Here Patience, gentle maid! is nigh,
To calm the storm and wipe the eye;
Hope acts the kind physician's part,
And warms the solitary heart:
Religion nobler comfort brings,

Disarms our griefs, or blunts their stings;
Points out the balance on the whole,
And heaven rewards the struggling soul.
But while these raptures I pursue,
The Genius suddenly withdrew.

JAMES GRAHAME.

JAMES GRAHAME, author of "The Sabbath," "The Birds of Scotland," "British Georgics," &c., was born at Glasgow, in 1765. He received a good education, and was by his friends articled to a lawyer; but his own desire was to enter the ministry. Accordingly, after a few years spent without profit in his uncongenial profession, he sought and obtained orders of the Bishop of Norwich. He did not obtain a living, but officiated as a curate, first at Shipton, in Gloucestershire; next at St. Margaret's, in Durham; and last at Sedgefield; performing all the duties of his office with Christian fidelity. He died in 1811. All the productions of Grahame display an amiability of mind rarely equalled, and never surpassed. The great charm of his poetry is manly simplicity, and unaffected piety. His touches of rural scenery and modes of life are graphic in the highest degree. His nephew, the late James Grahame, is well known as the historian of the United States.

Six days the heavenly host, in circle vast
Like that untouching cincture which enzones
The globe of Saturn, compassed wide this orb,
And with the forming mass floated along
In rapid course, through yet untravelled space,

Beholding God's stupendous power,—a world
Bursting from Chaos at the omnific will,
And perfect ere the sixth day's evening star
On Paradise arose. Blessed that eve!
The Sabbath's harbinger, when, all complete
In freshest beauty from Jehovah's hand,
Creation bloomed; when Eden's twilight face
Smiled like a sleeping babe: the voice divine
A holy calm breathed o'er the goodly work:
Mildly the sun upon the loftiest tree
Shed mellowly a sloping beam. Peace reigned,
And love, and gratitude; the human pair
Their orisons poured forth; love, concord reigned.
The falcon perched upon the blooming bough
With Philomela, listened to her lay;
Among the antlered herd the tiger couched
Harmless; the lion's mane no terror spread
Among the careless, ruminating flock.

Silence was o'er the deep; the noiseless surge,
The last subsiding wave-of that dread tumult
Which raged when ocean at the mute command
Rushed furiously into his new-cleft bed,--
Was gently rippling on the pebbled shore;
While on the swell the sea-bird, with her head
Wing-veiled, slept tranquilly. The host of heaven,
Entranced in new delight, speechless adored;
Nor stopped their fleet career, nor changed their form
Encircular till on that hemisphere,—

In which the blissful garden sweet exhaled

Its incense, odorous clouds,-the Sabbath dawn

Arose; then wide the flying circle sped,

And soared in semblance of a mighty rainbow.
Silent ascend the choirs of seraphim,

No harp resounds, mute each voice is the burst
Of joy and praise reluctant they repress,—
For love and concord all things so attuned
To harmony, that earth must have received
The grand vibration, and to the centre shook:

But soon as to the starry altitudes

They reached, then what a storm of sound tremendous
Swelled through the realms of space. The morning stars
Together sang, and all the sons of God

Shouted for joy! Loud was the peal; so loud
As would have quite o'erwhelmed human sense:
But to the earth it came a gentle strain,
Like softest fall breathed from Eolian lute,

When 'mid the chords the evening gale expires.

Day of the Lord! creation's hallowed close!

Day of the Lord! (prophetical they sung)
Benignant mitigation of that doom

Which must ere long consign the fallen race,
Dwellers in yonder star, to toil and wo.”

THE SABBATH AS A DAY OF REST.

BUT chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day ;
On other days the man of toil is doomed

To eat his joyless bread lonely; the ground

Both seat and board; screened from the winter's cold
And summer's heat by neighboring hedge or tree:
But on this day, embosomed in his home,
He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heartfelt joy
Of giving thanks to God,-not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently
With covered face, and upward earnest eye.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day;
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air, pure from the city's smoke,
While wandering slowly up the river's side,
He meditates on Him whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around its roots; and while he thus surveys

With elevated joy each rural charm,

He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,
That heaven may be one Sabbath without end.

A SPRING SABBATH

WALK.

MOST earnest was his voice! most mild his look,
As with raised hands he blessed his parting flock.
He is a faithful pastor of the poor ;—

He thinks not of himself; his Master's words,

"Feed, feed my sheep," are ever at his heart,

The cross of Christ is aye before his eyes.
Oh! how I love with melted soul to leave
The house of prayer, and wander in the fields
Alone! What though the opening spring be chill!
Although the lark, checked in his airy path,
Eke out his song, perched on the fallow clod
That still o'ertops the blade! although no branch
Have spread its foliage, save the willow wand

That dips its pale leaves in the swollen stream;

What though the clouds oft lower! their threats but end
In summer-showers, that scarcely fill the folds
Of moss-couched violets, or interrupt

The merle's dulcet pipe,-melodious bird!
He, hid behind the milkwhite sloe-thorn spray,
(Whose early flowers anticipate the leaf,)
Welcomes the time of buds, the infant year.
Sweet is the sunny nook to which my steps
Have brought me, hardly conscious where I roamed,
Unheeding where, so lovely all around
The works of God arrayed in vernal smile.
Oft at this season, musing, I prolong

My devious range, till sunk from view, the sun
Emblaze, with upward slanting ray, the breast
And wing unquivering of the wheeling lark
Descending, vocal, from her latest flight;
While disregardful of yon lowly star,

The harbinger of chill night's glittering host,-
Sweet redbreast, Scotia's Philomela, chants
In desultory strains his evening hymn.

A SUMMER

SABBATH

WALK

DELIGHTFUL is this loneliness! it calms

My heart pleasant the cool beneath these elms
That throw across the stream a moveless shade!
Here nature in her midnoon whisper speaks;
How peaceful every sound!-the ringdove's plaint,
Moaned from the twilight centre of the grove,
While every other woodland lay is mute,

Save when the wren flits from her down-eaved nest.
And from the root-sprig trills her ditty clear,—
The grasshopper's oft-pausing chirp,—the buzz
Angrily shrill of moss-entangled bee,

That soon as loosed booms with full twang away,—
The sudden rushing of the minnow-shoal,
Scared from the shallows by my passing tread,
Dimpling the water glides, with here and there
A glossy fly, skimming in circlets gay
The treacherous surface, while the quick-eyed trout
Watches his time to spring; or, from above
Some feathered dam, purveying midst the boughs,
Darts from her perch, and to her plumeless brood
Bears off the prize :-sad emblem of man's lot!
He, giddy insect, from his native leaf,
(Where safe and happily he might have lurked,)
Elate upon ambition's gaudy wings,

Forgetful of his origin, and, worse,

Unthinking of his end, flies to the stream,
And if from hostile vigilance he 'scape,
Buoyant he flutters but a little while,
Mistakes the inverted image of the sky
For heaven itself, and, sinking, meets his fate.
Now let me trace the stream up to its source,
Among the hills; its runnel by degrees