Welcome the cup, with its creamy foam!
Farewell to work and a mopy home!
With a jolly crew and a flowing bowl,
In bar-room pleasures I love to roll!'
Like a flash, there came to the drunkard's side
His angel child, who that night had died!
With look so gentle, and sweet, and fond,
She touched his glass with her little wand;
And oft as he raised it up to drink,
She silently tapped on its trembling brink,
Till the drunkard shook from foot to crown,
And set the untasted goblet down.
"Hey, man!" cried the host," what meaneth this? Is the covey sick? or the dram amiss?
Cheer up, my lad! quick the bumper quaff!"
And he glared around with a fiendish laugh,
The drunkard raised his glass once more,
And looked at its depths as so oft before;
But started to see on its pictured foam,
The face of his dead little child at home!
Then again the landlord at him sneered,
And the swaggering crowd of drunkards jeered;
But still, as he tried that glass to drink,
The wand of his dead one tapped the brink!
The landlord gasped: "I swear my man,
Thou shalt take every drop of this flowing can!"
The drunkard bowed to the quivering brim,
Though his heart beat fast and his eye grew dim.
But the wand struck harder than before;-
The glass was flung on the bar-room floor.
All around the ring the fragments lay,
And the poisonous current rolled away.
The drunkard woke. His dream was gone;
His bed was bathed in the light of morn;
But he saw, as he shook with pale, cold fear,
A beautiful angel hovering near.
He rose, and that seraph was nigh him still;
It checked his passions, it swayed his will,
It dashed from his lips the maddening bowl,
And victory gave to his ransomed soul.
Since ever that midnight hour he dreamed,
Our hero has been a man redeemed.
And this is the prayer that he prays alway,
And this is the prayer let us help him pray,
That angels may come, in every land,
To dash the cup from the drunkard's hand
BE JUST, AND FEAR NOT-ALFORD.
Speak thou the truth! Let others fence
And trim their words for pay;
In pleasant sunshine of pretense
Let others bask their day.
Guard thou the fact; though clouds of night
Down on thy watch-tower stoop;-
Though thou shouldst see thine heart's delight Borne from thee by their swoop!
Face thou the wind! Though safer seem
In shelter to abide;
We were not made to sit and dream;
The safe, must first be tried.
Where God hath set his thorns about,
Cry not," The way is plain;'
His path within, for those without,
Is paved with toil and pain.
One fragment of his blessed word
Into thy spirit burned,
Is better than the whole, half-heard,
And by thine interest turned.
Show thou thy light! If conscience gleam,
Set not the bushel down;
The smallest spark may send his beam
O'er hamlet, tower, and town.
Woe, woe to him, on safety bent,
Who creeps to age from youth,
Failing to grasp his life's intent
Because he fears the truth!
Be true to every inmost thought;
And as thy thought, thy speech!
What thou hast not by suffering bought,
Presume not thou to teach!
Hold on, hold on! Thou hast the rock'
The foes are on the sand:
The first world-tempest's ruthless shock
Scatters their shifting strand;
While each wild gust the mist shall clear
We now see darkly through,
And justified at last appear
The true, in Him that's true.
WNA W& tO THE INTEMPERATE.-CHARLES LAMB.
The waters have gone over me, but out of its black depths, could I be heard, I would call out to all those who have set a foot in the peritoas flood. Could the youth to whom the flavor of the first wine is delicious as the-opening scenes of life, or the entering upon some newly discovered paradise, look into my desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when he shall feel himself going down a precipice, with open eyes and a passive will; to see his destruction, and have no power to stop it, and yet feel it ali the way emanating from himself; to feel that all virtue has left him, and yet not be able to forget the time when it was otherwise; to bear about the piteous spectacle of his own ruin: could he see my fevered eyes, feverish with last night's drinking, and feverish looking for to-night's repetition of the folly; could he but feer the body of the death out of which I cry,- hourly with feeter outcry,--to be delivered, it were enough to make him dash the sparkling beverage to the earth in all the pride of its mantling temptation.
A country curate visiting his flock,
At old Rebecca's cottage gave a knock.
"Good morrow, dame, I mean not any libel,
But in your dwelling have you got a bible?”
"A bible, sir?" exclaimed she in a rage,
'D'ye think I've turned a Pagan in my age?
Here, Judith, and run up stairs, my dear,
Tis in the drawer, be quick, and bring it here."
The girl returned with bible in a minute,-
Not dreaming for a moment what was in it;-
When lo! on opening it at parlor door,
Down fell her spectacles upon the floor.
Amazed she stared, was for a moment dumb,
But quick exclaimed, "Dear sir, I'm glad you're come'
'Tis six years since these glasses first were lost,
And I have missed 'em to my poor eyes' cost!"
Then as the glasses to her nose she raised,
She closed the bible-saying "God be praised!"
A PSALM OF HOPE.-W. F. Fox.
Oh, cease thy murmurs, bleeding heart,
And dry thy tears of sorrow;
For, though thy wounded spirit smart,
All will be bright to-morrow!
Hours are darkest near the morning,
Midnight lingers o'er her tomb;
Shadows, deepest at the dawning,
Tell of spring-time in its bloom.
Day may hide behind the mountain,
Chasing darkness in her flight;
To-morrow's sun will seek the fountai
In the valley's golden light.
Though the icy hand of winter,
Now may hush the murmuring rills,
Joyous smiles of radiant summer
Yet will greet the frosted hills.
Purple clouds have silver lining,
Could we see but faintly through,
Sweetest joys come after mourning;
Flowers bud, when moist with dew.
Tears are but the heart's pure dew-drops
Soft distilled through virtue's spring,
Sorrows are the clouds that night drops,
Ere the day her joys shall bring.
And the heart that's bruised and broken
Is not doomed to sure decay;
Every wound is but a token
Of a brighter, better day.
As Hope's voice in magic numbers
Charms away each rising fear,
Faith awakens from her slumbers,
Bringing sweetest pleasures near.
Promise rises on the billow,
Though the wave be rolling high, Pointing to a peaceful pillow
Where no tears e'er dim the eye.
Crowns are won by faithful valor,
On the trying field of strife!
Virtue comes from patient labor
In the busy school of life.
There was a negro preacher, I have heard,
In southern parts, before rebellion stirred,
Who did not spend his strength in empty sound;
His was a mind deep-reaching and profound.
Others might beat the air, and make a noise,
And help to amuse the silly girls and boys;
But as for him he was a man of thought,
Deep in theology, although untaught.
He could not read or write, but he was wise,
And knew "right smart" how to extemporize.
One Sunday morn, when hymns and prayers were said,
The preacher rose, and rubbing up his head,
"Bredren and sisterin, and companions dear,
Our preachment for to-day, as you shall hear,
Will be ob de creation,-ob de plan
On which God fashioned Adam, de first man.
When God made Adam, in the ancient day,
He made his body out of earth and clay,
He shape him out all right, den by and by,
He set him up agin de fence to dry."
"Stop," said a voice; and straightway there uprose
An ancient negro in his master's clothes.
"Tell me," said he, "before you farder go,
One little thing which I should like to know.
It does not quite get through this niggar's har,
How came that fence so nice and handy dar?"
Like one who in the mud is tightly stuck,
Or one non-plussed, astonished, thunder-struck,
The preacher looked severely on the pews,
And rubbed his hair to know what words to use:
Bredren," said he, "dis word I hab to say;
De preacher can't be bothered in dis way;
For, if he is, it's jest as like as not,
Our whole theology will be upsot.'
FALSTAFF'S BOASTING.-SHAKSPEAre.
Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been? Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry and amen!-Give me a cup of sack, boy.-Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether-stocks, and mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards! -Give me a cup of sack, rogue.-Is there no virtue extant? [He drinks.
|