SELECTIONS IN POETRY.

And thus we see on either hand

101

We name our blessings whence they 're sprung; We call our country Father Land,

We call our language Mother Tongue.

MY

That opens to the morning sky,
But, ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground-to die!
Yet on the rose's humble bed

The sweetest dews of Night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see,

But none shall

weep a tear for me!

My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
Its hold is frail, its date is brief,

Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!

My life is like the prints which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface

All vestige of the human race,

On that lone shore loud moans the sea,

But none, alas! shall mourn for me!

Ex. 104.

INSIGNIFICANT EXISTENCE. Dr. Watts.

-

THE

HERE are a number of us creep
Into this world to eat and sleep;
And know no reason why we 're born,
But only to consume the corn,
Devour the cattle, fowl, and fish,
And leave behind an empty dish.
The crows and ravens do the same,
Unlucky birds of hateful name;
Ravens or crows might fill their places,
And swallow corn and carcasses,
Then if their tombstone, when they die,
Be n't taught to flatter and to lie,
There's nothing better will be said

Than that "they 've eat up all their bread,
Drunk up their drink, and gone to bed."

THAT the chemist's magic art

Could crystallize this sacred treasure!

Long should it glitter near my heart,
A secret source of pensive pleasure.

The little brilliant, ere it fell,

Its lustre caught from Chloe's eye;
Then, trembling, left its coral cell,
The spring of Sensibility!

Sweet drop of pure and pearly light!
In thee the rays of Virtue shine,
More calmly clear, more mildly bright,
Than any gem that gilds the mind.

SELECTIONS IN POETRY.

Benign restorer of the soul!

Who ever fliest to bring relief,
When first we feel the rude control
Of Love or Pity, Joy or Grief.

The sage's and the poet's theme,
In every clime, in every age,
Thou charm'st in Fancy's idle dream,
In Reason's philosophic page.

That very law which moulds a tear,
And bids it trickle from its source,
That law preserves the earth a sphere,
And guides the planets in their course.

Ex. 106. THE RIVER OF LIFE.

Campbell.

HE more we live, more brief appear
Our life's succeeding stages;

A day to childhood seems a year,
And years like passing ages.

The gladsome current of our youth,
Ere passion yet disorders,
Steals lingering like a river smooth
Along its grassy borders.

But as the careworn cheek grows wan,
And sorrow's shafts fly thicker,

Ye stars, that measure life to man,
Why seem your courses quicker ?

When joys have lost their bloom and breath,
And life itself is vapid,

103

Why, as we near the Falls of Death,
Feel we its tide more rapid?

It may be strange,

Time's course to slower speeding,

When one by one our friends have gone
And left our bosoms bleeding?

Heaven gives our years of fading strength

Indemnifying fleetness;

And those of youth a seeming length,
Proportioned to their sweetness.

ATHER ye rosebuds as

GA rosebuds as ye may,

Old Time is still a flying;

And this same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer ; But being spent, the worse and worst Time still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may go marry;
For, having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

And make their bed with thee. As Of ages glide away, the sons of me: The youth in life's green spring, an In the full strength of years, matro And the sweet babe, and the grayShall, one by one, be gathered to th By those who in their turn shall fol

So live, that when thy summons The innumerable caravan that move To the pale realms of shade, where His chamber in the silent halls of Thou go not, like the quarry-slave a Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustai By an unfaltering trust, approach th Like one who wraps the drapery of About him, and lies down to pleasa