"As thy Day, so shall thy Strength be.”— MRS. SIGOURNEY.
WHEN adverse winds and waves arise,
And in my heart despondence sighs,-
When life her throng of care reveals,
And weakness o'er my spirit steals,—
Grateful I hear the kind decree,
That" as my day, my strength shall be."
When, with sad footstep, memory roves
Mid smitten joys, and buried loves,-
When sleep my tearful pillow flies,
And dewy morning drinks my sighs,-
Still to thy promise, Lord, I flee,
That" as my day, my strength shall be."
One trial more must yet be past,
One pang,-the keenest, and the last;
And when, with brow convulsed and pale,
My feeble, quivering heart-strings fail,
Redeemer, grant my sou! to see
That" as her day, her strength shall be."
The Pilgrims.-MRS. SIGOURNEY.
How slow yon tiny vessel ploughs the main!
Amid the heavy billows now she seems
A toiling atom,-then from wave to wave
Leaps madly, by the tempest lashed, or reels,
Half wrecked, through gulfs profound.
-Moons wax and wane, But still that lonely traveller treads the deep.I see an ice-bound coast, toward which she steers With such a tardy movement, that it seems Stern Winter's hand hath turned her keel to stone, And sealed his victory on her slippery shrouds.— They land!-They land!-not like the Genoese, With glittering sword and gaudy train, and eye Kindling with golden fancies.-Forth they come From their long prison,-hardy forms, that brave The world's unkindness,-men of hoary hair,
And virgins of firm heart, and matrons grave,
Who hush the wailing infant with a glance.-
Bleak Nature's desolation wraps them round,
Eternal forests, and unyielding earth,
And savage men, who through the thickets peer
With vengeful arrow.-What could lure their steps
To this drear desert?-Ask of him who left
His father's home to roam through Haran's wilds,
Distrusting not the Guide who called him forth,
Nor doubting, though a stranger, that his seed
Should be as Ocean's sands.-
Hath spread her parting sail.
They crowd the strand,
Those few, lone pilgrims.-Can ye scan the wo
That wrings their bosoms, as the last frail link
Binding to man, and habitable earth,
Is severed? Can ye tell what pangs were there,
What keen regrets, what sickness of the heart,
What yearnings o'er their forfeit land of birth,
Their distant, dear ones?—
Long, with straining eye,
They watch the lessening speck.-Heard ye no shriek
Of anguish, when that bitter loneliness
Sank down into their bosoms?-No! they turn
Back to their dreary, famished huts, and pray!-
Pray, and the ills that haunt this transient life
Fade into air.-Up in each girded breast
There sprang a rooted and mysterious strength,—
A loftiness,-to face a world in arms,—
To strip the pomp from sceptres,—and to lay
Upon the sacred altar the warm blood
Of slain affections, when they rise between
The soul and God.--
And can ye deem it strange That from their planting such a branch should bloom.
As nations envy ?-Would a germ, embalmed
With prayer's pure tear-drops, strike no deeper root
Than that which mad ambition's hand doth strew
Upon the winds, to reap the winds again?
Hid by its veil of waters from the hand
Of greedy Europe, their bold vine spread forth
In giant strength.—
Its early clusters, crushed
In England's wine-press, gave the tyrant host
A draught of deadly wine.- --O, ye who boast
In your free veins the blood of sires like these,
Lose not their lineaments.-Should Mammon cling
Too close around your heart,-or wealth beget
That bloated luxury which eats the core
From manly virtue,—or the tempting world
Make faint the Christian purpose in your soul,
Turn ye to Plymouth's beach,—and on that rock
Kneel in their foot-prints, and renew the vow
They breathed to God.
The Coral Grove.-PERCIVAL.
DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, That never are wet with falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine, Far down in the green and glassy brine. The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow; From coral rocks the sea plants lift
Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and the waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air:
There, with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter:
There, with a light and easy motion,
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea:
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful Spirit of storms,
Has made the top of the waves his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of Ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore;
Then, far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly,
Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.
Hebrew Melody.-MRS. J. G. BROOKS.
Jeremiah x. 17.
FROM the hall of our fathers in anguish we fled,
Nor again will its marble re-echo our tread,
For the breath of the Siroc has blasted our name,
And the frown of Jehovah has crushed us in shame.
His robe was the whirlwind, his voice was the thunder, And earth, at his footstep, was riven asunder;
The mantle of midnight had shrouded the sky,
But we knew where He stood by the flash of His eye.
O Judah! how long must thy weary ones weep,
Far, far from the land where their forefathers sleep?
How long ere the glory that brightened the mountain
Will welcome the exile to Siloa's fountain?
"The memory of thy name, dear one,
Lives in my inmost heart,
Linked with a thousand hopes and fears,
That will not thence depart."
THINGS of high import sound I in thine ears,
Dear child, though now thou may'st not feel their power. But hoard them up, and in thy coming years
Forget them not; and when earth's tempests lower,
A talisman unto thee shall they be,
To give thy weak arm strength, to make thy dim eye see.
Seek TRUTH-that pure, celestial Truth, whose birth
Was in the heaven of heavens, clear, sacred, shrined,
In reason's light Not oft she visits earth;
But her majestic port the willing mind,
Through faith, may sometimes see.
Give her thy soul, Nor faint, though error's surges loudly 'gainst thee roll
Be FREE-not chiefly from the iron chain,
But from the one which passion forges; be
The master of thyself! If lost, regain
The rule o'er chance, sense, circumstance. Be free.
Trample thy proud lusts proudly 'neath thy feet,
And stand erect, as for a heaven-born one is meet.
Seek VIRTUE. Wear her armor to the fight;
Then, as a wrestler gathers strength from strife,
Shalt thou be nerved to a more vigorous might
By each contending, turbulent ill of life.
Seek Virtue; she alone is all divine;
And, having found, be strong in God's own strength and thine. TRUTH-FREEDOM-VIRTUE-these, dear child, have
If rightly cherished, to uphold, sustain, And bless thy spirit, in its darkest hour:
Neglect them-thy celestial gifts are vain
In dust shall thy weak wing be dragged and soiled;
Thy soul be crushed 'neath gauds for which it basely toiled.
The Western World.-BRYANT.
LATE, from this western shore, that morning chased
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud
Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud
Amid the forest; and the bounding deer
Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yelled near.
And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay
Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim,
And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay
Young group of grassy islands born of him,
And, crowding nigh, or in the distance dim,
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