WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS

SUFFERING CLAY.

1.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay,
Ah, whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of

space,

A thing of eyes, that all survey?

2.

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,

Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

3.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth,

The spirit trace its rising track.
And where the future mars or makes,

Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While sun is quench'd or system breaks,
Fix'd in its own eternity.

4.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,
It lives all passionless and pure:
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its
years as moments shall endure.

Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly;

A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

1.

THE King was on his throne,

The Satraps throng'd the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless Heathen's wine!

VOL. IV.

2.
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man ;-
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

3.

The monarch saw, and shook,

And bade no more rejoice; All bloodless wax'd his look,

And tremulous his voice. "Let the men of lore appear,

"The wisest of the earth, "And expound the words of fear, Which mar our royal mirth."

4.

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood

Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of

age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage,

They saw-but knew no more.

5.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,

He heard the king's command,

He saw that writing's truth. The lamps around were bright,

The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

6. "Belshazzar's grave is made, "His kingdom pass'd away, "He, in the balance weigh'd,

"Is light and worthless clay. "The shroud, his robe of state,

"His canopy the stone;

"The Mede is at his

gate! "The Persian on his throne!"