Fortune's dread frowns, and fascinating smiles, Make one promiscuous and neglected heap,

The man beneath, if I

may

call him man,

Whom immortality's full force inspires.
Nothing terrestrial touching his high thought;
Suns shine unseen, and thunders roll unheard,
By minds quite conscious of their high descent,
Their present province and their future prize;
Divinely darting upward every wish,

Warm on the wing, in glorious absence lost.
Doubt you this truth? Why labours your belief?
If earth's whole orb by some due distanced eye
Was seen at once, her towering Alps would sink,
And levelled Atlas leave an even sphere.
Thus earth, and all that earthly minds admire,
Is swallowed in eternity's vast round.
To that stupendous view when souls awake,
So large of late, so mountainous to man,
Time's joys subside, and equal all below.

EDWARD YOUNG.

Envocation to Sleep.

LEEP! downy sleep! come close mine eyes,

Tired with beholding vanities;

Sweet slumbers, come, and chase away
The toils and follies of the day.

On your soft bosom will I lie,
Forget the world, and learn to die.
O Israel's watchful Shepherd! spread
Tents of angels round my bed;

M

Let not the spirits of the air

While I slumber me ensnare;

But save thy suppliant free from harms,
Clasped in thine everlasting arms.

Clouds and thick darkness are thy throne,
Thy wonderful pavilion ;

Oh! dart from thence a shining ray,
And then my midnight shall be day!
Thus when the morn in crimson drest,
Breaks through the windows of the east,
My hymns of thankful praise shall rise,
Like incense at the morning sacrifice!

THOMAS FLATMAN.

If the Lord Build not the House, the Labour is Vain.

MAY the blessing of God, my dearest and

loveliest daughter,

Be with thee! yea, the blessing of God on this earth and in heaven!

Young have I been, and now am old, and of joy and of sorrow,

In this uncertain life, sent by God, much, much, have I tasted:

God be thanked for both! O, soon shall I now

with my fathers

Lay my grey head in the grave! how fain! for my daughter is happy:

Happy, because she knows this, that our God, like a father who watches

Carefully over his children, us blesses in joy and in sorrow.

Wondrously throbs my heart at the sight of a bride young and beauteous,

Dressed and adorned, while she leans, in affectionate, childlike demeanour,

On the arm of the bridegroom, who through life's path shall conduct her:

Ready to bear with him boldly, let whatsoever may happen;

And feeling with him, to exalt his delight and lighten his sorrow;

And, if it please God, to wipe from his dying forehead the last sweat!

Even such my presentiments were, when, after the bridal,

I my young wife led home. Happy and serious, I showed her, at distance,

All the extent of our fields, the church-tower, and the dwellings, and this one,

Where we together have known so much both of good and of evil.

Thou, my only child! then in sorrow I think of the others,

When my path to the church by their blooming graves doth conduct me.

Soon, thou only one, wilt thou track that way whereon I came hither,—

Soon, soon my daughter's chamber, soon 't will be desolate to me,

And my daughter's place at the table! In vain shall I listen

For her voice afar off, and her footsteps at distance approaching!

When with thy husband on that way thou from me art departed,

Sobs will escape me, and thee my eyes bathed in tears long will follow;

For I am a man and a father, and my daughter, who heartily loves me,

Heartily love! But I will in faith raise my head up to heaven,

Wipe my eyes from their tears, and with folded hands myself humble

E'en in prayer before God, who, as a father watches his children,

Both in joy and in sorrow us blesses, for we are his children.

Yea, for this is the law of the Eternal, that father and mother

Ever they shall forsake, who as husband and wife are united.

Go, then, in peace, my child! forsake thy family and thy

Father's dwelling,-go, by the youth guided,

who to thee must hence be

Father and mother! Be to him like a vine that is fruitful

In his house; round his table thy children like branches of olive

Flourish! So will the man be blessed in the Lord who confideth.

Lovely and fair to be is nothing; but a Godfearing wife brings

Honor and blessing both! for and if the Lord build the house not,

Surely the builders but labour in vain.

JOHANN HEINRICH Voss, Trans. Anon.

I Wake to know my Better Self.

WASTE no more in idle dreams
My life, my soul away;

I wake to know my better self—
I wake to watch and pray.
Thought, feeling, time, on idols vain,
I've lavished all too long:
Henceforth to holier purposes
I pledge myself, my song!

Oh! still within the inner veil,
Upon the spirit's shrine,
Still unprofaned by evil, burns

The one pure spark divine,
Which God has kindled in us all,
And be it mine to tend
Henceforth, with vestal thought and care,
The light that lamp may lend.

I shut mine eyes in grief and shame

Upon the dreary past—

My heart, my soul poured recklessly

On dreams that could not last: