Where sweet transporting voices stole
On my enraptur'd eye and ear,
That spoke the Sabbath of the soul.
Ceaseless as the eternal year.
Here angel and arch-angel bow
In worship round the great white throne;
And ceaseless hallelujahs rise,
To the Almighty, Three and One.
Each has a mission to perform,
As swift through ambient air they fly;
'Tis mine to minister to thee,
And gently woo thee to the sky.
Mother, there are jewels bright
Graven on your deathless soul,
And brighter shall their radiance glow,
While everlasting ages roll.
Mother, they are pure thoughts of heaven,
Murmur'd oft upon your ear,
Which God to me had kindly given,
Your solitary way to cheer.
Mother, these are memories sweet,
Deeply treasur'd in your heart,
Which time, with his restless change,
May never dare to bid depart.
Sometimes across your lap I lie,
And breathe that evening prayer again,
And looking in your tearful eye,
Again repeat that sweet amen.
Then mother, leave your child of earth
To moulder back to kindred dust,
And trace my new and heav'nly birth,
A ransom'd spirit with the just.
And weep not o'er the casket laid
Beneath this little heaped up mound.
The deathless jewel cannot fade,--
A diamond in a Saviour's crown.
An Evening in Our Village.
Why should we wander in the fields of fiction, to cull fancy's flowers
to feast a morbid imagination, when there are so many thrilling
incidents in the pathway of human life, calculated to awaken the most
refined emotions, and stir the deepest currents of the human soul?
Would the painter, as he raised his brush to give the last finishing
touch to his picture, draw his colors from fancy? Would he not rather
imitate the color of the natural rose, copy the forest green, the
azure of the sky, or the brilliant hues of the rainbow, as it spans
the heavens with its bow of promise?
Fiction may weave her intricate labyrinths and enchain the fancy by
wandering in mazy circuits, and weaving her mystic web; but truth will
stand in all its primitive lustre, when the foundations of this earth
have passed away.
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