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And, when the rose-bud's virgin breath
With fragrance fills the morning air,
Imagine me released from death,
And all my soul reviving there.

LESSON XXV.

Thoughts of a young man in the prospect of death.HENRY K. WHITE.

SAD, solitary Thought, who keep'st thy vigils,
Thy solemn vigils, in the sick man's mind,
Communing lonely with his sinking soul,
And musing on the dubious glooms that lie
In dim obscurity before him,-thee,
Wrapped in thy dark magnificence, I call
At this still, midnight hour, this awful season,
When, on my bed, in wakeful restlessness,
I turn me, wearisome. While all, around,
All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness,
I only wake to watch the sickly taper
Which lights me to my tomb.-Yes, 'tis the hand
Of death I feel press heavy on my vitals,
Slow-sapping the warm current of existence.
My moments now are few.-The sand of life
Ebbs fastly to its finish.-Yet a little,
And the last fleeting particle will fall,
Silent, unseen, unnoticed, unlamented.
Come, then, sad Thought, and let us meditate,
While meditate we may.-There's left us now
But a small portion of what men call time,
To hold communion; for, even now,
the knife,
The separating knife, I feel divide

The tender bond that binds my soul to earth.
Yes, I must die-I feel that I must die;

And though, to me, life has been dark and dreary,
Though hope, for me, has smiled but to deceive,
And disappointment marked me as her victim,
Yet do I feel my soul recoil within me,
As I contemplate the dim gulf of death,
The shuddering void, the awful blank-futurity.

Ay, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme
Of earthly happiness-romantic schemes,
And fraught with loveliness:—and it is hard
To feel the hand of death arrest one's steps,
Throw a chill blight o'er all one's budding hopes,
And hurl one's soul untimely to the shades,
Lost in the gaping gulf of blank oblivion.
Fifty years hence, and who will hear of Henry?
O, none :—another busy brood of beings
Will shoot up in the interim, and none

Will hold him in remembrance. I shall sink
As sinks a stranger in the crowded streets
Of busy London :-some short bustle's caused,
A few inquiries, and the crowds close in,
And all's forgotten. On my grassy grave
The men of future times will careless tread,
And read my name upon the sculptured stone;
Nor will the sound, familiar to their ears,
Recall my vanished memory.
I did hope
For better things :-I hoped I should not leave
The earth without a vestige. Fate decrees
It shall be otherwise, and I submit.

Henceforth, O world, no more of thy desires !
No more of hope !-the wanton, vagrant hope!
I abjure all.-Now other cares engross me,
And my tired soul, with emulative haste,
Looks to its God, and plumes its wings for heaven

LESSON XXVI.

The Grave.-BERNARD BARTON.

I LOVE to muse, when none are nigh,
Where yew tree branches wave,
And hear the winds, with softest sigh,
Sweep o'er the grassy grave.

It seems a mournful music, meet
To soothe a lonely hour;

Sad though it be, it is more sweet
Than that from Pleasure's bower.

I know not why it should be sad,
Or seem a mournful tone,
Unless by man the spot be clad
With terrors not its own.

To nature it seems just as dear
As earth's most cheerful site;
The dew-drops glitter there as clear,
The sun-beams shine as bright.

The showers descend as softly there
As on the loveliest flowers;
Nor does the moon-light seem more fair
On Beauty's sweetest bowers.

"Ay! but within-within, there sleeps
One, o'er whose mouldering clay

The loathsome earth-worm winds and creeps

And wastes that form away."

And what of that? The frame that feeds
The reptile tribe below,

As little of their banquet heeds,

As of the winds that blow.

LESSON XXVII.

The Fall of the Leaf.-MILONOV.*

THE autumnal winds had stripped the field Of all its foliage, all its green;

The winter's harbinger had stilled

That soul of song which cheered the scene.

With visage pale, and tottering gait,

As one who hears his parting knell,

I saw a youth disconsolate :

He came to breathe his last farewell.

"Thou grove! how dark thy gloom to me! Thy glories riven by autumn's breath!

* From Bowring's Russian Anthology, Vol. II.

In every falling leaf I see

A threatening messenger of death.

"O Esculapius!* in my ear

:

Thy melancholy warnings chime :-
'Fond youth! bethink thee, thou art here
A wanderer-for the last, last time.

"Thy spring will winter's gloom o'ershade,
Ere yet the fields are white with snow;
Ere yet the latest flowerets fade,

Thou, in thy grave, wilt sleep below.'

"I hear the hollow murmuring

The cold wind rolling o'er the plain—
Alas! the brightest days of spring

How swift! how sorrowful! how vain!

"O wave, ye dancing boughs, O wave!
Perchance to-morrow's dawn may see
My mother, weeping on my grave :—
Then consecrate my memory.

"I see, with loose, dishevelled hair,
Covering her snowy bosom, come
The angel of my childhood there,
And dew, with tears, my early tomb.

"Then, in the autumn's silent eve,
With fluttering wing and gentlest tread,
My spirit its calm bed shall leave,
And hover o'er the mourner's head."

Then he was silent:-faint and slow
His steps retraced :—he came no more
The last leaf trembled on the bough,

And his last pang of life was o'er.

Beneath the aged oaks he sleeps:

The angel of his childhood there
No watch around his tomb-stone keeps,
But, when the evening stars appear,

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In the Greek mythology, the cock was one of the animals consecrated to Asculapius, the god of medicine

The woodman, to his cottage bound,
Close to that grave is wont to tread :
But his rude footsteps, echoed round,
Break not the silence of the dead.

LESSON XXVIII.

Obedience to the Commandments of God rewarded.—MOODIE.

THE heathen, unsupported by those prospects which the Gospel opens, might be supposed to have sunk under every trial; yet, even among them, was sometimes displayed an exalted virtue: a virtue, which no interest, no danger, could shake: a virtue, which could triumph amidst tortures and death a virtue, which, rather than forfeit its conscious integrity, could be content to resign its consciousness forever. And shall not the Christian blush to repine?-the Christian, from before whom the veil is removed; to whose eyes are revealed the glories of heaven?

Your indulgent Ruler doth not call you to run in vain, or to labour in vain. Every difficulty, and every trial, that occurs in your path, is a fresh opportunity, presented by his kindness, of improving the happiness, after which he hath taught you to aspire. By every hardship which you sustain in the wilderness, you secure an additional portion of the promised land. What though the combat be severe? A kingdom, an everlasting kingdom,—is the prize of victory. Look forward to the triumph which awaits you, and your courage will revive. Fight the good fight, finish your course, keep the faith: there is laid up for you a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shail give unto you at that day.

What though, in the navigation of life, you have sometimes to encounter the war of elements? What though the winds rage, though the waters roar, and danger threatens around? Behold, at a distance, the mountains appear: your friends are impatient for your arrival: already the feas* is prepared, and the rage of the storm shall serve only to waft you sooner to the haven of rest. No tempests assail those blissful regions which approach to view: all is peaceful and serene:-there you shall enjoy eternal comfort; and the recollection of the hardships which you now encounter shall heighten the felicity of better days.

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