Perhaps she loved too well the letter'd page,
The force of intellect, the mental fire;
Was fond to see the holy cause she loved
Adorned with all that learning can impart,
And thought too meanly of the homely garb
That simple poverty so often wears.
Or if of beauty she had something known,
She might remember when her folly prized
Above its worth the transitory good.
'T is certain, that the rising blush betray'd,
Her self-convicted bosom could not boast
The virtue each had challenged as her own.
I heard no more, nor know what passed within-
I may not judge whose heart was proudest there.
He to whose eyes all bosoms are unbarr'd
Might judge that she who blush'd that she was proud,
Was humbler yet than they who knew it not.
I cannot tell-but when they parted thence
To meet their God that night in secret prayer,
I think I know who breathed the deepest groan,
Who sunk the lowest at her Maker's feet,
And with most tears of bitter penitence
Besought an interest in her Savior's blood.
Humility! the sweetest, loveliest flower
That bloom'd in Paradise, and the first that died,
Has rarely blossom'd since on mortal soil.
It is so frail, so delicate a thing,
'T is gone if it but look upon itself;
And she who ventures to esteem it hers,
Proves by that single thought she has it not.
THE heavens, O Lord! thy power proclaim,
And the earth echoes back thy name;
Ten thousand voices speak thy might,
And day to day, and night to night,
Utter thy praise-thou Lord above!
Thy praise-thy glory-and thy love.
All things I see, or hear, or feel,
Thy wisdom, goodness, power reveal.
The silent crescent hung on high,
So calmly sailing through the sky;
The lowliest flower that lights the dells;
The lightest wave the stream that swells-
The breeze that o'er the garden plays;
The farthest planet's glimmering rays;
The dew upon the distant hill;
The vapors that the valley fill;
The grove's untutor'd harmony-
All speak, and loudly speak of Thee.
Thy name, thy glories, they rehearse,
Great Spirit of the universe;
Sense of all sense, and soul of soul,
Nought is too vast for thy control;
The meanest and the mightiest share
Alike thy kindness and thy care.
Beneath thy all-directing nod,
Both worlds and worms are equal, God!
Thy hand the comet's orbit drew,
And lighted yonder glow-worm, too;
Thou didst the dome of heaven build up,
And form'dst yon snowdrop's silver cup,
And nature, with its countless throng,
And sun, and moon, and planet's song,
And every flower that light receives,
And every dew that tips the leaves,
And every murmur of the sea-
Tunes its sweet voice to worship Thee.
GROUP after group are gathering—such as prest
Once to their Savior's arms, and gently laid
Their cherub heads upon his shielding breast,
Though sterner souls the fond approach forbade ;-
Group after group glide on with noiseless tread,
And round Jehovah's sacred altar meet,
Where holy thoughts in infant hearts are bred,
And holy words their ruby lips repeat,
Oft with a chasten'd glance, in modulation sweet.
Yet some there are, upon whose childish brows
Wan poverty hath done the work of care;
Look up, ye sad ones! 't is your Father's house
Beneath whose consecrated dome you are;
More gorgeous robes ye see, and trappings rare,
And watch the gaudier forms that gaily move,
And deem, perchance, mistaken as you are,
The coat of many colors" proves His love, Whose sign is in the heart, and whose reward above.
And ye, blest laborers in this humble sphere,
To deeds of saint-like charity inclined, Who from your cells of meditation dear
Come forth to guide the weak, untutor'd mind— Yet ask no payment, save one smile refined Of grateful love—one tear of contrite pain! Meekly ye forfeit to your mission kind
The rest of earthly Sabbaths.-Be your gain A sabbath without end, 'mid yon celestial plain.
My mother's voice! how often creep
Its accents o'er my lonely hours!
Like healing sent on wings of sleep,
Or dew to the unconscious flowers.
I can forget her melting prayer
While leaping pulses madly fly;
But in the still, unbroken air
Her gentle tones come stealing by,
And years, and sin, and manhood flee,
And leave me at my mother's knee.
The book of nature, and the print
Of beauty on the whispering sea,
Give aye to me some lineament
Of what I have been taught to be.
My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drunk up tears,
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years—
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
I have been out at eventide
Beneath a moonlit sky of spring,
When earth was garnish'd like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing-
When bursting leaves and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that make the pulses pass
With wilder fleetness, throng'd the night;
When all was beauty-then have I,
With friends on whom my love is flung,
Like myrrh on winds of Araby,
Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung. And when the beauteous spirit there Flung over me its golden chain, My mother's voice came on the air, . Like the light dropping of the rain, Shower'd on me from some silver star:
Then, as on childhood's bended knee,
I've pour'd her low and fervent prayer,
That our eternity might be
To rise in heaven like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light.
I have been on the dewy hills,
When night was stealing from the dawn, And mist was on the waking rills,
And tints were delicately drawn
In the gray east-when birds were waking
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