EVENTIDE.

From the "Salem Register."

AT cool of day, with God I walk

My garden's grateful shade:

I hear his voice among the trees,

And I am not afraid.

I see his presence in the night,
And, though my heart is awed,
I do not quail beneath the sight
Or nearness of my God.
He speaks to me in every wind,
He smiles from every star;
He is not deaf to me, nor blind,
Nor absent; nor afar.

His hand, that shuts the flowers to sleep,

Each in its dewy fold,

Is strong my feeble life to keep,
And competent to hold.

I cannot walk in darkness long, —
My light is by my side;

I cannot stumble or go wrong
While following such a guide.

He is my stay and my defence;
How shall I fail or fall?
My helper is Omnipotence !
My ruler ruleth all!

The powers below and powers above

Are subject to his care:

I cannot wander from his love

Who loves me everywhere.

Thus dowered, and guarded thus, with him. I walk this peaceful shade;

I hear his voice among the trees,

And I am not afraid!

LYDIA L. A. VERY.

(1823.)

LYDIA LOUISA ANN VERY, sister of Jones and Washington Very, both of whom have a place in the roll of our singers, was born in Salem, Nov. 2, 1823. For about thirty years she has been, with her sister, Frances Eliza, a teacher in the schools of her native city. She shares largely the fine poetic gift which distinguishes the family, and in 1856 published a volume of her verses, which was printed by W. F. Draper, Andover, Mass. Since then, she has from time to time contributed other offerings to various Boston and Salem papers, while yet engaged in her vocation as a teacher. As an artist, she has produced pictorial illustrations of "Little Red Riding Hood," and other children's stories, accompanied by exquisite designs and pretty juvenile verses. These have proved to be very popular, and have been republished in Germany.

Of the four poems which are here given, the first two are taken from the volume of 1856, and the last two are selected from the fugitive pieces which she has since contributed to the papers.

TO THE VIRGIN.

HOLY Mother! had no angel's voice

Proclaimed the Christ should nestle in thine arms,

Had no glad tidings bid thine heart rejoice,

Would'st thou have seen aught but an infant's charms?

Would the small dimpled hand have told to thee
That it possessed for men a healing power?

That it should make the blind new beauty see,
From the blue heavens to the small blushing flower?

In the low childish voice, would'st thou have heard
Token of Him who should command the sea;

Who should recall the spirit by a word,

In the same earthly home once more to be?

Or, would the Saviour have been held by thee
As now full many a babe unconscious lies,
Plaything for wealth, burden for poverty,

An unknown angel in an earthly guise!

Methinks the Saviour was to thee revealed

That thou should'st grieve him not in infancy, Proud that thine arms the Holy Child might shield, The opening promise of earth's brighter day!

TO THE UNKNOWN CHRIST.

HOU wert beside us on our daily way,

THOU

And we perceived not thy benignant eyes;
Nor marked thee stop, earth's sorrows to allay,
Reaching the wretchedness that lowest lies.

Careless we walked, nor saw the blind receive
The sight of things their inward eyes knew not;
The famished multitudes by thee were fed,

And we of living bread no morsel sought.

We gazed upon the dead, and saw the tomb
Seal up its treasure from our weeping eyes;
Nor felt thy glory shine amid the gloom,

Nor heard thy voice say to the soul, "Arise!"

Women we saw, bowed down for eighteen years,
Who 'neath their cross a patient spirit wore;
Nor knew thine eye had rested there with ours,
And thy compassion half their burden bore.

Or when the Sea of Life in storms rose high,
While heavy surges swept us at their will,
And calm arose, we knew not thou wert nigh,
Walking the waves and saying, "Peace, be still!

And when the sick and weary round thee came
To hear thy tenderness and love revealed,
We pressed not through the crowd to touch thy robe,
And of our long-borne anguish to be healed.

For thou, unknown, the earth hast wandered o'er,
The gorgeous fanes we reared for thee passed by:

We sought thee not in earth's low places, where
Thy ministry now, as of old, doth lie.

HUN

THE PROMISES.

[UNGER no more, O starving ones of earth! Who know not where to find your daily bread, Whose life-long struggle is a strife to live,Know by his hand all hungry ones are fed! He will not thrust you empty from His door; Receive the Bread of Life, nor hunger more!

Thirst never more, O sinful ones of earth,

Who by forbidden waters learned to stray,
Who from the innocence that guards each birth
Wander through guilty pleasures far away!
Redeemed, forgiven, come walk by cooling streams,
In living waters lose your feverish dreams!

Faint never more, O weary ones of earth,
With heavy crosses painful to be borne !

There's one whose eye perceives each spirit's worth,
Pities each soul by daily trials worn,
His hand shall loose at last the weary load,
And lead each pilgrim to his blest abode.

THE FIRST CABLE.

THERE is a cable stretched from earth to heaven;
The waves of thought it deeply underlies,
Where all is calm and still as summer's even,
Where deep to deep with solemn voice replies.

Far, far beneath the surf of passion's foam,

Or where light bubbles dally with the wind,
Where life's bright sands have found a quiet home,
And bury treasures that no eye can find.

Cable of Prayer! where messages do pass
More subtle than the electric fluid sends,

Where words gush forth unmeasured and unbought,
And through the unknown realm we reach our friends!

Cable of Prayer! stretched ages long ago
Beneath the tide of pagan mystery,
Beneath the waves of human guilt and woe,
Stretching beyond the Future's boundless sea.

Cable of Prayer! whose rivets never break,
Fastened secure to hearts in earth and heaven!
The solid earth with mighty shocks may quake
Ere from the Rock of Ages thou art riven!

Cable of Prayer! while mortal life shall last,

Or human weakness need an heavenly friend,
Still shall the heart, 'mid sins and sorrows cast,
Comfort receive and supplications send.

WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER.

(1823.)

REV. WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER was born in Freetown, Mass., in 1823. Having pursued his earlier studies at Pembroke, N. H., and elsewhere, he entered the Divinity School at Cambridge, where he graduated in 1847. In the same year he was settled over the Mount Pleasant Society at Roxbury, Mass. He became the minister of the Bulfinch Street Church, in Boston, in 1855, and was afterward preacher at Music Hall, where Theodore Parker had stood from Sunday to Sunday during the last years of his memorable public ministrations. Mr. Alger received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard College, in 1852.

Beside contributing numerous theological and literary articles to the "Christian Examiner,” the “Galaxy,” and other periodicals, he has published a variety of volumes of an important and interesting character, which have gained him no little celebrity as an author: a small volume giving a Symbolic History of the Cross of Christ, 1851; "The Poetry of the East," containing, with an Introduction, more than four hundred of his metrical versions from Oriental literature, 1856; several other enlarged and greatly enriched editions of the same; "A Critical History of the Doctrine of the Future Life," a royal octavo volume of nine hundred and fourteen pages, with a complete Bibliography of the subject, 1864; various later editions of the same, revised and improved; "The