Then since this world is vain, And volatile, and fleet, Why should I lay up earthly joys, Where rust corrupts, and moth destroys, And cares and sorrows eat? Why fly from ill With anxious skill, When soon this hand will freeze, this throbbing heart be still? Come, Disappointment, come! Thou art not stern to me; To thee I bend my knee: My race will run, I only bow, and say, "My God, thy will be done!" ON HEARING THE CLOCK STRIKE TWELVE AT NIGHT, DECEMBER 31st. KNELL of departed years, Thy voice is sweet to me: Time's restless course to see; I hear the sound Diffusing through the air a holy calm around. Thou art the voice of Love: That love divine Will o'er my future path in cloudless mercy shine. Thou art the voice of Hope: . The music of the spheres A song of blessings yet to come, By sin deceived, By nature grieved, Still am I nearer rest than when I first believed. Thou art the voice of Life: A sound which seems to say, "O prisoner in this gloomy vale, Thy flesh shall faint, thy heart shall fail; Yet fairer scenes thy spirit hail, That cannot pass away: Here grief and pain Thy steps detain; There in the image of the Lord shalt thou with Jesus reign." THE WORLD AND THE GOSPEL. THE world with "stones," instead of "bread,” It promised health-in one short hour They made them wings, and fled away; Lord! with the barren service spent, A joy its children never know. PATERNAL CARE OF THE DEITY. THE insect, that with puny wing Just shoots along one summer ray; Even from the glories of his throne MILTON'S SONNET ON HIS BLINDNESS. WHEN I consider how my light is spent, Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one talent, which is death to hide, Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, lest he return and chide. "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?" I fondly ask: but Patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state Is kingly thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean, without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait." THE CHRISTIAN IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH. O MOST delightful hour by man The hour that terminates his span, His folly and his wo! Worlds should not bribe me back to tread Again life's dreary waste, To see again my day o'erspread With all the gloomy past. My home henceforth is in the skies, So speaks the Christian, firm possess'd Then breathes his soul into its rest, The bosom of his God. BLESSED BE THY NAME FOR EVER. BLESSED be thy name for ever, Thou of life the guard and giver; Thou canst guard thy creatures sleeping, Heal the heart long broke with weeping. Of the desert and the ocean, Of the mountain, rock, and river, Thou who slumberest not, nor sleepest, Of midnight's gloom, and dawning day, |