So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter-cold, drear winter, when these trees
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread
Its colours to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyaunce-but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-colour'd beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year's best holiday; I call to mind
The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas; when at morn I took
My wooden kalendar, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirii-broken,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,”
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show
The calm decay of nature when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
RELIGION'S HOLY HOPES KINDLE A JOY
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh, my friend,
THAT THY FAITH WERE AS MINE! that thou couldst see
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and troubles of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
DAWN THROUGH THIS NIGHT OF TEMPEST! All things then
Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be heal'd and harmonized, and thou wouldst feel
GOD ALWAYS, EVERYWERE, AND ALL IN ALL.
BY R. HEBER.
[Earnest and cheerful.]
Oh, green was the corn as I rode on my way,
And bright were the dews on the blossoms of may,
And dark was the sycamore's shade to behold,
And the oak's tender leaf was of em'rald and gold.
The thrush from his holly, the lark from his cloud,
Their chorus of rapture sung jovial and loud;
From the soft vernal sky, to the soft grassy ground,
There was beauty above me, beneath, and around.
The mild southern breeze brought a shower from the hill
And yet, though it left me all dripping and chill,
I felt a new pleasure, as onward I sped,
To gaze where the rainbow gleamed broad overhead.
Oh, such be life's journey, and such be our skill,
To lose in its blessings the sense of its ill;
Through sunshine and shower, may our progress be even,
And our tears add a charm to the prospect of heaven!
TO THEE, O GOD, WE GIVE THANKS.
[Earnest and bold.]
OH! GIVE THANKS to Him who made
Morning light and evening shade!
Source and giver of all good,
Nightly sleep, and daily food;
Quickener of our wearied powers,
Guard of our unconscious hours.
OH! GIVE THANKS to nature's King,
Who made every breathing thing;
His, our warm and sentient frame,
His, the mind's immortal flame.
Oh, how close the ties that bind
Spirits to the Eternal Mind!
OH! GIVE THANKS WITH HEART AND LIP,
For we are His workmanship;
And all creatures are His care
Not a bird that cleaves the air,
Falls unnoticed; but who can
SPEAK THE LOVE OF GOD TO MAN !
THE SUNSHINE.
BY MARY HOWITT.
[With cheerfulness and with spirit.]
I love the sunshine everywhere-
In wood, and field, and glen;
I love it in the busy haunts
Of town-imprisoned men.
I love it, when it streameth in
The humble cottage door,
And casts the chequered casement shade
Upon the red-brick floor.
I love it, where the children lie
Deep in the clovery grass,
To watch among the twining roots
The gold-green beetle pass.
I love it, on the breezy sea,
To glance on sail and oar,
While the great waves, like molten glass,
Come leaping to the shore.
I love it, on the mountain-tops,
Where lies the thawless snow,
And half a kingdom, bathed in light,
Lies stretching out below.
Oh, yes, I love the sunshine!
Like kindness, or like mirth,
Upon a human countenance
Is sunshine on the earth.
Upon the earth-upon the sea-
And through the crystal air--
OR PILED-UP CLOUDS-THE GRACIOUS SUN
IS GLORIOUS EVERYWHEre.
MORNING THOUGHTS.
BY J. MONTGOMERY.
[Earnest and bold.]
What secret hand, at morning light,
By stealth unseals mine eyes,
Draws back the curtain of the night,
AND OPENS EARTH AND SKY?
"TIS THINE MY GOD-the same that kept
My resting hours from harm;
No ill came nigh me, for I slept
BENEATH TH' ALMIGHTY'S ARM.
"TIS THINE my daily bread that brings,
Like manna scattered round,
And clothes me, as the lily springs
In beauty from the ground.
This is the hand that shaped my frame,
And gave me pulse to beat;
That bears me oft through flood and flame,
Through tempest, cold, and heat.
In death's dark valley though I stray,
'Twould there my steps attend;
GUIDE WITH the staff my lonely way,
And with the rod defend.
May that dear hand uphold me still,
Through life's uncertain race,
TO BRING ME TO THINE HOLY HILL,
AND TO THY DWELLING-PLACE.
EVENING IN PARADISE-ADAM'S CONVERSA TION WITH EVE.
BY JOHN MILTON.
[Vigorous and bold.]
Now came still evening on, and twilight grey
Had, in her sober livery, all things clad,
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird-
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests—
Were slunk: all, but the wakeful nightingale;
She, all night long, her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest; till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length-
APPARENT QUEEN!-unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
'To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen.
And at our pleasant labour;-to reform
Yon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those drooping gums,
That lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as nature wills, night bids us rest."
To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn'd:-
"My author and disposer! what thou bidd'st,
Unargued I obey: so God ordains.
GOD IS THY LAW; thou, mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise!
With thee conversing, I forget all time:
All seasons and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first, on this delightful land, he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth,
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these, the gems of heaven, her starry train :-
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light,—without thee is sweet!"
Β' ΚΝΟΣ.
[Earnest and bold.]
Time speeds away-AWAY-AWAY ;—
Another hour-another day-
Another month-another year-
Drop from us like the leaflets sear;
Drop like the life-blood from our hearts;
The rose-bloom from the cheek departs,
The tresses from the temples fall,
The eye grows dim and strange to all.
Time speeds away-AWAY-AWAY ;—
Like torrent in a stormy day,
He undermines the stately tower,
Uproots the tree, and snaps the flower;
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