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Like children for some bauble fair

That weep themselves to rest;
We part with life-awake! and there
The jewel in our breast!

CONSOLATION FROM GOD'S VISIBLE WORKS.

WITNESS Thou!

O Mighty One! whose saving love has stolen
On the deep peace of moonbeams to my heart,
Thou! who with looks of mercy oft hast cheered
The starry silence, when, at noon of night,
On some wild mountain Thou hast not declined
The homage of Thy lonely worshipper,-
Bear witness, Thou! that both in joy and grief,
The love of nature long hath been with me
The love of virtue: that the solitude
Of the remotest hills to me hath been

Thy temple that the fountain's happy voice

Hath sung Thy goodness; and Thy power has stunned My spirit in the roaring cataract!

Oh! how oft

In seasons of depression,

when the lamp

Of life burned dim, and all unpleasing thoughts
Subdued the proud aspirings of the soul,-
When doubts and fears withheld the timid eye
From scanning scenes to come, and a deep sense

Of human frailty turned the past to pain,-
How oft have I remembered that a world

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Of glory lay around me,- that a source
Of lofty solace lay in every star;

And that no being need behold the sun

And grieve, that knew WHO hung him in the sky!

Thus unperceived I woke from heavy grief
To airy joy and seeing that the mind.
Of man, though still the image of his God,
Leaned by his will on various happiness,
I felt that all was good; that faculties
Though low, might constitute, if rightly used,
True wisdom; and when man hath here attained
The purpose of his being, he will sit

Near Mercy's throne, whether his course hath been
Prone on the earth's dim sphere, or, as with wing
Of viewless eagle, round the central blaze.

IMMORTAL HOPES.

O, WHAT were life,

Even in the warm and summer light of joy,
Without those hopes, that, like refreshing gales
At evening from the sea, come o'er the soul
Breathed from the ocean of eternity!

And O! without them who could bear the storms

That fall in roaring blackness o'er the waters
Of agitated life. Then hopes arise

All round our sinking souls, like those fair birds,
O'er whose soft plumes the tempest has no power,
Waving their snow-white wings amid the darkness,
And wiling us, with gentle motion, on

To some calm island, on whose silvery strand,
Dropping at once, they fold their silent pinions,
And, as we touch the shores of paradise,
In love and beauty walk around our feet!

THE EVENING CLOUD.

A CLOUD lay cradled near the setting sun,
A gleam of crimson tinged its braided snow:
Long had I watched the glory moving on
O'er the still radiance of the Lake below.
Tranquil its spirit seemed it floated slow;
Even in its very motion, there was rest:
While every breath of eve that chanced to blow,
Wafted the traveller to the beauteous West.
Emblem, methought, of the departed soul !
To whose white robe the gleam of bliss is given;
And, by the breath of Mercy, made to roll
Right onward to the golden gates of Heaven,
Where, to the eye of Faith, it peaceful lies
And tells to man his glorious destinies.

Leigh Hunt.

1784.

SCENE.

REFLECTIONS OF A SOUL ON DEATH.

·A female sitting by a bedside, anxiously looking at the

face of her husband, just dead.

soliloquizes.

The soul within the dead body

WHAT change is this! What joy! What depth of

rest!

What suddenness of withdrawal from all pain

Into all bliss! into a balm so perfect

I do not even smile! I tried but now,

With that breath's end, to speak to the dear face
That watches me and lo! all in an instant,

Instead of toil, and a weak, weltering tear,

I am all peace, all happiness, all power,

Laid on some throne in space. Great God! I am

dead.

[A pause.] Dear God! Thy love is perfect; Thy

truth known.

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[Another.] And He, and they! How simple and strange! How beautiful!

But I may whisper it not, even to thought,
Lest strong imagination, hearing it,

Speak, and the world be shattered.

[Soul again pauses.] O balm! O bliss! O saturating

smile

Unvanishing! O doubt ended! certainty
Begun! O will, faultless, yet all indulged,
Encouraged to be wilful; - to delay

Even its wings for heaven;

- and thus to rest

Here, here, ev'n here, - 'twixt heaven and earth

awhile,

A bed in the morn of endless happiness.

I feel warm drops falling upon my face;

My wife! my love! — 'tis for the best thou canst not

Know how I know thee weeping, and how fond

A kiss meets thine in these unowning lips.

Ah, truly was my love what thou didst hope it,
And more; and so was thine I read it all ·
And our small feuds were but impatiences
At seeing the dear truth ill understood.

Poor sweet! thou blamest now thyself, and heapest
Memory on memory of imagined wrong,

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I know the end, and how thou'lt smile hereafter.

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