Che Close of the Year.
'Tis midnight's holy hour-and silence now,
Is brooding like a gentle spirit, o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling; tis the knell
Of the departing year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past-yet, on yon stream and wood,
With melancholy light the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale spotless shroud: the air is stirred,
As by a mourner's sigh—and on yon cloud
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand.
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn form,
And Winter with his aged locks, all breathe
In mournful cadences that comes abroad,
Like the far wind harp's wild and touching wail
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever!
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Still chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have passed away,
And left no shadow of their loveliness
On the dead waste of life. That sceptre lifts
The coffin-lid of hope, and Joy and Love
Are bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scattering dead flowers
O'er what has passed to nothingness. The Year
Has gone and with it many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow on each heart. In its swift course
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man-and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where thronged
The bright and joyous-and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shouts resounded. It passed o'er
The battle-plain where sword and spear and shield,
Flashed in the light of mid-day-and the strength
Of serried hosts is shivered, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crushed and mouldering skeleton. It came,
And faded like a mist at eve-
Yet e're it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home
In the dim land of dreams.
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity! On, still on,
He passes, and forever. The proud bird,
The Condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest, upon his mountain crag. But Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness:
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep
O'er earth, like troubled visions on the breast
Like bubbles on the water-fiery Isles
Spring blazing from the ocean and go back
To their mysterious caverns. Mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blackest cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plains. New Empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations
Yon bright and burning blazonry of God,
Glitter awhile in their eternal depths,
And, like the Plead, loveliest of her train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void. Yet Time-
Time the Tomb-Builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all pityless, and pauses not,
Amid the thousand wrecks that strew his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought!
THE discussion of Slavery will proceed, wherever two or three are gathered together-by the fireside, on the highway, and at the public meeting. The movement against Slavery is from the Everlasting Arm. Even now it is gathering its forces, soon to be confessed everywhere. It may not yet be felt in the high places of office and power; but all who can put their ears humbly to the ground, will hear and comprehend its incessant and advancing tread.
Kingdom Come.
I Do not believe the sad story
Of ages of sleep in the tomb,
I shall soar far away to the glory,
And grandeur of "Kingdom Come:"
Though the paleness of death and its stillness,
May rest on my brow for awhile,
my spirit may lose in its chillness
The splendour of hope's happy smile:
Yet the gloom of the grave will be transient,
And light as the slumbers of earth-
And then I shall blend with the ancient
And beautiful forms of the earth:
Through the climes of the sky, and the bowers
Of bliss, evermore I shall roam,
Seeing crowns of the stars and the flowers
That glitter in "Kingdom Come."
The friends who have parted before me,
From life's gloomy sorrow and pain,
When the shadow of death passes o'er me,
Shall smile on me sweetly again;
Their voices are lost in the soundless
Retreats of their azure home-
But soon we shall meet in the boundless
THE happy arrangement of words makes one of the greatest
"Correct me: but not with anger, lest thou bring me to nothing."Jer. x. 24.
We need not ask for suffering: when its test
Comes, we may prove too faithless to endure-
We need not ask for suffering-it were best
We wait God's holy orderings to ensure
Our highest good. But we may ask from Him
That not one throb of grief, one dart of pain,
One burning pang of anguish, pierce in vain
This feeble being, in its faith so dim,
This fainting frame, or this o'erburthened heart:
We may implore Him. He would grace impart
And strength, to suffer still as the beloved
Of His own bosom. For of all below,
The one affliction in this world of woe
Most sad,-is an affliction unimproved.
SOME favourite studies-some delightful care,
The mind with trouble and distresses share;
And by a coin, a flower, a verse, a boat,
The stagnant spirits have been made to float.
ALAS! a deeper test of Faith,
Than prison cell or martyr's stake,
The self-abasing watchfulness
Of silent prayer may make.
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