I. Through cold reproof and slander's blight? Is her's an eye of this world's light? Are the pale looks of her I love, Its beam is kindled from above. II. From those who seek their Maker's shrine it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place.”—Jer. vii. 32. * These lines were suggested by a passage in St. Jerome's reply to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated upon his intimacy with the matron Paula :-“ Numquid me vestes sericæ, nitentes gemmæ, picta facies, aut auri rapuit ambitio ? Nulla fuit alia Romæ matronarum, quæ meam possit edomare mentem, nisi lugens atque jejunans, fletu pene cæcata.”—Epist. “ Si tibi putem.” In gems and garlands proudly deck'd, As if themselves were things divine! III. Not so the faded form I prize And love, because its bloom is gone; Is all the grace her brow puts on. * Ου γαρ κυσοφορειν την διήρκεσαν δει.-Chrysost. Homil. 8. in Epist. ad Tim. THE BIRD, LET LOOSE. Air.-BEETHOVEN. 1. THE bird, let loose in eastern skies,* Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies But high she shoots through air and light, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, II. So grant me, GOD! from every care And stain of passion free, Aloft, through Virtue's purer air, My Soul, as home she springs;— * The carrier-pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined. OH! THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR! Air.-HAYDN. “ He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.”—Psalm cxlvii. 3. I. How dark this world would be, We could not fly to Thee. When winter comes, are flown; those tears alone. Which, like the plants that throw Their fragrance from the wounded part, Breathes sweetness out of woe. II. And even the hope that threw A moment's sparkle o'er our tears, Is dimm'd and vanish'd too! Oh! who would bear life's stormy doom, Did not thy Wing of Love Come, brightly wafting through the gloom Then Sorrow, touch'd by Thee, grows bright WEEP NOT FOR THOSE. Air.-AVISON. I. WEEP not for those whom the veil of the tomb, In life's happy morning, hath hid from our eyes, Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom, Or Earth had profaned what was born for the skies. Death chill'd the fair fountain, ere sorrow had stain'd it, 'Twas frozen in all the pure light of its course, |