No rumor has come back of good or ill,
Save to the faithful, and even they but view
Obscurely things unknown and unconceived,
And judge not even, by what sense the bliss,
Which they imagine, shall hereafter be
Enjoyed or apprehended. And shall man
Unbidden rush on that mysterious change,
Which, whether he believe or mock the creed
Of those who trust, awaits him, and must bring
Or good, or evil, or annihilate

The sense of being, and involve him quite
In darkness upon which no dawn shall break!—
Fearful and dreaded must thy bidding be
To such as have no light within, vouchsafed
From the Most High, no reason for their hope;
But go from this firm world, into the void
Where no material body may reside,

By fleshly cares polluted and unmeet
For spiritual joy; and ne'er have known,
Or knowing, have behind them cast the love
Of their Redeemer, who thine awful bonds,
Grim Potentate, has broken, and made smooth
The deathbed of the just through faith in Him.
How oft, at midnight, have I fixed my gaze
Upon the blue unclouded firmament,
With thousand spheres illumined, each perchance
The powerful centre of revolving worlds!
Until, by strange excitement stirred, the mind
Has longed for dissolution, so it might bring
Knowledge, for which the spirit is athirst,
Open the darkling stores of hidden time,
And show the marvel of eternal things,
Which, in the bosom of immensity,
Wheel round the God of Nature.

Illusive aspirations! daring hope!

Vain desire!

Worm that I am, who told me I should know

More than is needful, or hereafter dive

Into the counsel of the God of worlds?

Or ever, in the cycle unconceived
Of wondrous eternity, arrive

Beyond the narrow sphere, by Him assigned
To be my dwelling wheresoe'er? Enough
To work in trembling my salvation here,
Waiting thy summons, stern, mysterious Power,
Who to thy silent realm hast called away
All those whom nature twined around my breast
In my fond infancy, and left me here

Denuded of their love! Where are ye gone,
And shall we wake from the long sleep of death,
To know each other, conscious of the ties
That linked our souls together, and draw down
The secret dewdrop on my cheek, whene'er
I turn unto the past? or will the change
That comes to all, renew the altered spirit
To other thoughts, making the strife or love
Of short mortality a shadow past,

Equal illusion? Father, whose strong mind
Was my support, whose kindness as the spring
Which never tarries! Mother, of all forms

That smiled upon my budding thoughts most dear!
Brothers! and thou, mine only sister! gone
To the still grave, making the memory
Of all my earliest time, a thing wiped out,
Save from the glowing spot, which lives as fresh
In my heart's core, as when we last in joy
Were gathered round the blithe paternal board !
Where are ye? Must your kindred spirits sleep
For many a thousand years, till by the trump
Roused to new being? Will affections then
Burn inwardly, or all our loves gone by
Seem but a speck upon the roll of time,
Unworthy our regard ?-This is too hard.
For mortals to unravel, nor has He
Vouchsafed a clue to man, who bade us trust
To Him our weakness, and we shall wake up
After his likeness, and be satisfied.

C. C. COLTON,

THE author of "Lacon," was educated at Cambridge, where he obtained a fellowship. He entered the established church, and though he held the vicarage of Kew with Petersham, in Surrey, he was a well-known frequenter of the gaming-table; and, suddenly disappearing from his usual haunts in the metropolis, about the time of a murder that attracted much attention, it was suspected he had fallen by the hand of an assassin. It was however afterwards ascertained that he had absconded, to avoid his creditors; and, in 1828, a successor was appointed to his living. He then went to reside in America: but subsequently lived in Paris, a professed gamester. He committed suicide at Fontainebleau, in 1832. His principal poems are in three volumes, entitled "The Conflagration of Moscow," "Hypocrisy," and "Modern Antiquity, and other poems."

LIFE.

How long shall man's imprisoned spirit groan
"Twixt doubt of heaven and deep disgust of earth?
Where all worth knowing never can be known,

And all that can be known, alas! is nothing worth.

Untaught by saint, by cynic, or by sage,

And all the spoils of time that load their shelves,

We do not quit, but change our joys in age—

Joys framed to stifle thought, and lead us from ourselves.

The drug, the cord, the steel, the flood, the flame,
Turmoil of action, tedium of rest,

And lust of change, though for the worst, proclaim
How dull life's banquet is: how ill at ease the guest.

Known were the bill of fare before we taste,

Who would not spurn the banquet and the board— Prefer th' eternal, but oblivious fast,

To life's frail-fretted thread, and death's suspended sword?

He that the topmost stone of Babel planned,

And he that braved the crater's boiling bed

Did these a clearer, closer view command

Of heaven or hell, we ask, than the blind herd they led?

Or he that in Valdarno did prolong

The night, her rich star-studded page to read— Could he point out, midst all that brilliant throng,

His fixed and final home, from fleshy thraldom freed?

Minds that have scanned creation's vast domain,
And secrets solved, till then to sages sealed,
Whilst nature owned their intellectual reign

Extinct, have nothing known or nothing have revealed.

Devouring grave! we might the less deplore

Th' extinguished lights that in thy darkness dwell, Wouldst thou, from that last zodiac, one restore,

That might th' enigma solve, and doubt, man's tyrant, quell.

To live in darkness-in despair to die

Is this indeed the boon to mortals given?

Is there no port-no rock of refuge nigh?

There is—to those who fix their anchor-hope in heaven.

Turn then, O man! and cast all else aside :

Direct thy wandering thoughts to things above

Low at the cross bow down-in that confide,

Till doubt be lost in faith, and bliss secured in love.

34

REGINALD HEBER.

THIS eminent person was born at Malpas, in Cheshire, on the 21st of April, 1783, and in the seventeenth year of his age, he entered Brazen Nose College, Oxford, where he obtained the chancellor's prize for a Latin poem, and greatly distinguished himself by an English poem, entitled "Palestine." Leaving the University, he travelled on the continent, and on his return was presented with a living in Shropshire, where for several years he devoted himself with much assiduity to his profession. It was here that he wrote most of his hymns and other poems, made his translations from Pindar, and prepared his edition of Jeremy Taylor. In 1822, he was appointed Bishop of Calcutta, and soon after his arrival in India, he died of apoplexy, at Trichinopoli. Heber was one of the sweetest of the poets who have sung of religion. His hymns are for the Christian what the unchaste songs of Moore are for the sensualist.

THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.

FOR many a coal-black tribe and cany spear,
The hireling guards of Mizraim's throne, were there;
On either wing their fiery coursers check

The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek,

While close behind, inured to feast on blood,

Decked in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla strode.
Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold,

Saw ye

how swift the scythed chariots rolled? So these are they, whom lord of Afric's fates,

Old Thebes, has poured through all her hundred gates.
Mother of armies! How the emerald glowed,
Where flushed with power and vengeance Pharaoh rode;
And stoled in white, those blazing wheels before
Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore:

And still reponsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmured "Victory."

Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom,
Whom come ye forth to combat? warrior, whom?
These flocks and herds, this faint and weary train,