POETRY. - LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF 1850. (Written on its last day.) ONE more sun down!—and thou wilt then have pass'd, How often has this hand cipher'd thy name Yet, tho' so long, so bright, thou sett'st in clouds! One, full of years-full too his earthly cup, The third, God's minister,* how doubly bless'd Lo! while as yet in Winton's learned plain, But it was there his youthful hand first touched The eye, the tongue, the right hand, and the arm The late Rev. Andrew Brandram, who died at Brighton, 26th Dec., 1850, having been for 27 years the indefatigable Clerical Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, He is recorded to have received his first religious impresions while at Winchester school, and preparing for Oriel College, Oxford, where he took a double first class. It is said that, placing his books in a closet which had been left vacant by the boy who preceded him, he found an old Bible, the only thing, it seems, that it had not been thought worth while to carry away. Curiosity impelled him to read it, and he became wise to salvation. From that time his whole character was altered; and probably his after-life influenced as the chief officer of that noble Institution, whose object is, by the united efforts of all denominations of Christians, however differing in other respects, yet combining in this,-to circulate the same volume throughout the world! He kept this Bible till his death. With locks and chains, and seals, and interdicts, Man's birthright, from his race. Oh, hasten then, These spoilers, who intrude on England's shores, POWER AND LOVE. THEY know the Almighty's Power, Who wakened by the rushing midnight shower, Watch for the fitful breeze To howl and chafe amid the bending trees, -Watch for the still white gleam To bathe the landscape in a fiery stream, Touching the tremulous eye with sense of light They know the Almighty's Love, Who, when the whirlwinds rock the topmost grove, The tumult with a deep exulting fear; How, in their fiercest sway, Curb'd by some power unseen, they die away, Like a bold steed that owns his rider's arm, H. V. T. Proud to be checked and soothed by that o'er-mastering charm. But there are storms within That heave the struggling heart with wilder din; And there is power and love The maniac's rushing frenzy to reprove; And when he takes his seat, Clothed and in calmness, at his Saviour's feet,* Is not the power as strange, the love as blest, As when He said, "Be still," and ocean sank to rest? * Mark v, 15. Woe to the wayward heart, That gladlier turns to eye the shuddering start Than marks the silent growth of grace and light; To linger, while the morning rays illume In His meek power, He climbs the mountain's brow, And lashed the vexed fiends to their yawning deep. Who watch His eye, and hold His guiding hand! Rises the holy pile that Kedron's valley fills. And wilt thou seek again Thy howling waste, thy charnel-house and chain, Rather than clasp thine own Deliverer's knee? That bids thee from His healing touch withdraw; The world and He are struggling in thine heart, And in thy reckless mood thou biddest thy Lord depart. He, merciful and mild, As erst, beholding, loves his wayward child; When souls of highest birth Waste their impassioned might on dreams of earth, He opens Nature's book, And on His glorious Gospel bids them look Till by such chords, as rule the choirs above, Their lawless cries are tuned to hymns of perfect love. THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW. I have watched the Old Year out In the dead of night, When the moon was shining clear, Keble. I have heard the bell toll loud On the wakeful ear, And ere its cadence died, Died the worn-out year. Few were thinking of the past, Bade adieu to men. Few thought "We are following But the New Year coming in, For his kindly welcoming, Let each heart prepare. "Let the old seek his grave, year "He has passed away; "Who forward looks for happier times, "Thinks not of yesterday." |