き

The memory of that day

Which fills my waking thoughts, nor yet
E'en sleep can take away!

In dreams I still renew the rites

Whose strong but mystic chain

The spirit to its GOD unites,

And none can part again.

How oft the bishop's form I see,
And hear that thrilling tone
Demanding with authority
The heart for Gon alone;
Again I kneel as then I knelt,

While he above me stands,
And seem to feel, as then I felt,
The pressure of his hands.

Again the priests in meet array,

As my weak spirit fails,

Beside me bend them down to pray
Before the chancel-rails;

As then, the sacramental host

Of God's elect are by,

When many a voice its utterance lost,

And tears dimm'd many an eye.

As then they on my vision rose,
The vaulted aisles I see,

And desk and cushion'd book repose

In solemn sanctity,

The mitre o'er the marble niche,

The broken crook and key,

That from a bishop's tomb shone rich
With polished tracery;

The hangings, the baptismal font,
All, all, save me unchanged,
The holy table, as was wont,
With decency arranged;

The linen cloth, the plate, the cup,
Beneath their covering shine,
Ere priestly hands are lifted up
To bless the bread and wine.

The solemn ceremonial past,

And I am set apart

To serve the LORD, from first to last,
With undivided heart;

And I have sworn, with pledges dire,

Which God and man have heard,
To speak the holy truth entire,
In action and in word.

O Thou, who in thy holy place
Hast set thine orders three,

Grant me, thy meanest servant, grace

To win a good degree;
That so,
replenish'd from above,
And in my office tried,

Thou mayst he honoured, and in love
Thy church be edified!

WITH awful dread his murderers shook, As, radiant and serene,

The lustre of his dying look

Was like an angel's seen; Or Moses' face of paly light,

When down the mount he trod, All glowing from the glorious sight And presence of his Gon.

To us, with all his constancy,

Be his rapt vision given,
To look above by faith, and see

Revealments bright of heaven.
And power to speak our triumphs out,
As our last hour draws near,
While neither clouds of fear nor doubt
Before our view appear.

THE CHRISTMAS OFFERING.

WE come not with a costly store,
O LORD, like them of old,
The masters of the starry lore,

From Ophir's shore of gold:
No weepings of the incense tree
Are with the gifts we bring,
No olorous myrrh of Araby
Blends with our offering.

But still our love would bring its best, A spirit keenly tried

By fierce affliction's fiery test,

And seven times purified:

The fragrant graces of the mind,
The virtues that delight

To give their perfume out, will find
Acceptance in thy sight.

And oft, mid musings sad and lone,
At night's deep noon, that thrilling tone
Swells in the wind, low, wild, and clear,
Like music in the dreaming air.

When sleep's calm wing is on my brow,
And dreams of peace my spirit lull,
Before me, like a misty star,

That form floats dim and beautiful; And, when the gentle moonbeam smiles On the blue streams and dark-green isles, In every ray pour'd down the sky, That same light form seems stealing by.

It is a blessed picture, shrined

In memory's urn; the wing of years Can change it not, for there it glows, Undimm'd by "weaknesses and tears;" Deep-hidden in its still recess, It beams with love and holiness, O'er hours of being, dark and dull, Till life seems almost beautiful.

The vision cannot fade away;

"Tis in the stillness of my heart, And o'er its brightness I have mused In solitude; it is a part

Of my existence; a dear flower

Breathed on by Heaven: morn's earliest hour

That flower bedews, and its blue eye
At eve still rests upon the sky.

Lady, like thine, my visions cling

To the dear shrine of buried years;
The past, the past! it is too bright,
Too deeply beautiful for tears;

We have been bless'd; though life is made
A tear, a silence, and a shade,
And years have left the vacant breast
To loneliness-we have been bless'd!

Those still, those soft, those summer eyes,
When by our favourite stream we stood,
And watch'd our mingling shadows there,
Soft-pictured in the deep-blue flood,
Seem'd one enchantment. O! we felt,
As there, at love's pure shrine, we knelt,
That life was sweet, and all its hours
A glorious dream of love and flowers.

And still 'tis sweet. Our hopes went by
Like sounds upon the unbroken sea;
Yet memory wings the spirit back

To deep, undying melody;

And still, around her early shrine,
Fresh flowers their dewy chaplets twine,
Young Love his brightest garland wreathes,
And Eden's richest incense breathes.

Our hopes are flown-yet parted hours
S in the depths of memory lie,
Like night-gems in the silent blue
Of summer's deep and brilliant sky;
And Love's bright flashes seem again
To fall upon the glowing chain
Of our existence. Can it be
That all is but a mockery?

Lady, adieu! to other climes

I go, from joy, and hope, and thee; A weed on Time's dark waters thrown, A wreck on life's wild-heaving sea; I go; but O, the past, the past! Its spell is o'er my being cast,— And still, to Love's remember'd eves, With all but hope, my spirit cleaves. Adieu! adieu! My farewell words

Are on my lyre, and their wild flow Is faintly dying on the chords,

Broken and tuneless. Be it so! Thy name-O, may it never swell My strain again-yet long 't will dwell Shrined in my heart, unbreathed, unspokenA treasured word-a cherish'd token.

THE DEAD MARINER.

SLEEP on, sleep on! above thy corse
The winds their Sabbath keep;
The waves are round thee, and thy breast
Heaves with the heaving deep.
O'er thee mild eve her beauty flings,
And there the white gull lifts her wings,
And the blue halcyon loves to lave
Her plumage in the deep blue wave.

Sleep on; no willow o'er thee bends
With melancholy air,

No violet springs, nor dewy rose

Its soul of love lays bare;

But there the sea-flower, bright and young,
Is sweetly o'er thy slumbers flung,
And, like a weeping mourner fair,
The pale flag hangs its tresses there.

Sleep on, sleep on; the glittering depths
Of ocean's coral caves
Are thy bright urn-thy requiem

The music of its waves;
The purple gems forever burn
In fadeless beauty round thy urn,
And, pure and deep as infant love,
The blue sea rolls its waves above.

Sleep on, sleep on; the fearful wrath
Of mingling cloud and deep
May leave its wild and stormy track
Above thy place of sleep;

But, when the wave has sunk to rest,
As
now, 't will murmur o'er thy breast,
And the bright victims of the sea

Perchance will make their home with thee.

Sleep on; thy corse is far away,

But love bewails thee yet;

For thee the heart-wrung sigh is breathed,
And lovely eyes are wet:

And she, thy young and beauteous bride,
Her thoughts are hovering by thy side,
As oft she turns to view, with tears,
The Eden of departed years.

SABBATH EVENING.

How calmly sinks the parting sun!
Yet twilight lingers still;

And beautiful as dream of Heaven

It slumbers on the hill;

Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things,
Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings,
And, rendering back the hues above,
Seems resting in a trance of love.

Round yonder rocks the forest-trees
In shadowy groups recline,

Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer
Around their holy shrine;

And through their leaves the night-winds blow
So calm and still, their music low
Seems the mysterious voice of prayer,
Soft echo'd on the evening air.

And yonder western throng of clouds,

Retiring from the sky,

So calmly move, so softly glow,

They seem to fancy's eye
Bright creatures of a better sphere,
Come down at noon to worship here,
And, from their sacrifice of love,
Returning to their home above.

The blue isles of the golden sea,

The night-arch floating by,
The flowers that gaze upon the heavens,
The bright streams leaping by,
Are living with religion-deep
On earth and sea its glories sleep,
And mingle with the starlight rays,
Like the soft light of parted days.

The spirit of the holy eve

Comes through the silent air
To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes
A gush of music there!
And the far depths of ether beam
So passing fair, we almost dream
That we can rise, and wander through
Their open paths of trackless blue.

Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams,
Each pulse is beating wild;

And thought is soaring to the shrine
Of glory undefiled!

And holy aspirations start,

Like blessed angels, from the heart,

And bind-for earth's dark ties are riven-
Our spirits to the gates of heaven.

TO A LADY.

I THINK of thee when morning springs
From sleep, with plumage bathed in dew,
And, like a young bird, lifts her wings
Of gladness on the welkin blue.
And when, at noon, the breath of love
O'er flower and stream is wandering free,
And sent in music from the grove,

I think of thee-I think of thee.

I think of thee, when, soft and wide, The evening spreads her robes of light, And, like a young and timid bride,

Sits blushing in the arms of night. And when the moon's sweet crescent springs

In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea, And stars are forth, like blessed things,

I think of thee-I think of thee.

I think of thee;-that eye of flame, Those tresses, falling bright and free, That brow, where "Beauty writes her name," I think of thee-I think of thee.

WRITTEN AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

THE trembling dew-drops fall
Upon the shutting flowers; like souls at rest
The stars shine gloriously: and all
Save me, are blest.

Mother, I love thy grave!

The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild,
Waves o'er thy head; when shall it wave
Above thy child?

"Tis a sweet flower, yet must

Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow;
Dear mother, 't is thine emblem; dust
Is on thy brow.

And I could love to die:

To leave untasted life's dark, bitter streams-
By thee, as erst in childhood, lie,
And share thy dreams.

And I must linger here,

To stain the plumage of my sinless years, And mourn the hopes to childhood dear With bitter tears.

Ay, I must linger here,

A lonely branch upon a wither'd tree, Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere, Went down with thee!

Oft, from life's wither'd bower,

In still communion with the past, I turn,
And muse on thee, the only flower
In memory's urn.

And, when the evening pale

Bows, like a mourner, on the dim, blue wave, I stray to hear the night-winds wail Around thy grave.

Where is thy spirit flown?

I gaze above thy look is imaged there;
I listen-and thy gentle tone
Is on the air.

O, come, while here I press

My brow upon thy grave; and, in those mild
And thrilling tones of tenderness.
Bless, bless thy child!

Yes, bless your weeping child;

And o'er thine urn-religion's holiest shrineO, give his spirit, undefiled,

To blend with thine.

n, soft and ri

[Born, 1805.]

TE

In his native county, Mr. PALMER has told me, the first and happiest half of his life was spent on the farm, in the desultory acquisition of such knowledge as could then be obtained from a New England common school, and a "college" with a single professor. The other half has been chiefly passed in New York, as a medical student, teacher, writer for the gazettes, and, for several years, clerk in a public office.

Mr. PALMER is a man of warm affections, who finds a heaven in a quiet home. He is a lover of nature, too, and like most inhabitants of the pent-up city, whose early days have been passed in the country, he delights in recollections of rural life. Some of his poems have much tenderness and delicacy, and they are generally very complete and polished.

1

LIGHT.

FROM the quicken'd womb of the primal gloom
The sun roll'd black and bare,

Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast,
Of the threads of my golden hair;

And when the broad tent of the firmament
Arose on its airy spars,

I pencill'd the hue of its matchless blue,
And spangled it round with stars.

I painted the flowers of the Eden bowers,
And their leaves of living green,
And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes

Of Eden's virgin queen;

And when the fiend's art, on her trustful heart,
Had fasten'd its mortal spell,

In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear

To the trembling earth I fell.

When the waves that burst o'er a world accursed
Their work of wrath hath sped,

And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true,
Came forth among the dead;

With the wondrous gleams of my braided beams

I bade their terrors cease;

As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scroll
Gon's covenant of peace.

Like a pall at rest on a pulseless breast,

Night's funeral shadow slept,

Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains
Their lonely vigils kept;

When I flash'd on their sight the heralds bright
Of heaven's redeeming plan,

As they chanted the morn of a Saviour born-
Joy, joy to the outcast man!

Equal favour I show to the lofty and low,
On the just and unjust I descend;

E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness and tears,

Feel my smile the best smile of a friend: Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced, As the rose in the garden of kings;

As the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear,
And lo! the gay butterfly's wings!

The desolate Morn, like a mourner forlorn,
Conceals all the pride of her charms,
Till I bid the bright Hours chase the Night from
her bowers,

And lead the young Day to her arms;
And when the gay rover seeks Eve for his lover,
And sinks to her balmy repose,

I wrap their soft rest by the zephyr-fann'd west,
In curtains of amber and rose.

From my sentinel steep, by the night-brooded deep,
I gaze with unslumbering eye,

When the cynosure star of the mariner

Is blotted from the sky;

And guided by me through the merciless sea,
Though sped by the hurricane's wings,
His compassless bark, lone, weltering, dark,
To the haven-home safely he brings.

I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers,
The birds in their chambers of green,

And mountain and plain glow with beauty again,
As they bask in my matinal sheen.
O, if such the glad worth of my presence to earth
Though fitful and fleeting the while,

What glories must rest on the home of the bless'd,
Ever bright with the DEITY's smile!