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Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls.
Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge;
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil

Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward, may we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,

Excellence true beauty.

Minds are of celestial birth;

Make we then a heaven of earth.

Closer, closer, let us knit

Hearts and hands together,

Where our fireside comforts sit,
In the wildest weather;

O! they wander wide who roam,
For the joys of life, from home.

PRAYER.

Prayer is the soul's sincere desire
Uttered or unexpressed;

The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burthen of a sigh,
The falling of a tear;

The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech

That infant lips can try;

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;

His watchword at the gates of death:
He enters heaven by prayer.

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice
Returning from his ways;

While angels in their songs rejoice,
"Behold he prays!"

And say,

The saints in prayer appear as one,
In word, and deed, and mind,
When with the Father and his Son

Their fellowship they find.

Nor prayer is made on earth alone :
The Holy Spirit pleads;

And Jesus, on the eternal throne,
For sinners intercedes.

O Thou, by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the way,
The path of prayer thyself hast trod :
Lord, teach us how to pray!

HUMILITY.

The bird that soars on highest wing
Builds on the ground her lowly nest;
And she that doth most sweetly sing
Sings in the shade when all things rest:
-In lark and nightingale we see
What honor hath humility.

When Mary chose "the better part,"

She meekly sat at Jesus' feet;

And Lydia's gently-opened heart

Was made for God's own temple meet;

-Fairest and best adorn'd is she

Whose clothing is humility.

The saint that wears heaven's brightest crown

In deepest adoration bends;

The weight of glory bows him down

Then most when most his soul ascends;
-Nearest the throne itself must be

The footstool of humility.

THE POETICAL IN CHILDHOOD AND OLD AGE.

To come home to our own bosoms and personal experience. I have said that there is much, very much, of what is poetical even in ordinary life. Of this, Hope and Memory constitute the principal elements; and these, for the most part, are exercised in reference to age before it arrives, and childhood when it is past"Till youth's delirious dream is o'er,

Sanguine with hope, we look before,
The future good to find;

In age, when error charms no more,
For bliss we look behind."

There is this difference between rational and brute beings-that the latter live wholly to the present time and the present scene;

and it is only under peculiar excitement, when separated from their young, hurried on by the impulse of appetite, or suddenly removed to a strange place, that they seem conscious of any objects but those around them, and which press immediately upon their senses. They do not spontaneously call up recollections; the past, the absent, and the future are alike forgotten, unregarded, or unknown. But man, endowed with intelligence, lives in the present time chiefly as a point between that which is gone by, and that which is to come, and, in the present scene, chiefly as the centre of what is around him. He looks behind and before, above and beneath, and on either hand: but at different stages of the journey of life, his attention is more especially attracted in contrary directions.

The infant, so soon as it begins to think and reason, looks wholly before it, in the pursuit of knowledge and power, while desire increases with what it feeds upon, and hope grows out of every indulgence. Impatient of control, and eager to exercise over others that authority which it resents when exercised towards itself, though only for its protection-it longs for the time when it shall be as old and as strong as its brothers, and sisters, and companions, that it may enjoy the same liberties, and assume the same airs and rights which they do.

When a little further grown, the boy-looking up and pressing onward, as he rises in stature, and feels new capacities expanding within him-rebels in secret against the yoke, the reins, and the scourge with which he finds himself ruled, however his servitude may be disguised; and he sighs for maturity, that he may go where he pleases, and do what he likes.

It is not, then, the toys, the sweetmeats, the holidays, the finery, and the caresses that are lavished upon him-these are mere everyday matters of course-it is something far more intellectual than any childish thing, that constitutes the charm of childish existence. "When I am a man !" is the poetry of childhood; and, oh! how much is comprehended in that puerile phrase, so often employed by little lips, unconscious of its bitter meaning; and so unheeded by those who are men already, and have forgotten that they ever had a golden dream of that iron age-a dream to which all the fictions of romance are cold and unnatural! "When I am a man!" means, in the mind of a child, when he shall be no more that which he is; when (as he is already by anticipation) he shall be that which he is not-that which, alas! he never will be-lord of himself. If we would really know, by a test which will hardly deceive us, the highest happiness of what is (mistakenly, I am sure), deemed the happiest period of human

life-let us recollect what were our own emotions when we were cherishing ideas of manhood to come-but which never did come to the heart as it had been promised to the hope.

“When I was a child !" is the poetry of age. Man, advancing in years, enriched with the treasure of disappointed hopes, looks less eagerly before him, because he expects less good, and fears more evil in this world, in proportion as he proves for himself what are the sad and sober realities of life. Eternity invites him to explore its mysteries, in anticipation of his approaching end; when all his love, and all his hatred, and all his envy shall cease, and there remain no longer a portion to him in all that is done under the sun.

Lecture Second.

CHARACTERISTICS OF PROSE AND VERSE.

There is reason as well as custom in that conventional simplicity which best becomes prose, and that conventional ornament which is allowed to verse; but splendid ornament is no more essential to verse than naked simplicity is to prose. The gravest critics place tragedy in the highest rank of poetical achieve

ments

"Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy,
With sceptred pall, come sweeping by,
Presenting Thebes, or Pelops' line,
Or the tale of Troy divine."

Il Penseroso.

Yet the noblest, most impassioned scenes are frequently distinguished from prose only by the cadence of the verse, which, in this species of composition, is permitted to be so loose, that, where the diction is the most exquisite, the melody of the rhythm can scarcely be perceived, except by the nicest ear. King Lear, driven to madness by the ingratitude and cruelty of his two elder daughters, is found by the youngest, Cordelia, asleep upon a bed in a tent in the French camp, after having passed the night in the open air, exposed to the fury of the elements during a tremendous thunder-storm. A physician and attendants are watching over the sufferer. While the dutiful daughter is pouring out her heart in tenderness over him, recounting his wrongs, his afflictions, and the horrors of the storm, the king awakes: but we will take the scene itself. After some inquiries concerning his royal patient, the physician asks:

"So please your majesty,

That we may wake the king? He hath slept long. Cordelia.-Be govern'd by your knowledge, and proceed

I' the sway of your own will. Is he array'd? Gentleman.-Ay, madam; in the heaviness of his sleep, We put fresh garments on him.

Physician.-Be by, good madam, when we do awake him;
I doubt not of his temperance.

Cordelia. Very well.

Physician. Please you draw near.

Louder the music there!

Cordelia.-Oh, my dear father! Restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips; and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made!

Kent.-Kind and dear princess!

Cordelia. Had you not been their father, these white flakes
Had challeng'd pity of them. Was this a face

To be expos'd against the warring winds?

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder?
In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick, cross lightning?

*

* Mine enemy's dog,

Though he had bit me, should have stood that night
Against my fire. And wast thou fain, poor father,
To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn,

In short and musty straw? Alack! alack!
"Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once

Had not concluded all. He wakes; speak to him.

Physician.-Madam, do you; 'tis fittest.

Cordelia.-How does my royal lord? How fares your majesty ?

Lear. You do me wrong to take me out o' the grave:

Thou art a soul in bliss, but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire.

Cordelia. Sir, do you know me?

Lear. You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?

Cordelia. Still, still far wide.

Physician. He's scarce awake; let him alone awhile.
Lear. Where have I been?

Where am I? Fair daylight?—
I am mightily abus'd. I should even die with pity,
To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands;-let's see.
I feel this pin prick. Would I were assured
Of my condition!

Cordelia. O look upon me, sir!

And hold your hands in benediction o'er me:-
Nay, sir, you must not kneel.

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