PASSAGES.

BY WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK.

"Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted."

Matthew, v. 4.

YE! who with tearful eyes

Walk through the devious ways of life and mourn,

'Neath ever changing skies;

Plucking few roses where there lurks no thorn;

And from whose hastening hours few sunny gleams are

born:

Ye! whose rejoicing wave

Of early life, with bitter tides did blend;

Who, in the all-voiceless grave,

Have laid the kind of earth-lover and friend;
Burying with them the joy that other years might lend ;—

And ye! whom sicknesses

And heaviness of heart have chastened down;

Like the autumnal trees,

Stript of the glory of their Summer crown,

While sullen winds fly sad, o'er meadows sere and

brown:

N

Come ye! and from THE WORD Receive deep comfort as your days go by;

Weep not the unrestored;

But looking upward, with Faith's steady eye,
Restrain the unbidden tear, and check the restless sigh.

For blest are they that mourn,

Though dark and sunless all their paths may be ;

Though o'er the mouldering urn

They pour the voice of wail, while Memory

Paints all the vanished years which they no more may see.

Thrice blest are they who mourn,

Sorrowing, but with a hope which cheers them on;— Though friend from friend be torn;

Though the heart yearns for sweet enjoyments flown, Stirred by remembered smiles, and love's confiding tone.

Oh! 'tis but for a day

Before these phantoms, like the pall of night,

Will fade and pass away;

Then Heaven will break on the believer's sight,

And earth's dull clouds be lost in blaze of endless light!

Philadelphia, United States, 1829.

A VISIT TO BEACHY HEAD.

BY THE REV. CHAUNCY HARE TOWNSHEND, M.A.

I had never seen Beachy Head. It was near the close of a fine autumn day that this monarch of our English cliffs was pointed out to me by the driver of the coach, on the roof of which I was travelling towards Eastbourne. Probable as it is that my reader may have seen Beachy Head, I will yet describe its peculiar appearance; for I know, by my own feelings, that it is far more pleasant to read the description of a place one has, than that of a place one has not seen. With what delight the inhabitants of our metropolis throng to the panorama of London itself, while each complacently discovers his own house, or at least his own street! A representation of Pekin would not be half so

attractive.

Beachy Head, then, is only the seaward termination of that vast ridge, known by the name of the South Downs, which boldly presents its forehead

to the British Channel, and runs back through the interior of Sussex, till it blends with the high ranges of the Kent and Surrey hills. I now beheld this ridge in all its inland length, skirting the horizon with a line which was grand only from its continuity and the elevation at which it was drawn ; for it presented no striking inequalities, and in two places alone rose into abruptness; the one near the centre, the other just before its descent into the ocean, then hidden by intervening headlands. At the time I speak of, the whole range was overspread with a tint of the deepest blue, strongly contrasted with the orange hues of the setting sun.

"Well, that's a fine sight and a grand one!" ejaculated the coachman, as he pointed his whip towards the half-sunk Orb.

I was a little surprised at his sensibility to the beauties of nature; for in all my stage-coach journeyings, I had observed that the extreme indifference with which any striking spectacle of heaven or earth was beheld by the lower orders, could compete with the most chilling apathy of any child of fashion ;-sad proof that the human mind, under all circumstances, is disinclined to regard the operations of the Almighty Hand! In the present instance our coachman's enthusiasm soon exhausted

itself, and dropped into the bathos of, "He looks rare and red. I don't think we shall have any dirty weather yet!"

Long after the Sun had set, I continued to gaze upon the West, attracted by the fantastic appearance of a grove of clouds, which seemed to grow out of the blue hill into the clear amber sky; and I thought of Shakspeare's enumeration of aërial illusions:

"A forked mountain, or blue promontory,
With trees upon 't that nod unto the world,

And mock our eyes with air.”

It was long since I had seen the Sea, and I was expecting the first burst of its grandeur-not quite with the impatience of the Ten Thousand certainly — but still with some curious feelings;—I did not know that I had actually been looking at it for the last half hour! A uniform colouring of misty gray so entirely mingled ocean with sky, that my sight was completely baffled, until I saw an object resembling, as I imagined, a balloon in the air. I rubbed my eyes, and looking more intensely, perceived that it was a ship with full sails set, which, like Munchausen's famous vessel in its visit to the moon, had all the appearance of skimming along several degrees above the horizon.-I wish that