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He bows the heav'ns-the mountains stand,
A highway for their God;
He walks amidst the desert land,-
'Tis Eden where he trod.

The forests in his strength rejoice,
Hark! on the evening breeze,
As one of old, the Lord God's voice
Is heard among the trees.

Here on the hills he feeds his herds,
His flocks on yonder plains;
His praise is warbled by the birds;
O could we catch their strains!

Mount with the lark, and bear our song
Up to the gates of light;

Or, with the nightingale, prolong
Our numbers through the night!

In ev'ry stream his bounty flows,
Diffusing joy and wealth;
In ev'ry breeze his Spirit blows,
The breath of life and health.

His blessings fall in plenteous show'rs

Upon the lap of earth,

That teems with foliage, fruit, and flow'rs,
And rings with infant mirth.

If God hath made this world so fair,
Where sin and death abound,
How beautiful beyond compare
Will Paradise be found!

MONTGOMERY.

TO THE MORNING LARK.

FEATHER'D lyric warbling high,
Sweetly gaining on the sky-

Opening with thy matin lay,
Nature's hymn, the eye of day,
Teach my soul, on early wing,
Thus to soar, and thus to sing!

While the bloom of orient light
Guides thee in thy tuneful flight,
May the Day-spring from on high,
Seen by Faith's religious eye,
Cheer me with his vital ray,
Promise of eternal day!

ANON.

THE DIAL.

THIS shadow on the Dial's face,
That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years, away;
This shadow, which, in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,

Hath held its course sublime ;

What is it?-Mortal Man!

It is the scythe of Time:

A shadow only to the eye;

Yet, in its calm career,

It levels all beneath the sky;

And still, through each succeeding year,

Right onward, with resistless power,

Its stroke shall darken every hour,

Till Nature's race be run,

And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun.

Nor only o'er the Dial's face,

This silent phantom, day by day,

With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,

Steals moments, months, and years, away

From hoary rock and aged tree,

From proud Palmyra's mould'ring walls,
From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea,
From every blade of grass it falls;
For still, where'er a shadow sweeps,
The scythe of Time destroys,
And man at every footstep weeps

O'er evanescent joys;

[morn,

Life's flowerets glitt'ring with the dews of
Fair for a moment, then for ever shorn;
-Ah! soon, beneath the inevitable blow,
I too shall lie in dust and darkness low.

Then Time, the Conqueror, will suspend

His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb, Whose moving shadow shall portend Each frail beholder's doom.

O'er the wide earth's illumin'd space,

Though Time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face

Points from the church-yard stone.

MONTGOMERY.

MORTALITY.

O WHY should the spirit of mortal be proud!
Like a fast flitting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave-
He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willows shall fade,
Be scatter'd around, and together be laid;
And the young and the old, and the low and the

high,

Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The child that a mother attended and lov'd,
The mother that infant's affection that prov'd,

The husband that mother and infant that blest,
Each-all are away to their dwelling of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,

Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by; And the memory of those that beloved her and prais'd,

Are alike from the minds of the living eras'd.

The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climb'd with his goats to the

steep,

The beggar that wander'd in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint that enjoy'd the communion of heaven,
The sinner that dar'd to remain unforgiv'n,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes-like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;

So the multitude comes-even those we behold, To repeat every tale that hath often been told.

For we are the same things that our fathers have been,

We see the same sights that our fathers have see We drink the same stream, and we feel the sat

sun,

And we run the same course that our fathers h

The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think, [would shrink, From the death we are shrinking from, they too To the life we are clinging to, they too would clingBut it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They lov'd-but their story we cannot unfold; They scorn'd-but the heart of the haughty is cold, They griev'd-but no wail from their slumbers

may come,

They joy'd—but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay, they died! and we things that are

now,

Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.
Yea, hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together like sunshine and rain;
And the smile and the tear, and the song and the
dirge,

Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroudO Why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

ΚΝΟΧ.

SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT.

THE Lord will come! the earth shall quake,
The hills their fixed seat forsake;
And, withering, from the vault of night,
The stars withdraw their feeble light.

The Lord will come! but not the same
As once in lowly form he came,

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