And the New Creature Walks in Light. WHEN man to god-like being sprung, How sweet the glorious gift he found ! See Eden's beauty smiles around : Is with unlaboured plenty crowned; And dress the late spontaneous ground: And being's perfect bliss is given- While angel harps rejoice in heaven- Is with mysterious plenty crowned; And dress with tears the wayward ground: Whose bright beginnings ne'er decay ? Still clouds o'ercast new-born day? D No: see the last creation burst- No bitter tears its harvest leaven- Unlaboured plenty lasts in heaven: THOMAS GRINFIELD. A Portrait. How pale the cheek where warmth and beauty glow'd ! Where now those charms that held th' admiring sight? yon survey, Where writhes the reptile o'er its kindred clay ; There read on pride's stain’d cheek the gen’ral doom; Then pause :—while memory bleeds upon the tomb. Perhaps while we th' untimely stroke bemoan, She bends adoring at th’ Eternal's throne; While from our eye-balls burst the streams of woe, a Her happier soul can wonder why they flow; ANON. A Visit to Bethlehem in the Spirit. And, borne to ancient regions, I see angelic legions I hear celestial voices. To every age and nation; To man He sent salvation : hath begun, mercy Through David's city I am led; Here all around are sleeping; Where lonely watch is keeping: Messiah's infant temple ? This Stranger meek and lowly, The throne of God thrice holy; JAMES MONTGOMERY. Blest is his Life, who to himself is True. PEACE to the True Man’s ashes ! Weep for those Whose days in old delusions have grown dim; Such lives as his are triumphs, and their close An immortality: weep not for him. Lie bright among the rocks they can not warm, So lie the flowery lays that Genius brings, In the cold turf that wraps his honoured form. A practical rebuker of vain strife, youth A beautiful consecration to the Truth. Virtue, neglected long, and trampled down, Grew stronger in the echo of his name; And, shrinking self-condemned beneath his frown, The cheek of harlotry grew red with shame. Serene with conscious peace, he strewed his way With sweet humanities, the growth of love ; Shaping to right his actions, day by day, Faithful to this world and to that above. The ghosts of blind belief and hideous crime, Of spirit-broken loves, and hopes betrayed, That flit among the broken walls of Time, Are by the True Man's exorcisms laid. Blest is his life, who to himself is true, dies, Our faith in manhood's upward tendencies. Weep for the self-abased, and for the slave, smoke ALICE CAREY. |