again,

To bear the yoke, to long for liberty,
And dream of what will never come to pass?
The Youth, the Maiden; living but for love,
Yet learning soon that life hath other cares,
All joys less rapturous, but more enduring.
The Woman;-in her offspring multiplied;
A tree of life, whose glory is her branches,
Beneath whose shadow, she, (both root and stem)
Delights to dwell in meek obscurity,

That they may be the pleasure of beholders.
;-as father of a progeny,

The Man;-

Whose birth requires his death to make them room;
Yet in whose lives he feels his resurrection,
And grows immortal in his children's children.
Then the gray Elder; leaning on his staff,
And bowed beneath a weight of vears, that steal
Upon him with the secresy of sleep,

(No snow falls lighter than the snow of age,
None with more subtilty benumbs the frame)
Till he forgets sensation, and lies down
Dead in the lap of his primeval mother;

She throws a shroud of turf and flowers around him, Then calls the worms, and bids them do their office. "Man giveth up the ghost,-and where is he?"

MONTGOMERY.

THE HOUR OF DEATH.

EAVES have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Day is for mortal care,

Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth,
Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer;
But all for thee, thou Mightiest of the Earth!

The banquet hath its hour,

Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine;
There comes a day for Grief's o'erwhelming power,
A time for softer tears-but all are thine!

Youth and the opening rose

May look like things too glorious for decay,

And smile at thee! but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey!

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

We know when moons shall wane,

When summer birds from far shall cross the sea, When Autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain; But who shall teach us when to look for thee?

Is it when Spring's first gale

Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie?
Is it when roses in our paths grow pale?
They have one season-all are ours to die!

Thou art where billows foam,

Thou art where music melts upon the air;
Thou art around us in our peaceful home,
And the world calls us forth-and thou art there;

Thou art where friend meets friend,

Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest;

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath, And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

MRS. HEMANS,

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH.

T matters not at what hour of the day

The righteous fall asleep; Death cannot come
To him untimely, who is fit to die;

The less of this cold world, the more of heaven;
The briefer life, the earlier immortality.

MILMAN.

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH.

PALM on the bosom of thy God,
Fair spirit! rest thee now!

E'en while with ours thy footsteps trod.

His seal was on thy brow.

Dust to its narrow house beneath!

Soul to its place on high!

They that have seen thy look in death,

No more may fear to die.

MRS. HEMANS.

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH.

HOU art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,

Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb; The Saviour has passed through its portals before thee, And the lamp of His love is thy guide through the gloom.

Thou art gone to the grave! we no longer behold thee,
Nor tread the rough path of the world by thy side:
But the wide arms of Mercy are spread to enfold thee,
And sinners may hope, for the SINLESS has died!

Thou art gone to the grave! and, its mansions forsaking,
Perchance thy weak spirit in fear lingered long;

But the sunshine of heaven beamed bright on thy waking,
And the sound which thou heard'st was the seraphim's song

Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,

While God was thy ransom, thy guardian, thy guide; He gave thee, and took thee, and He will restore thee. And death hath no sting, for the Saviour hath died.

HEBER

THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH.

ROTHER, thou art gone before us,
And thy saintly soul is flown

Where tears are wiped from every eye,

And sorrow is unknown;

From the burden of the flesh,

And from care and fear released,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,

And the weary are at rest.

The toilsome way thou'st travelled o'er,
And borne the heavy load,

But Christ hath taught thy languid feet
To reach this blest abode;

Thou art sleeping now, like Lazarus,
Upon his father's breast,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

Sin can never taint thee now,
Nor doubt thy faith assail,

Nor thy meek trust in Jesus Christ
And the Holy Spirit fail:

And there thou'rt sure to meet the good,

Whom on earth thou lovedst best,

Where the wicked cease from troubling,
And the weary are at rest.

Γ