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A bruiséd reed he will not break;
Afflictions all his children feel;

He wounds them for his mercy's sake;
He wounds to heal!

Humbled beneath his mighty hand,
Prostrate, his providence adore:
'Tis done! arise! he bids thee stand,
To fall no more.

Now, traveller in the vale of tears
To realms of everlasting light,

Through Time's dark wilderness of years,
Pursue thy flight.

There is a calm for those who weep,
A rest for weary pilgrims found:
And while the mouldering ashes sleep
Low in the ground,

The soul, of origin divine,

God's glorious image freed from clay,
In heaven's eternal sphere shall shine
A star of day!

The sun is but a spark of fire,
A transient meteor in the sky;
The soul, immortal as its sire,
Shall never die!"

MONTGOMERY.

THE GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

HEY grew in beauty, side by side,

They filled one home with glee ;— Their graves are severed far and wide,

By mount, and stream, and sea.

The same fond mother bent at night

O'er each fair sleeping brow;

She had each folded flower in sight,—
Where are those dreamers now?

One, 'midst the forests of the west,
By a dark stream is laid-
The Indian knows his place of rest,
Far in the cedar shade.

The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one;
He lies where pearls lie deep;
He was the loved of all, yet none
O'er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where southern vines are dressed
Above the noble slain;

He wrapt his colours round his breast,
On a blood-red field of Spain.

And one-o'er her the myrtle showers
Its leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded midst Italian flowers,—
The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
Beneath the same green tree;
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
Around one parent knee!

They that with smiles lit up the hall,

And cheered with song the hearth,

Alas! for love, if thou wert all,

And nought beyond on earth!

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THE DEAD.

HE dead are like the stars by day
Withdrawn from mortal eye,

But not extinct, they hold their way

In glory through the sky:

Spirits from bondage thus set free,

Vanish amidst immensity,

Where human thought, like human sight,

Fails to pursue their trackless flight.

MONTGOMERY.

I KNOW THOU HAST GONE.

KNOW thou hast gone to the home of thy rest,
Then why should my soul be so sad?

I know thou hast gone where the weary are blest,

And the mourner looks up and is glad!

Where Love has put off, in the land of its birth,

The stains it had gathered in this,

And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth,
Lies asleep on the bosom of bliss.

I know thou hast gone where thy forehead is starred
With the beauty that dwelt in thy soul,

Where the light of thy loveliness cannot be marred,
Nor the heart be flung back from its goal

I know thou hast drunk of the Lethe that flows
Through a land where they do not forget,
That sheds over memory only repose,

And takes from it only regret!

In thy far away dwelling, wherever it be,
I believe thou hast visions of mine,

And the love that made all things a music to me,
I yet have not learned to resign;-

In the hush of the night, in the waste of the sea,

Or alone with the breeze on the hill,

I have ever a presence that whispers of thee,
And my spirit lies down and is still!

Mine eye must be dark that so long has been dimmed,
Ere again it may gaze upon thine,

But my heart has revealings of thee and thy home,
In many a token and sign:

I never look up, with a vow to the sky,

But a light like thy beauty is there,

And I hear a low murmur, like thine, in reply,
When I pour out my spirit in prayer.

And though like a mourner that sits by a tomb

I am wrapt in a mantle of care,

Yet the grief of my bosom-oh! call it not gloom-
Is not the black grief of despair.

By sorrow revealed as the stars are by night,
Far off a bright vision appears:

And Hope, like the rainbow, a creature of light,
Is born, like the rainbow, from tears!

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N life's wild ocean, sorrowful and pained,
How many voyagers their course perform!
This little bark a kinder fate obtained;

It reached the harbour ere it met the storm.

ANON.

EPITAPH ON AN INFANT.

RE sin could blight, or sorrow fade,
Death came with friendly care;
The opening bud to heaven conveyed,
And bade it blossom there.

COLERIDGE.

TIME.

(OLL on, roll on, thy ceaseless tide,
Time, as in days of yore;

While on thy noiseless breast I glide

Swiftly to yonder shore

Roll on, roll on.

Though like a dream the years have fled,
Since on thy rippling wave

I launched my fragile bark, and sped,

Life's unknown ills to brave

Roll on, roll on.

Though winds that rent my flowing sail

Are lulled or gently blow,

The clouds no more the rising gale

Betoken driving low

Roll on, roll on.

I've seen the spring of mortal good,

The summer, too, is past;

The tide of life is at the flood;

The ebb must come at last

Roll on, roll on.

Oh, then, my soul, unshackled, free,

Its earthly voyage o'er,

Shall sail upon a boundless sea
By tempests tossed no more-

Roll on, roll on

Eternity! transcendent bliss!

Past man's sublimest thought; Light of the soul, through an abyss

Of darkness dimly caught

Roll on, roll on.

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