Q. What is yon arch which every where I see? Q. Where rests the horizon's all-embracing zone? Where earth, God's footstool, touches heaven, his Q. Ye clouds, what bring ye in your train? A. God's embassies,-storm-lightning-hail-or rain. Q. Winds,-whence and whither do ye A. —Thou must be born again to know. blow? Q. Bow in the cloud,-what token dost thou bear? A. That Justice still cries "strike,” and Mercy “spare.' Q. Dews of the morning,-wherefore were ye given? A. To shine on earth, then rise to heaven. A. Q. Rise, glitter, break; yet, Bubble, tell me why? A. No, thus shall all the host of heaven expire. Q. Ocean,-what law thy chainless waves confined? A. I travel to Eternity. Q. Eternity, what art thou?-say. A. Time past, time present, time to come,-to-day A. The house for all the living;-come and see. A. A vapor, lost in death. Q. O Death, how ends thy strife? Q. O Grave,-where is thy victory? A. Ask him who rose again from me. LESSON CLXV. On the Death of Mrs. Mason.—Mason. 1. TAKE, holy earth! all that my soul holds dear: 2. And died. Does youth, does beauty read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breast alarm? Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine; E'en from the grave thou shalt have power to charm. 3. Bid them be chaste, be innocent like thee; Bid them in duty's sphere, as meekly move: And if as fair, from vanity as free, As firm in friendship, and as fond in love: 4. Tell them, though 'tis an awful thing to die, And bids the "pure in heart behold their God." LESSON CLXVI. Ode from the 19th Psalm.--ADDISON. 1 THE spacious firmament on high, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great original proclaim. Th' unwearied sun, from day to day, Does his Creator's power display; 2. Soon as the evening shades prevail, Whilst all the stars that round her burn, And spread the truth from pole to pole. 3. What though, in solemn silence, all LESSON CLXVII. Rest in Heaven.—ANONYMOUS. 2. If ever life shall seem To thee a toilsome way, O'er shoreless ocean driven; There's rest for thee in Heaven. 3. But O if thornless flowers Throughout thy pathway bloom, Thy better rest in Heaven. 4. When sickness pales thy cheek, Sweet hope shall whisper then "Though thou from earth be riven, "There's bliss beyond thy ken, "There's rest for thee in Heaven." LESSON CLXVIII. The Star of Bethlehem.-H. K. WHITE. 1 WHEN marshalled on the nightly plain, The glittering host bestud the sky; One star alone, of all the train, Can fix the sinner's wandering eye. 2. Once on the raging seas I rode, The storm was loud;-the night was dark, Death struck, I ceased the tide to stem; It was the star of Bethlehem. 3. It was my guide, my light, my all, I'll sing, first in night's diadem, For ever and for ever more, The star, the star of Bethlehem! LESSON CLXIX. Address to Time.-LORD BYRON. 1. Oн Time! the beautifier of the dead, And only healer when the heart hath bled- Time, the avenger! unto thee I lift My hands, and eyes, and heart, and crave of thee a gift. 2. Amidst this wreck, where thou hast made a shrine And temple more divinely desolate, Among thy mightier offerings here are mine, Hear me not; but if calmly I have borne Had it but been from hands less near-in this Dost thou not hear my heart?-Awake, thou shalt and must. 4. It is not, that I may not have incurr'd For my ancestral faults, or mine, the wound With a just weapon, it had flowed unbound; The vengeance which shall yet be sought and found, But let that pass-I sleep, but thou shalt yet awake. 5. And if my voice break forth, 'tis not that now, Not in the air shall these my words disperse, And pile on human heads the mountain of my curse. Hear me, my mother Earth! behold it heaven!— * Nem'-e-sis, the goddess of justice among the Greeks and Romans, usually represented with a pair of scales in one hand, and a whip in the other. +Furies, three fabulous deities, called goddesses of horror. Their office was to observe and punish the actions of bad men, and torment the consciences of secret offenders. Orestes was the son of Agamemnon, a distinguished hero at the siege of Troy, who was killed, on his return to Greece, by his wife and Ægisthus, her base lover. Orestes, to avenge the death of his father, slew his mother; for which act he was pursued by the Furies, and suffered the most excruciating torments. |