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And all his works with mercy doth embrace,
That blessed angels he sends to and fro,

To serve to wicked man,-to serve his wicked foe.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
To come to succor us, that succor want!
How oft do they with golden pinions cleave
The flitting skies, like flying pursuivants
Against foul fiends, to aid us militant!
They for us fight, they watch and duly ward,

And their bright squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward;

O! why should heavenly God to man have such regard!

THOUGHTS IN PROSPECT OF DEATH.

SAD, solitary Thought, who keep'st thy vigils, Thy solemn vigils, in the sick man's mind, Communing lonely with his sinking soul, And musing on the dubious glooms that lie In dim obscurity before him,—thee, Wrapped in thy dark magnificence, I call At this still, midnight hour, this awful season, When, on my bed, in wakeful restlessness, I turn me, wearisome. While all around, All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness, I only wake to watch the sickly taper Which lights me to my tomb.-Yes, 't is the hand Of death I feel press heavy on my vitals, Slow-sapping the warm current of existence. My moments now are few.-The sand of life

Ebbs fastly to its finish.-Yet a little,
And the last fleeting particle will fall,
Silent, unseen, unnoticed, unlamented.
Come, then, sad Thought, and let us meditate,
While meditate we may.—There's left us now
But a small portion of what men call time,
To hold communion; for, even now, the knife,
The separating knife, I feel divide

The tender bond that binds my soul to earth.
Yes, I must die-I feel that I must die;

And though, to me, life has been dark and dreary,
Though hope, for me, has smiled but to deceive,
And disappointment mark'd me as her victim,
Yet do I feel my soul recoil within me,

As I contemplate the dim gulf of death,
The shuddering void, the awful blank-futurity.
Ay, I had plann'd full many a sanguine scheme
Of earthly happiness-romantic schemes,
And fraught with loveliness:-and it is hard
To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps,
Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding hopes,
And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades,
Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion.

Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry?
O, none :-another busy brood of beings
Will shoot up in the interim, and none
Will hold him in remembrance. I shall sink
As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets
Of busy London :—some short bustle 's caused,
A few inquiries, and the crowds close in,
And all's forgotten. On my grassy grave
The men of future times will careless tread,

· And read my name upon the sculptured stone;
Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears,
Recall my vanish'd memory. I did hope
For better things :—I hoped I should not leave
The earth without a vestige. Fate decrees
It shall be otherwise,—and I submit.

Henceforth, O world, no more of thy desires!
No more of hope!—the wanton, vagrant hope!
I abjure all.-Now other cares engross me,
And my tired soul, with emulative haste,
Looks to its God, and plumes its wings for heaven.

"THIS DO IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME."

IF human kindness meets return,
And owns the grateful tie;
If tender thoughts within us burn
To feel a friend is nigh;

O! shall not warmer accents tell
The gratitude we owe

To Him who died, our fears to quell,
Our more than orphan's wo!

While yet his anguish'd soul survey'd
Those pangs he would not flee;
What love his latest words display'd
"Meet and remember me!"

Remember Thee! thy death, thy shame,

Our sinful hearts to share!

O Memory, leave no other name
But His recorded there!

THE GRAVE.

I LOVE to muse, when none are nigh,
Where yew-tree branches wave,
And hear the winds, with softest sigh,
Sweep o'er the grassy grave.

It seems a mournful music, meet
To soothe a lonely hour;

Sad though it be, it is more sweet
Than that from Pleasure's bower.

I know not why it should be sad,
Or seem a mournful tone,
Unless by man the spot be clad
With terrors not its own.

To nature it seems just as dear
As earth's most cheerful site;
The dew-drops glitter there as clear,
The sunbeams shine as bright.

The showers descend as softly there
As on the loveliest flowers;

Nor does the moonlight seem more fair
On Beauty's sweetest bowers.

"Ay! but within-within, there sleeps One, o'er whose mouldering clay

The loathsome earth-worm winds and creeps, And wastes that form away."

And what of that? The frame that feeds

The reptile tribe below,

As little of their banquet heeds,

As of the winds that blow.

RESIGNATION.

In trouble and in grief, O God,
Thy smile hath cheer'd my way;
And joy hath budded from each thorn
That round my footsteps lay.

The hours of pain have yielded good,
Which prosperous days refused;
As herbs, though scentless when entire,
Spread fragrance when they're bruised.

The oak strikes deeper as its boughs
By furious blasts are driven;
So life's vicissitudes the more
Have fix'd my heart in heaven.

All-gracious Lord! whate'er my lot
In other times may be,

I'll welcome still the heaviest grief
That brings me near to thee.

THE FALL OF THE LEAF.

THE autumnal winds had stripp'd the field Of all its foliage, all its green;

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