Methinks this duft yet heaves with breath,

Ten thousand pulfes beat;

Tell me, in this fmall hill of death,

How

many mortals meet?

JAMES MONTGOMERY.

XXXI.

THE RAIN DROP.

HAT if each drop of rain fhould plead,
So fmall a drop as I

Can ne'er refresh the thirsty glebe;
I'll tarry in the sky?

What if each little ray at noon
Should in its fountain ftay;
Because its feeble light alone
Cannot create a day?

Doth not each rain-drop help to form

The cool refreshing shower;

And every ray of light to warm

And beautify the flower?

XXXII

THE FALLING LEAF.

EE! the leaves around us falling,
Dry and withered to the ground;
Thus to thoughtlefs mortals calling,
In a fad and folemn found:

"Sons of Adam (once in Eden
Where, like us, ye blighted fell),
Hear the leffon we are reading,
Mark the awful truths we tell.

"Youth, on length of days prefuming,
Who the paths of pleasure tread,
View us late in beauty blooming,
Numbered now among the dead.

"What though yet no loffes grieve you, Gay with health and many a grace; Let not cloudlefs fkies deceive you, Summer gives to autumn place.

"Yearly in our courfe returning,
Meffengers of shortest stay,

Thus we preach this truth concerning,
Heaven and Earth fhall pass away.

"On the tree of life eternal,

Oh let all our hopes be laid!

This alone, for ever vernal,

Bears a leaf that fhall not fade."

BISHOP HORNE.

XXXIII.

THE LAST MAN IN SIR JOHN FRANK

LIN'S EXPEDITION.

I.

HEY have fallen one by one;
The laft, but one, to-day-
God! am I left, alone,

To track this weary way;
My weary way to the River,
The haven where I would be?
But, alas! heart-ftruck I fhiver

I can never attain the fea!
I am touching his lifeless head,

A waif on this defolate fhore ;
I am kiffing the laft of the dead-
Shall I fee man's face no more?

Cold, Cold, Cold,

But mine hour is not yet told!

Sir John Franklin's Expedition. 161

II.

In mine ear the terrible rush,

The thundering rush of the floe;

And the fhriek of her ribs in the grinding crush,
And the good fhip in her throe.

In mine heart, their mute despair,
And the groans of our wailing knell,

As the death-call fwooped through the pitiless air,
And the pale men drooped and fell.
Where they fell, they lay;

Not a knee rofe more to the light;
The reeling and shrunken clay
Sank at once into icy night!
Cold, Cold, Cold,

And mine hour as yet untold!

III.

Mine eyelids burn; congeals
My brain within its cell;
And the scalding tear-drop fteals
From an overflowing well;

For I dream of fond hearts at home,
I think of the brave that are gone;
As I gaze at this star-lit dome,
And stagger from stone to stone.
We were two but yesternight,
And, faint, to this welcome fod
I've crawled, till he's out of fight-
And there's no one near but God!
Cold, Cold, Cold,

And mine hour is nearly told!

M

IV.

When they come, for come they will,

Nor fearch this coaft in vain,
They will find us sleeping still,
On its lone unfriendly plain;
But none fhall ever know,

Till the Great Day comes at last
Our griefs in these realms of fnow,
And the horrors of the Paft!
For I fink on this fatal beach;

;

I have prayed with my latest breath;
And my struggles will only reach
The River of Life, in Death!
Cold, Cold, icy Cold,

And mine own laft hour is told!

B. P.

XXXIV.

THE CHURCH-YARD.

HE Curfew tolls the knell of parting day;

The lowing herd winds flowly o'er

the lea;

The ploughman homeward plods his

weary way,

And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the fight,
And all the air a folemn ftillness holds -

Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,

And drowsy tinklings lull the diftant folds.