PROCRASTINATION.

The crossing of a narrow stream, at a critical moment, decided the fate of an empire, and changed the course of our world's history. The soul, too, has the crisis of its fate to meet, and its Rubicon to Yet how many linger and delay; shrinking from the decisive and irrevocable step, till the delay is fatal, and-more than an empire, more than a world-a soul is lost as the penalty of procrastination. Well may YOUNG exclaim :

cross.

OF man's miraculous mistakes, this bears

The palm, "that all men are about to live,”
For ever on the brink of being born:
All pay themselves the compliment to think

HUMAN FOLLY.

They, one day, shall not drivel; and their pride
On this reversion takes up ready praise;

At least, their own; their future selves applauds,
How excellent that life they ne'er will lead !
Time lodged in their own hands is folly's vails,
That lodged in fate's, to wisdom they consign.
All promise is poor dilatory man,

And that through every stage: when young, indeed,
In full content, we sometimes nobly rest,

Unanxious for ourselves; and only wish,

As duteous sons, our fathers were more wise:

At thirty man suspects himself a fool;

Knows it at forty, and reforms his plan;

At fifty chides his infamous delay,

Pushes his prudent purpose to resolve;

In all the magnanimity of thought

Resolves; and re-resolves: then dies the same.

HUMAN FOLLY.

BEHOLD the child, by nature's kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw;
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight,
A little louder, but as empty quite;

Scarfs, garters, gold, amuse his riper stage,

And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age:
Pleased with this bauble still, as that before;
Till tired he sleeps, and Life's poor play is o'er,
Meanwhile Opinion gilds with varying rays
Those painted clouds that beautify our days;

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Each want of happiness by Hope supplied,
And each vacuity of sense by Pride:
These build as fast as knowledge can destroy;

In Folly's cup still laughs the bubble, Joy:
One prospect lost, another still we gain;
And not a vanity is given in vain.

Ev'n mean Self-love becomes, by force divine,
The scale to measure others' wants by thine.
See! and confess, one comfort still must rise;
'Tis this though Man's a fool, yet God is wise.

THE MYSTERY OF MAN.

How poor! how rich! how abject! how august!
How complicate! how wonderful is Man!
How passing wonder HE who made him such !
Who centred in our make such strange extremes !
From different natures, marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!

A beam ethereal, sullied, and absorbed !
Though sullied, and dishonoured, still divine !
Dim miniature of greatness absolute !
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite !

A worm a god! I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost! at home a stranger,

THE MOTHER'S DEATH.

Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own: how reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man!

Triumphantly distressed, what joy, what dread!
Alternately transported and alarmed!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy?
An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave;
Legions of angels can't confine me there.

THE MOTHER'S DEATH.

OUR sighs were numerous, and profuse our tears;
For she we lost was lovely, and we loved
Her much. Fresh in our memory, as fresh

As yesterday, is yet the day she died.

It was an April day; and blithely all

The youth of nature leaped beneath the sun,

And promised glorious manhood; and our hearts

Were glad, and round them danced the lightsome blood
In healthy merriment, when tidings came,

A child was born and tidings came again,
That she who gave it birth was sick to death.
So swift trode sorrow on the heels of joy!
We gathered round her bed, and bent our knees
In fervent supplication to the Throne

Of Mercy, and perfumed our prayers with sighs
Sincere, and penitential tears, and looks
Of self-abasement; but we sought to stay
An angel on the earth, a spirit ripe

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For heaven; and Mercy in her love refused:
Most merciful, as oft, when seeming least!

Most gracious when she seemed the most to frown!
The room I well remember, and the bed
On which she lay, and all the faces too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there and mother, bending, stood;
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness. Her husband, too, was there,
And brothers, and they wept; her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow, comfortless; and I,
Too, wept, though not to weeping given; and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well; but better still,
I do remember, and will ne'er forget,
The dying eye. That eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew, as nearer death approached ;
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud, that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scattered far
And wide its loveliness. She made a sign
To bring her babe-'twas brought, and placed.
She looked upon its face, that neither smiled
Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon't; and laid

Her hand upon its little breast, and sought

For it, with look that seemed to penetrate

The heavens, unutterable blessings, such

As God to dying parents only grants,

For infants left behind them in the world.

"God keep my child!" we heard her say, and heard