Yet there be vast and dim dominions,

Ocean without a shore, Which not the boldest angel-pinions

Have ventured to explore ;

And there be mysteries fathomless,

Wrought in a realm of fire, Whereat the Cherubim may guess,

But have not dared enquire. One thing we know, that ages back, Before

your

earth was made, There rose a cloud, so densely black

It cast e'en Heaven in shade.

That darkness past, and light on high

Again serenely shone ;
But when we looked along the sky,

Ten thousand stars were gone!

Again the angel-watch was set

The eternal gates before ;
But many a face we there had met,

We met again no more.
God o'er their fate a veil has spread,

Nor further may we win ; Save of its cause a rumour dread,

That fighed the name of fin.

God guard us safe from aught of ill,

In knowledge or in deed !
To know His love, to do His will

We ask no higher meed.

May naught avert the blessing given

His creatures at their birth;
Disturb the harmonies of Heaven,
Or mar the peace of earth.

HANKINSON.

XXXII.

DEATH.

HE feeble pulse, the gasping breath,

The clenched teeth, the glazed eye,Are these thy fting, thou dreadful death?

O grave, are these thy victory?

The mourners by our parting bed,

The wife, the children weeping nigh, The dismal pageant of the dead

These, these are not thy victory !

But from the much-loved world to part,

Our luft untamed, our spirit high, All nature struggling at the heart,

Which, dying, feels it dare not die !

To dream through life a gaudy dream

Of pride, and pomp, and luxury, Till waken’d by the nearer gleam

Of burning, boundless agony ;

To meet o'er foon our angry King,

Whose love we passed unheeded by – Is this, O death, thy deadliest sting?

O grave, and this thy victory?

O Searcher of the secret heart,

Who deigned for finful man to die!
Restore us ere the spirit part,
Nor give to hell the victory.

BISHOP Heber.*

XXXIII.

PRAYER.

up

O and watch the new-born rill
Just trickling from its mossy bed,

Streaking the heath-clad hill
With a bright emerald thread.

Canst thou her bold career foretell,
What rocks she shall o'erleap or rend,

How far in Ocean's swell
Her freshening billows send?

* This powerful description of untamed fin at its closing hour will more forcibly remind the reader of that awful hymn by Peter Damian on “the Last Day,” which is given in this collection, than what is usually found in modern compofitions.

Perchance that little brook shall flow
The bulwark of some mighty realm,

Bear navies to and fro
With monarchs at their helm.

Even so, the course of prayer

who knows? It springs in silence where it will,

Springs out of sight, and flows
At first a lonely rill :

But streams shall meet it by and bye
From thousand sympathetic hearts,

Together swelling high
Their chaunt of many parts.

Unheard by all but angel ears
The good Cornelius knelt alone,

Nor dreamed his prayers and tears
Would help a world undone.

The while upon his terraced roof
The loved Apostle to his Lord

In filent thought aloof
For heavenly vision soared,

Far o'er the glowing western main
His wistful brow was upward raised,

Where, like an Angel's train
The burnish'd water blazed.

The faint beside the ocean prayed,
The soldier in his chosen bower,

Where all his eye surveyed
Seemed sacred in that hour.

To each unknown his brother's prayer,
Yet brethren true in deareft love

Were they, - and now they share
Fraternal joys above.

KERLE.

XXXIV.

PRAYER.

JATHER of all, in every age,

In
every

clime adored;
By saint, by savage, and by fage,

Jehovah, Jove, our Lord.

If I am right, Thy grace impart

Still in the right to stay ; If I am wrong, oh teach

my

heart To find that better way.

Teach me to feel another's woe;

To hide the faults I see ;
The
mercy

I to others show,
That mercy show to me.

Pope.