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That voice can quiet passion's mood,
Can humble merit raise on high;
And from the wise and from the good
It breathes of immortality!
There is a lip, there is an eye,
Where most I love to see it shine,
To hear it speak, to feel it sigh-
My mother! need I say, 'tis thine!

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DAWNINGS OF GENIUS.

In those low paths which poverty surrounds,
The rough rude ploughman, off his fallow grounds
(That necessary tool of wealth and pride),
While moiled and sweating, by some pasture's side,
Will often stoop, inquisitive to trace

The opening beauties of a daisy's face;
Oft will he witness, with admiring eyes,

The brook's sweet dimples o'er the pebbles rise;
And often bent, as o'er some magic spell,
He'll pause and pick his shaped stone and shell:
Raptures the while his inward powers inflame,
And joys delight him which he cannot name:
Ideas picture pleasing views to mind,
For which his language can no utterance find;
Increasing beauties, freshening on his sight,
Unfold new charms, and witness more delight
So while the present please, the past decay,
And in each other, losing, melt away.
Thus pausing wild on all he saunters by,
He feels enraptured, though he knows not why;
And hums and mutters o'er his joys in vain,
And dwells on something which he can't explain.
The bursts of thought with which his soul's perplexed,
Are bred one moment, and are gone the next;

ACTIVE CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE.

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Yet still the heart will kindling sparks retain,
And thoughts will rise, and Fancy strive again.
So have I marked the dying ember's light,
When on the hearth it fainted from my sight,
With glimmering glow oft redden up again,
And sparks crack brightening into life in vain;
Still lingering out its kindling hope to rise,
Till faint, and fainting, the last twinkle dies.
Dim burns the soul, and throbs the fluttering heart,
Its painful pleasing feelings to impart :

Till by successless sallies wearied quite,
The memory fails, and Fancy takes her flight:
The wick, confined within its socket, dies,
Borne down and smothered in a thousand sighs.

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ACTIVE CHRISTIAN BENEVOLENCE THE SOURCE OF SUBLIME AND LASTING HAPPINESS.

AMERICAN POETRY.

WOULDST thou from sorrow find a sweet relief?
Or is thy heart oppress'd with woes untold?
Balm wouldst thou gather for corroding grief?
Pour blessings round thee like a shower of gold.
'Tis when the rose is wrapp'd in many a fold,
Close to its heart, the worm is wasting there
Its life and beauty; not when, all unroll'd,
Leaf after leaf, its bosom, rich and fair,

Breathes freely its perfumes throughout the ambient air.

Wake, thou that sleepest in enchanted bowers, Lest these lost years should haunt thee on the night boz When death is waiting for thy number'd hours To take their swift and everlasting flight;

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Wake, ere the earth-born charm unnerve thee quite, And be thy thoughts to work divine address'd; Do something-do it soon-with all thy might: An angel's wing would droop if long at rest, And God himself, inactive, were no longer bless'd.

Some high or humble enterprise of good
Contemplate, till it shall possess thy mind,
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food,
And kindle in thy heart a flame refined.
Pray heaven for firmness thy whole soul to bind
To this thy purpose-to begin, pursue,

With thoughts all fix'd, and feelings purely kind ; Strength to complete, and with delight review, And grace to give the praise where all is ever due.

No good of worth sublime will heaven permit
To light on man as from the passing air;
The lamp of genius, though by nature lit,
If not protected, pruned, and fed with care,
Soon dies, or runs to waste with fitful glare;
And learning is a plant that spreads and towers
Slow as Columbia's aloe, proudly rare,

That, 'mid gay thousands, with the suns and showers Of half a century, grows alone before it flowers.

Beware lest thou, from sloth that would appear
But lowliness of mind, with joy proclaim
Thy want of worth; a charge thou couldst not hear
From other lips without a blush of shame,
Or pride indignant; then be thine the blame,
And make thyself of worth, and thus enlist
The smiles of all the good, the dear to fame;
'Tis infamy to die and not be miss'd,

Or let all soon forget that thou didst e'er exist.

CHILDREN.

Rouse to some work of high and holy love,
And thou an angel's happiness shalt know,-
Shalt bless the earth while in the world above;
The good begun by thee shall onward flow
In many a branching stream, and wider grow;
The seed that, in these few and fleeting hours,
Thy hands unsparing and unwearied sow,

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Shall deck thy grave with amaranthine flowers, And yield thee fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers.

LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.
BORN, 1802; DIED, 1838.

CHILDREN.

A WORD will fill the little heart
With pleasure and with pride;

It is a harsh, a cruel thing,
That such can be denied.

And yet how many weary hours
Those joyous creatures know;
How much of sorrow and restraint
They to their elders owe!

How much they suffer from our faults!
How much from our mistakes!

How often, too, mistaken zeal

An infant's misery makes.

We over-rule and over-teach,

We curb and we confine,

And put the heart to school too soon,
To learn our narrow line.

No: only taught by love to love,

Seems childhood's natural task;
Affection, gentleness, and hope,
Are all its brief years ask.

AMELIORATION AND THE FUTURE, MAN'S NOBLE TASKS.

FALL, fall, ye mighty temples to the ground:

Not in your sculptur'd rise

Is the real exercise

Of human nature's brightest power found.

'Tis in the lofty hope, the daily toil,

'Tis in the gifted line,

In each far thought divine

That brings down heaven to light our common soil.

'Tis in the great, the lovely, and the true,

'Tis in the generous thought,

Of all that man has wrought. Of all that yet remains for man to do.

ALARIC A. WATTS.

A REMONSTRANCE,

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND WHO COMPLAINED OF BEING ALONE

IN THE WORLD.

OH! say not thou art all alone

Upon this wide, cold-hearted earth;
Sigh not o'er joys for ever flown,

The vacant chair,-the silent hearth:
Why should the world's unholy mirth
Upon thy quiet dreams intrude,
To scare those shapes of heavenly birth
That people oft thy solitude!

Though many a fervent hope of youth
Hath pass'd, and scarcely left a trace;—
Though earthborn love, its tears and truth
No longer in thy heart have place:

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