Another year! so swift it flew,

We scarce had marked it ours;
Ere, fading from our backward view,
Tis but the past our eyes pursue;
Eternity's long hours!

'Tis New Year's Day! the coming year All blank before us lies;

Oh! may no blot or stain appear,
To mar its history written here,
When published in the skies!

"Tis New Year's Day! how oft have I,
While yet a simple child,
Made it the goal from whence to try,
That race to run, which to the sky
Can guide through Time's dark wild.

The sky, that home of quiet rest,

When life's poor dream is o'er, Where spirits mingle with the blest, And sorrow, in the aching breast, Shall reign, shall reign no more!

E. DICKINSON.

FAREWELL TO A DEPARTED FRIEND. THOU art gone to the grave-but we will not deplore thee; Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb, The Savior has passed through its portals before thee, And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom.

Thou art gone to the grave-we no longer behold thee,
Nor tread the rough path of the world by thy side;
But the wide arms of mercy are spread to enfold thee,
And sinners may hope, since the sinless has died.

Thou art gone to the grave-and its mansion forsaking,
Perhaps thy tried spirit in doubt lingered long;
But the sunshine of heaven beamed bright on thy waking,
And the song which thou heardst was the seraphim's song.

Thou art gone to the grave-but 'twere wrong to deplore thee,

When God was thy ransom, thy guardian, thy guide; He gave thee, and took thee, and soon will restore thee, Where death hath no sting, since the Savior hath died.

THE CRUCIFIXION.

CITY of God! Jerusalem,

Why rushes out thy living stream? The turbaned priest, the hoary seer, The Roman in his pride are there! And thousands, tens of thousands, still Cluster round Calvary's wild hill.

Still onward rolls the living tide,

HEBER.

There rush the bridegroom and the bridePrince, beggar, soldier, Pharisee,

The old, the young, the bond, the free;
The nation's furions multitude,
All maddening with the cry of blood.

"Tis glorious morn; from height to height
Shoot the keen arrows of the light:
And glorious, in their central shower,
Palace of holiness and power,

The temple on Moriah's brow
Looks a new risen sun below.

But wo to hill, and wo to vale!

Against them shall come forth a wail: And wo to bridegroom and to bride!

For death shall on the whirlwind ride; And wo to thee, resplendent shrine, The sword is out for thee and thine. H.ie, hide thee in the heavens, thou sun, Before the deed of blood is done! Upon that temple's haughty steep

They see destruction's funeral pall
Blackening o'er Sion's sacred wall.
Like tempests gathering on the shore,
They hear the coming army's roar:
They see in Sion's halls of state,

The Sign that maketh desolate-
The idol standard, pagan spear,
The tomb, the flame, the massacre.
They see the vengeance fall; the chain,
The long, long age of guilt and pain:
The exile's thousand desperate years,

The more than groans, the more than tears; Jerusalem, a vanished name—

Its tribes earth's warnings, scoff, and shame.
Still pours along the multitude,

Still rends the heavens the shout of blood; But in the murderer's furious van

Who totters on? A weary man;
A cross upon his shoulder bound-
His brow, his frame, one gushing wound.
And now he treads on Calvary-

What slave upon that hill must die?
What hand, what heart, in guilt embrued,
Must be the mountain vulture's food?
There stand two victims gaunt and bare,
Two culprits emblems of despair.

Yet who the third? The yell of shame
Is phrensied at the sufferer's name.
Hands clenched, teeth gnashing, vestures torn,
The curse, the taunt, the langh of scorn,
All that the dying hour can sting,
Are round thee now, thou thorn-crowned tig
Yet cursed and tortured, taunted, spurnes
No wrath is for the wrath returned;
No vengeance flashes from the eye;

The Sufferer calmly waits to die;
The sceptre-reed, the thorny crown,
Wake on that pallid brow no frown.
At last the word of death is given,
The form is bound, the nails are driver:
Now triumph, Scribe and Pharisee!

Now Roman, bend the mocking knee!
The cross is reared. The deed is done,
There stands MESSIAH's earthly throne!
This was the earth's consummate hour;

For this hath blazed the prophet's power;
For this hath swept the conqueror's word;
Hath ravaged, raised, cast down, restored
Persepolis, Rome, Babylon,

For this ye sank, for this ye shone.
Yet things to which earth's brightest beam
Were darkness-earth itself a dream.
Foreheads on which shall crowns be laid

Sublime, when sun and star shall fade:
Worlds upon worlds, eternal things,
Hung on thy anguish, King of kings!
Still from his lip no curse has come,

His lofty eye has looked no doom!
No earthquake burst, no angel brand,

Crushes the black, blaspheming band:
What say those lips by anguish riven?
"God, be my murderers forgiven !”
He dies! in whose high victory

The slayer, Death, himself shall die:
He dies! by whose all conquering tread
Shall yet be crushed the serpent's head
From his proud throne to darkness hurled
The god and tempter of this world.

He dies! Creation's awful Lord,

Jehovah, Christ, Eternal word!
To come in thunder from the skies;
To bid the buried world arise;
The earth his footstool; heaven his throne,
Redeemer! may thy will be done.

THE OFFERING.

I SEE them fading round me,

The beautiful, the bright, As the rose-red lights that darken At the falling of the night.

I had a lute, whose music

Made sweet the summer wind,
But the broken strings have vanished,
And no song remains behind.

I had a lovely garden,

Fruits and flowers on every bough, But the frost came too severely'Tis decayed and blighted now.

That lute is like my spirits

They have lost their buoyant tone;
Crushed and shattered, they've forgotten
The glad notes once their own.

And my mind is like that garden-
It has spent its early store;
And wearied and exhausted,

It has no strength for more.

I will look on them as warnings,
Sent less in wrath than love,
To call the being homeward-
To its other home above.

As the Lesbian in false worship
Hung her harp upon the shrine,
When the world lost its attraction,
So will I offer mine:

But in another spirit,

With a higher hope and aim, And in a holier temple,

And to a holier name.

I offer up affections,

Void, violent, and vain;

I offer years of sorrow

Of the mind, and body's pain

I offer up my memory

'Tis a drear and darkened page, Where experience has been bitter, And whose youth has been like age.

I offer hopes whose folly

Only after-thoughts can know,

For instead of seeking heaven

They were chained to earth below.

Saying, wrong and grief have brought me,
To thy altar as a home;

I am sad and broken-hearted,
And therefore am I come.

Let the incense of my sorrow
Be on high a sacrifice;

The worn and contrite spirit,

Thou alone would not despise ? L. E. L.

THERE is grief, there is grief-there is wringing of hands,
And weeping and calling for aid;

For sorrow hath summoned her group, and it stands,
Round the couch where the sufferer is laid.
And lips are all pallid, and cheeks are all cold,
And tears from the heart-springs are shed;

Yet who that looks on the sweet saint to behold,
But would gladly lie down in her stead!

There is grief, there is grief-there is anguish and strife;
See, the sufferer is toiling for breath;

For the spirit will cling, oh! how fondly, to life,
And stern is the struggle with death!

But the terrible conflict grows deadlier still,

Till the last fatal symptoms have birth;

And the eye-ball is glazed, and the heart-blood is chill; And this is the portion of earth!

HEAVEN.

There is bliss, there is bliss in the regions above,
They have opened the gates of the sky;

A spirit has soared to those mansions of love,
And seeks for admittance on high.

And friends long divided are hasting to greet

To a land, where no sorrow may come, And the seraphs are eager a sister to meet,

And to welcome the child to its home.

There is bliss, there is bliss at the foot of the throne, See the spirit all purified bend;

And it beams with delight, since it gazes alone,

On the face of a father, a friend!

Then it joins in the anthems for ever that rise,
And its frailty or folly forgiven,

It is dead to the earth and new-born to the skies:
And this is the portion of Heaven!

C. F. RICHARDSON

THE WIZARD.

He waved his wand! dark spirits knew
That rod-yet none obeyed its call;
And twice the mystic sign he drew,

And twice beheld them bootless all:
Then knew the seer Jehovah's hand,
And crushed the scroll and broke the wand;
"I feel Him like a burning fire,

When I would curse, my lips are dumb;
But from those lips, 'mid hate and ire,
Unchecked the words of blessing come;
They come and on his people rest.
A people by the curser blest!

"I see them from the mountain-top,
How fair their dwellings on the plain!
Like trees that crown the valley's slope,
Like waves that glitter on the main!
Strong, strong the lion slumbering there --
Who first shall rouse him from hls lair?
"Crouch, Amalek-and thou, vain king!
Crouch by thine altars-vainer still!
Hear ye the royal shouts that ring
From Israel's camp beneath the hill?

They have a God amid their tents, Banner at once, and battlements!

"A star shall break through yonder skies, And beam on every nation's sight; From yonder ranks a sceptre rise,

And bow the nations to its might:
I see their glorious strength afar-
All hail, mild sceptre! hail, bright Star!
"And who am I, for whom is flung

Aside the shrouding veil of time?
The seer whose rebel soul is wrung,
By wrath, and prophecy, and crime,
The future as the past I see-
Wo, then, for Moab! wo for me!"

On Peor's top the wizard stood,

Around him Moab's princes bowed; He bade-and altars streamed with blood, And incense wrapped him like a shroud! But vain the rites of earth and hellHe spake a mastered oracle!

ADVENT HYMN.

MISS JEWSBURY.

THE chariot! the chariot! its wheels roll in fire,
As the Lord cometh down in the pomp of his ire;
Self-moving, it drives on its pathway of cloud,

And the heavens with the burden of Godhead are bowed.

The glory! the glory! around him are poured
The myriads of angels that wait on the Lord;
And the glorified saints and the martyrs are there,
And all who the palm-wreaths of victory wear.

The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead have all heard;
Lo, the depths of the stone-covered monuments stirred!
From ocean and earth, from the south pole and north,
Lo, the vast generations of ages come forth!

The judgment! the judgment! the thrones are all set,
Where the lambs and the white-vested elders are met;
All flesh is at once in the sight of the Lord,
And the doom of eternity hangs on his word.

Oh mercy! oh mercy! Look down from above,
Redeemer, on us, thy sad children, with love
When beneath to their darkness the wicked are driven,
May our justified souls find a welcome in heaven!

THE PILGRIMS HOME.

MILLMAN.

THERE are climates of sunshine, of beauty and gladness,
Where roses are flourishing all the year long;
Their bowers are despoiled not by wintry sadness,
And their echoes reply to the nightingale's song:
But coldly the Briton regards their temptations,
Condemned from his friends and his kindred to roam,
He looks on the brightness of lovelier nations,

But his heart and his wishes still turn to his home.

Oh! why is this duteous and home-loving feeling
So seldom displayed by the Pilgrim of Life?
While faith to his mind a bright scene is revealing,
He toils through a world of sin, sorrow, and strife:
Yet, lured by the paltry attractions around him,

Too oft he forgets the pure pleasure to come,
And wildly foregoes for the toys that surround him,
His hopes of a lasting, a glorious Home.

Not such is the Christian: devoted, believing, Through storm and through sunshine his trust shall abide :

The way that he wends may be dark or deceiving,

But heaven is his shrine, and the Lord is his guide. And when death's warning angel around him shall hover, He dreads not the mandate that bids him to come; It tells that his toils and temptations are over"Tis the voice of his Father: it calls to his Home. ANONYMOUS.

THE MOTHER'S GRIEF.
To mark the afferings of the babe
That can not speak its wo;
To see the infant tears gush forth,
Yet know not why they flow;
To meet the meek, uplifted eye,
That fain would ask relief,
Yet can but tell of agony--
This is a mother's grief.
Through dreary days and darker nights,
To trace the mark of death;
To hear the faint and frequent sigh,
The quick and shortened breath;
To watch the last dread strife draw near,
And pray that struggle brief;
Though all is ended with its close-
This is a mother's grief.

To see in one short hour decayed,
The hope of future years;

To feel how vain a father's prayers,
How vain a mother's tears;

To think the cold grave now must close
O'er what was once the chief

Of all the treasured joys on earth-
This is a mother's grief.

Yet, when the first wild throb is past,

Of anguish and despair,

To lift the eye of faith to heaven,
And think "my child is there!"
This best can dry the gushing tears-
This yield the heart relief;

Until the Christian's pious hope
O'ercomes a mother's grief.

REV. T. DALZ.

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

"Trs still thine hour, O Death!

Thine, Lord of Hades, is the kingdom still; Yet twice thy sword unstained hath sought its sheats, Though twice upraised to kill;

And once again the tomb

Shall yield its captive prey;

A mightier arm shall pierce the pathless gloom,
And rend the prize away:

Nor comes thy Conqueror armed with spear or sword-
He hath no arms but Prayer-no weapon but his Wad

'Tis now the fourth sad morn

Since Lazarus, the pious and the just,
To his last home by sorrowing kinsmen borne,
Hath parted, dust to dust.

The grave-worm revels now

Upon his mouldering clay

And He, before whose car the mountains bow-·
The rivers roll away

In conscious awe-He only can revive
Corruption's withering prey, and call the dead to "ve!
Yet still the sister's keep

Their sad and silent vigil at the grave, Watching for Jesus-" Comes he not to weed? He did not come to save!"

But now one straining eye

Th' advancing Form hath traced;And soon in wild, resistless agony Have Martha's arms embraced

The Savior's feet-"O Lord! hadst thou heen nigh But speak the word e'en now-it shall be heard on high

They led him to the cave

The rocky bed, where now in darkness slept Their brother, and his friend-then at the grave They paused-for "JESUS WEPT."

O Love, sublime and deep!

O Hand and Heart divine!

He comes to rescue, though he deigns to weepThe captive is not thine,

O Death! thy bands are burst asunder nowThere stands beside the grave a Mightier far than tho

"Come forth," he cries, "thou dead!"

O God! what means that strange and sudden sound, That murmurs from the tomb-that ghastly head, With funeral fillets bound ?

It is a LIVING FORM

The loved, the lost, the won

Won from the grave, corruption, and the worm"And is not this the Son

Of God!" they whispered-while the sisters poured Their gratitude in tears; for they had known the Lord. Yet now the Son of God

For such he was in truth-approached the hour For which alone the path of thorns he trod ;In which to thee the power,

O Death! should be restored

And yet restored in vain

For though the blood of ransom must be poured,
The spotless Victim slain;

He shall but yield to conquer, fall to rise,

And make the cold dark grave a portal to the skies! THOMAS DALE.

THE CLOUDS.

WHEN first the day-beam blessed the sky,
I marked the varied clouds on high-

The clouds through which the sun-light broke,
As if it came from heaven, and woke
Their sleepy shadows into smiles,

And wooed them with a thousand wiles.
Those at a distance yet, were cold

And dull and naked after night;
But on, toward the east, they rolled
And clad them in a robe of light.
Others, as if they loved to dwell

In darkness, moved but slowly on, And when on them its brightness fell, But little of their gloom had gone: One, gloomier still, its course delays, As though too heavy for the sky, Then breaks and passes gayly by: While some had gathered round the rays That gave them hues and forms so fair, As loath to leave that glorious place, To lose their beauty and to trace Their pathway through the murky air. I marked, when day was at its height, Others of many a varied dic, More fair of form, more purely bright Than those that decked the morning sky, And gazed, till over all on high The sun held undisputed sway, And chased from heaven all gloom away; While the few clouds that o'er it past, No beam obscured, no shadow cast. But when the day was almost done,

The clouds were beautiful indeed,
When, from his daily duty freed,
Still in his glorious strength, the sun
Shone forth upon the twilight skies,
And graced them with his myriad dies.
I saw the clouds that onward drew,
From out the deep and distant blue,
Become all beautiful and bright,
As if to show the coming night
How great the radiance and the power,
E'en of the sun's departing hour.
They took all shapes, as Fancy wrought
Her web, and mingled thought with thought!
Some like familiar forms-the themes
Of early loves that fade to dreams-
Some were of rainbow shape and hues ;
Some glistened, like our earth, with dews;
Some were like forests, seen afar;
Some like the restless wandering star;
While some appeared like coral caves
Half hidden by the ocean waves,

All covered with their snow-white spray;
Others were there, which seemed to be
Fair islands in a dark blue sea,
Which human eyes at eve behold;

But only then-unseen by day Their shores and mountains all of gold. They vanished as the night came onThose varied hues and forms were gone: But in their stead, Reflection woke To teach her lesson-thus she spoke : "Those very clouds, so bright, so gay, So fair-are vapors which the earth Flung, as diseased parts, away

Foul mists, which owe their second birth To him who keeps his throne on high, To bless the earth and gild the sky. Yes! 'tis the sun whose influence brings A change to these degraded thingsThat gives them lovely forms-and then Deprives them of their baneful powers, And sends to mother earth again,

In gentle dews and cheering showers, What was her burden and her ban. Man feels a change as great-when man Feels that immortal spark within Whose might no human tongue can tell, Which shines to lighten and dispel

The darkness and the weight of sin :
When He, who formed Creation's whole,
To school and guide the human soul,
Bids o'er the intellectual skies
The Sun of Righteousness arise,
And things of heaven and earth assume
Their proper shape of light or gloom.”

Now let the contemplative mind
Fill up the blank I leave behind;
And see through all Creation's plan
Some useful lesson taught to man:
Compare the changes wrought within,

And those without-by nature wrought: Compare the man who lives in sin,

And him by virtue led and taughtSee how the Christian's shining light Makes all that once was darkness, bright; And see how, like the clouds on high,

His every feeling, every thought, Adorn and bless the mental sky, -And then his glories never die!

S. C. HALL.

1

THE LAND WHICH NO MORTAL MAY KNOW.
THOUGH Earth has full many a beautiful spot,
As a poet or painter might show,

Yet more lovely and beautiful, holy and bright,
To the hopes of the heart, and the spirit's glad sight,
Is the land that no mortal may know.

There the crystalline stream bursting forth from the throne,
Flows on, and for ever will flow;

Its waves, as they roll, are with melody rife,
And its waters are sparkling with beauty and life,
In the land which no mortal may know.

And there, on its margin, with leaves ever green,
With its fruits healing sickness and wo,
The fair Tree of Life, in its glory and pride,
Is fed by that deep, inexhaustible tide,

Of the land which no mortal may know.

There, too, are the lost! whom we loved on this earth,
With whose mem'ries our bosoms yet glow;
Their relics we gave to the place of the dead,
But their glorified spirits before us have fled,
To the land which no mortal may know.
There the pale orb of night, and the fountain of day,
Nor beauty nor splendor bestow;

But the presence of HIM, the unchanging I AM!
And the holy, the pure, the immaculate Lamb!
Light the land which no mortal may know.
Oh! who but must pine, in this dark vale of tears,
From its clouds and its shadows to go?

To walk in the light of the glory above,
And to share in the peace, and the joy, and the love,
Of the land which no mortal may know.

BERNARD BARTON.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

HASF thou sounded the depth of yonder sea,
And counted the sands that under it be?
Hast thou measured the height of Heaven above?
Then mayest thou mete out a mother's love.

ast thou talked with the blessed, of leading on
To the throne of God some wandering son?
Hast thou witnessed the angel's bright employ ?
Then mayest thou speak of a mother's joy.
Evening and morn hast thou watched the bee
Go forth on her errands of industry?
The bee for herself hath gathered and toiled,
But the mother's cares are all for her child.

Hast thou gone with the traveller Thought afar?
From pole to pole, and from star to star?
Thou hast--but on ocean, earth, or sea,
The heart of a mother has gone with thee.
There is not a grand, inspiring thought,
There is not a truth by wisdom taught,
There is not a feeling pure and high,
That may not be read in a mother's eye.
And ever since earth began, that look
Has been to the wise, an open book,
To win them back from the lore they prize,
To the holier love that edifies.

There are teachings on earth, and sky, and air,
The heavens the glory of God declare!
But more loud than the voice beneath, above,
He is heard to speak through a mother's love.
EMILY TAYLOR.

EVENING TIME.

ZECH. xiv. 7.

AT evening time let there be light:
Life's little day draws near its close;
Around me fall the shades of night,
The night of death, the grave's repose:
To crown my joys, to end my woes,
At evening time let there be light.

At evening time let there be light:
Stormy and dark hath been my day;
Yet rose the morn divinely bright,

Dews, birds, and blossoms, cheered the way;
Oh for one sweet, one parting ray!
At evening time let there be light.

At evening time there shall be light;
For God hath spoken-it must be:
Fear, doubt, and anguish, take their flight,
His glory now is risen on me!
Mine eyes shall his salvation see:
-'Tis evening time, and there is light!
JAMES MONTGOMERY.

NIGHT.

NIGHT is the time for rest;

How sweet when labors close,

To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose,

Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed.

Night is the time for dreams;

The gay romance of life,

When truth that is, and truth that seems,
Blend in fantastic strife:

Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are.

Night is the time for toil;

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears
Those graves of memory, where sleep
The joys of other years,

Hopes that were angels in their birth,
But perished young-like things on earth.
Night is the time to watch,
On ocean's dark expanse;
To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the home-sick mind
All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care;

Brooding on hours mis-spent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;

Like Brutus, mid his slumbering host,
Startled by Cesar's stalwart ghost.

Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul

Takes flight, and with expanding views,
Beyond the starry pole

Descries, athwart th' abyss of night,
The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray;

Our Savior oft withdrew

To desert mountains far away:

So will his followers do

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath From sin and suffering cease, Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends-such death be mine! MONTGOMERY

"WATCH YE." MARK xiv. 38.

WHEN summer decks thy path with flowers,
And pleasure's smile is sweetest;
When not a cloud above thee lowers,
And sunshine leads thy happy hours,

Thy happiest and thy fleetest;
Oh! watch thou then, lest pleasure's smile
Thy spirit of its hope beguile.

When round thee gathering storms are nigh,

And grief thy days hath shaded; When earthly joys but bloom to die, And tears suffuse thy weeping eye,

And hope's bright bow hath faded;
Oh! watch thou then, lest anxious care
Invade thy heart, and rankle there.

Through all life's scenes-through weal and w↳
Through days of mirth and sadness,
Where'er thy wandering footsteps go-
Oh! think how transient here below
Thy sorrow and thy gladness:
And watch thou ALWAYS, lest thou stray
From Him who points the heavenward way.

ANONYMOUS

THE CELESTIAL SABBATH. THE golden palace of my God,

Towering above the clouds, I see; Beyond the cherub's bright abode, Higher than angel's thoughts can be. How can I in those courts appear, Without a wedding garment on? Conduct me, thou Life-giver, there, Conduct me to thy glorious throne! And clothe me with thy robes of light, And lead me through sin's darksome night, My Savior and my God. RUSSIAN POETRY