V.-THE DISEMBODIED SPIRIT.
O SACRED star of evening, tell
In what unseen, celestial sphere,
Those spirits of the perfect dwell,
Too pure to rest in sadness here.
Roam they the crystal fields of light,
O'er paths by holy angels trod,
Their robes with heavenly lustre bright,
Their home, the Paradise of God?
Soul of the just; and canst thou soar
Amidst those radiant spheres sublime,
Where countless hosts of heaven adore,
Beyond the bounds of space or time?
And canst thou join the sacred choir,
Through heaven's high dome the song to raise
Where seraphs strike the golden lyre
In ever-during notes of praise?
Oh! who would heed the chilling blast
That blows o'er time's eventful sea,
If bid to hail, its perils past,
The bright wave of eternity!
And who the sorrows would not bear
Of such a transient world as this,
When hope displays, beyonds its care,
So bright an entrance into bliss!
William B. O. Peabody.
VI.-GOD THE SOURCE OF EXCELLENCE. FROM heaven my strains begin; from heaven descends The flame of genius to the human breast,
And love, and beauty, and poetic joy,
And inspiration. Ere the radiant sun
Sprang from the east, or 'mid the vault of night
The moon suspended her serener lamp;
Ere mountains, woods, or streams, adorned the globe,
Or Wisdom taught the sons of men her lore,
Then lived the Almighty One; then deep retired
In His unfathomed essence, viewed the forms,
The forms eternal, of created things:
The radiant sun, the moon's nocturnal lamp,
The mountains, woods, and streams, the rolling globe,
And Wisdom's mien celestial. From the first
Of days on them His love divine He fixed,
His admiration, till, in time complete,
What He admired and loved His vital smile
Unfolded into being. Hence the breath
Of life informing each organic frame,
Hence the green earth, and wild resounding waves,
Hence light and shade alternate, warmth and cold,
And clear autumnal skies and vernal showers,
And all the fair variety of things.
VII.-THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.
VITAL spark of heavenly flame:
Quit, oh quit, this mortal frame:
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying;
Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark, they whisper; angels say,
Sister spirit, come away!
What is this absorbs me quite?
Steals my senses, shuts my sight?
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes! it disappears!
Heaven opens on my eyes! my ears
With sounds seraphic ring:
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy sting?
VIII.-THE HOUR OF PRAYER.
CHILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thy earnest eye,
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve,
Called thy harvest-work to leave;
Pray!-ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee.
Traveller, in the stranger's land,
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea,
Lift the heart and bend the knee.
Warrior, that from battle won,
Breathest now at set of sun;
Woman, o'er the lowly slain,
Weeping on his burial plain!
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie:
Heaven's first star alike ye see—
Lift the heart and bend the knee.
We have short time to stay as you;
We have as short a spring.
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you or anything:
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
X.-THE FUTURE MERCIFULLY CONCEALED.
Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate,
All but the page prescribed, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know :
Or who could suffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reason would he skip and play?
Pleased to the last, he crops the flowery food,
And licks the hand just raised to shed his blood.
Oh, blindness to the future! kindly given,
That each may fill the circle marked by Heaven:
Who sees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall,
Atoms or systems into ruin hurled,
And now a bubble burst, and now a world.
Hope humbly, then; with trembling pinions soar, Wait the great teacher, Death; and God adore. What future bliss, He gives not thee to know, But gives that hope to be thy blessing now. Hope springs eternal in the human breast; Man never Is, but always To be blest: The soul, uneasy, and confined from home, Rests and expatiates in a life to come.
SOUND, sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,
Jehovah hath triumphed-his people are free!
Sing for the pride of the tyrant is broken,
His chariots and horsemen so splendid and braveHow vain was their boasting-the Lord hath but spoken, And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave! Then sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea, Jehovah hath triumphed-his people are free!
Praise, praise to the conqueror, praise to the Lord,
His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword!
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story
Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride?
For the Lord hath looked forth from his pillar of glory,
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide!
Sound, sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea,
Jehovah hath triumphed-his people are free!
XII.—CATO ON THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
Ir must be so-Plato, thou reason'st well!
Else, whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality?
Or, whence this secret dread, and inward horror,
Of falling into nought? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?-
'Tis the Divinity that stirs within us;
'Tis heaven itself, that points out—a hereafter,
And intimates-Eternity to man.
Eternity!-thou pleasing-dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we pass!
The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me,
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us--
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud
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