Voice of the tomb!

A thousand hearts thy awful notes have stirr'd,
A thousand years thy deep-toned summons heard
Sound forth the doom,

"Man, thou must die!"

So, prophet-like, would seem the fearful knell
To the chill'd heart th' unerring fate to tell,
"All, all must die!"

Stern tolls thy chime;

The funeral herald of the warrior brave,
Whom glory's halo lighteth to the grave
In life's full prime.

WHERE IS MY GRAVE?
[CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE.]

WHERE is my grave? Mid the silent dead

Of the churchyard throng shall I lay my head?

Shall I sleep in peace, amid those who erst,
In happier years, my childhood nurst-
With them beneath the same green sod,
My soul with theirs gone to meet its God?

Where is my grave? In the vasty deep,
'Mid the treasures of ocean's caves, shall I sleep?
With those who slept there ages before,

Far from their loved and their native shore;
The sand my bed, and the rocks my pillow,
And cradled to rest by the tossing billow?

Where is my grave? Are its dark folds spread
On the field of the bloody, the dying, and dead;
Where fiercely the rush of the war-steed pass'd,
Where freedom hath fought and hath breathed her last,
And the foe and the friend one common bed share,-
Shall my place of repose be there, be there?

Where is my grave? 'Neath some foreign sky
Shall I lay down my wearied limbs and die?
Far over mountain, and far over wave,
Shall the wild-flowers bloom on my lonely grave,
In the land of the stranger, where none are near
To breathe the soft sigh, and to shed the sad tear?

Where is my grave? In the burning sand
Of Afric's bright and sultry land

Shall I sleep, when my toil and my labour are o’er,
A weary shepherd on that far shore;

With no record to tell, save the cross by my side, Of what faith I had preach'd, in what hope I had died?

Where is my grave? It matters not where!
But my home beyond,-is it there, is it there,
Where cherubims spread their golden wings,
And where seraph to seraph triumphant sings:
In the sun-bright regions of the blest,
Shall there be my home, my eternal rest?

A

WRITTEN IN A GRAVE-YARD.

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.]

SWEET and soothing influence breathes around The dwellings of the dead. Here on this spot, Where countless generations sleep forgot, Up from the marble tomb and grassy mound There cometh on my ear a peaceful sound, That bids me be contented with my lot, And suffer calmly. Oh! when passions hot, When rage or envy doth my bosom wound; Or wild designs-a fair deceiving train— Wreathed in their flowery fetters me enslave; Or keen misfortune's arrowy tempests roll Full on my naked head.-Oh! then again May those still, peaceful accents of the grave, Arise, like slumbering music on my soul.

THE CHURCHYARD.

[WORDSWORTH.]

HIS file of Infants; some that never breathed,

THIS

And the besprinkled Nursling, unrequired

Till he begins to smile upon the breast
That feeds him; and the tottering Little-one
Taken from air and sunshine when the rose

Of Infancy first blooms upon his cheek,

The thinking, thoughtless School-boy, the bold Youth
Of soul impetuous, and the bashful Maid
Smitten while all the promises of life

Are opening round her; those of middle age
Cast down while confident in strength they stand,
Like pillars fix'd more firmly, as might seem,
And more secure, by very weight of all
That for support rests on them; the decay'd
And burthensome; and lastly, that poor few
Whose light of reason is with age extinct;
The hopeful and the hopeless, first and last,
The earliest summon'd and the longest spared,
Are here deposited, with tribute paid
Various; but unto each some tribute paid;
As if, amid these peaceful hills and groves,
Society were touch'd with kind concern,

And gentle "Nature grieved that One should die."

FUNERAL DIRGE.

[REV. THOMAS DALE.

DEAR as thou wert, and justly dear,

We will not weep for thee:

One thought shall check the starting tear,
It is that thou art free.

And thus shall Faith's consoling power

The tears of love restrain;

Oh! who that saw thy parting hour,

Could wish thee here again?

Triumphant in thy closing eye,
The hope of glory shone,

Joy breathed in thine expiring sigh,
To think the fight was won.
Gently the passing spirit fled,
Sustain'd by grace divine;

Oh! may such grace on me be shed,
And make my end like thine.

THE ETERNAL SHORE.

[BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.]

THE lake lay hid in mist, and to the sand
The little billows hastening silently,

Came sparkling on, in many a gladsome band,
Soon as they touch'd the shore, all doom'd to die.
I gazed upon them with a pensive eye,

For on that dim and melancholy strand,
I saw the image of man's destiny.

So hurry we right onwards thoughtlessly,
Unto the coast of that Eternal Land,

Where, like the worthless billows in their glee, The first faint touch unable to withstand,

We melt at once into eternity.

Thou who weighest the waters in thine hand,

My awe-struck spirit puts her trust in thee.