F veiled our eyes, their piercing fight
Can yet difcern fome glimmering light;
And Pilgrims wandering here below,
With fome celeftial impulfe glow,
When fleeing this domain of life,
They tread the pure and hallowed way,
Up to their Father's realm of day.
How bleft the foul, which having fled
The toils that o'er its path were spread,
At one light bound from matter fprings,
And feeks its God on rapture's wings!
How bleft is he, who, after all
The ills and changes that befall,
Hath trod the intellectual way,
And viewed where beams of glory play,
The fount of light, the throne of day!
Let every wish and thought afpire
On wings of love, on wings of fire;
And O may refolution nerve
Thy breaft, untaught to yield or fwerve.
Then will thy Heavenly Parent ftand,
And proffer, with paternal hand,
To lead thee to a kindred band.
An orb of fire will blaze before thee,
Reveal the fair ethereal plain,
Where beauty firft began her reign,
And light thee to the realm of glory.
Awake, my foul, and quaff thy fill,
Drink freely of that fountain-rill,
Whose wave impregned with bleffing flows,
The Lethe of terreftrial woes
Bend lowly at thy Father's fhrine,
To earth the cares of earth refign,
And rife to life and joy divine;
To dwell in union with thy God, perchance,
A God thyfelf to move in Heaven's eternal dance!
ELL me not in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the foul is dead that flumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earneft!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Duft thou art, to duft returneft,"
Was not spoken of the foul.
Not enjoyment, and not forrow,
Is our deftined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though ftout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating, Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the ftrife!
Truft no Future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives fublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the fands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's folemn main,
A forlorn and fhipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
E who hath bent him o'er the dead
Ere the first day of death is fled,
The firft dark day of nothingness,
The laft of danger and diftrefs,
(Before decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the lines where Beauty lingers),
And marked the mild angelic air,
The rapture of repofe that's there,
The fixed yet tender traits that ftreak
The languor of that placid cheek,-
And, but for that fad fhrouded eye,
That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Where cold obftruction's apathy
Appals the gazing mourner's heart,
As if to him it could impart
The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon;
Yes, but for these and these alone,
Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour,
He ftill might doubt the tyrant's power;
So fair, fo calm, fo foftly fealed,
The firft, laft look by death revealed.
ITAL fpark of Heavenly flame,
Quit, oh, quit this mortal frame,
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying,
O, the pain, the bliss of dying!
Ceafe, fond nature, cease thy ftrife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark they whisper; Angels fay,
"Sifter Spirit, come away!"
What is this abforbs me quite ?
Steals my fenfes, fhuts my fight?
Drowns my fpirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my foul, can this be death?
The world recedes; it disappears;
Heaven opens on my eyes; my ears
With founds feraphic ring;
Lend, lend your wings! I mount! I fly!
O Grave! where is thy victory?
O Death! where is thy fting?
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