Then, suppliant at God's altar, Strike thy harp's sweetest chord,— Confess that Christ is Lord. THE HEART. C. Swain. THE Heart-the gifted heart— What eloquence impart The softness of its love-the grandeur of its might! It is the seat of bliss, The blessed home of all affections sweet; It smiles where friendship is, It glows where social feelings meet. 'Tis virtue's hallow'd fane 'Tis freedom's first, and best, and noblest shield! A strength that will remain When grosser powers and feebler spirits yield! It is religion's shrine, From whence our holiest aspirations wing; Where joys, which are divine, And hopes, which are of heaven, alone may spring! The fount of tenderness Where every purer passion has its birth, And sanctify our pilgrimage on earth. O, heart! 'till life be o'er, Shed round the light and warmth of thy dear flame, And I will ask no more Of earthly happiness-of earthly fame! AN INFANT'S DEATH-BED. Bethune. WITH piety beyond her years, In patient pain she lay, And, as she mark'd her mother's tears, Entreated her to pray; For she, poor sufferer, had been taught, The language of her own sweet thought, And she had heard of Sin and Death, Had heard of Hell and Heaven, And knew that mortal guilt through faith Alone can be forgiven; And therefore did her dying eye And her dying lips imploringly "Pray for me, mother-mother, pray!" Was her last faint request, Ere her young spirit burst away Why should that parent grieve in vain So swiftly, sweetly pass'd? She grieves-yet placid is the tear She weeps above her faded rose, Untimely cropp'd by Death; But the font that flows o'er its repose And she would rather linger there, Of such as she whose eyes are closed And she shall need no fostering hand, To tend her in that holy land, For all are happy there. Such is the joyful hope which fills That parent's eye with light, THE SCOTTISH MARTYR'S GRAVE. Brown. I STOOD by the Martyr's lonely grave, Where the flowers of the moorland bloom; P Where bright memorials of nature wave In his moss-clad mountain tomb! I knelt by that wild and lonely spot, That bled and died, but that blenched not And the vision of other days came back, When Zion was far on the mountain height, When the barbarous hordes, as they onward rode By the wild and rocky glen, Have heard, when away from man's abode, A voice that awed like the voice of God,— 'Twas the hymn of fearless men! |