THE ORDINAL.

ALAS for me if I forget

The memory of that day

Which fills my waking thoughts, nor yet
E'en sleep can take away!

In dreams I still renew the rites
Whose strong but mystic chain
The spirit to its God unites,

And none can part again.
How oft the bishop's form I see,
And hear that thrilling tone
Demanding with authority

The heart for GoD alone; Again I kneel as then I knelt,

While he above me stands, And seem to feel, as then I felt, The pressure of his hands.

Again the priests in meet array,

As my weak spirit fails,
Beside me bend them down to pray
Before the chancel-rails;

As then, the sacramental host

Of Gon's elect are by,

When many a voice its utterance lost,
And tears dimm'd many an eye.

As then they on my vision rose,
The vaulted aisles I see,

And desk and cushion'd book repose

In solemn sanctity,

The mitre o'er the marble niche,

The broken crook and key,
That from a bishop's tomb shone rich
With polished tracery;

The hangings, the baptismal font,
All, all, save me unchanged,
The holy table, as was wont,

With decency arranged;

The linen cloth, the plate, the cup,

Beneath their covering shine, Ere priestly hands are lifted up To bless the bread and wine.

The solemn ceremonial past,

And I am set apart

To serve the LORD, from first to last,
With undivided heart;

And I have sworn, with pledges dire,

Which God and man have heard,
To speak the holy truth entire,
In action and in word.

O Thou, who in thy holy place
Hast set thine orders three,

Grant me, thy meanest servant, grace
To win a good degree;

That so, replenish'd from above,

And in my office tried,

Thou mayst he honoured, and in love
Thy church be edified!

CHRISTMAS EVE

THE thickly-woven boughs they wreathe
Through every hallow'd fane

A soft, reviving odour breathe

Of summer's gentle reign;

And rich the ray of mild green light
Which, like an emerald's glow,
Comes struggling through the latticed height
Upon the crowds below.

O, let the streams of solemn thought
Which in those temples rise,

From deeper sources spring than aught
Dependent on the skies:

Then, though the summer's pride departs,
And winter's withering chill

Rests on the cheerless woods, our hearts
Shall be unchanging still.

THE DEATH OF STEPHEN.

WITH awful dread his murderers shook, As, radiant and serene,

The lustre of his dying look

Was like an angel's seen; Or Moses' face of paly light,

When down the mount he trod,
All glowing from the glorious sight
And presence of his GoD.

To us, with all his constancy,
Be his rapt vision given,
To look above by faith, and see

Revealments bright of heaven.
And power to speak our triumphs out,
As our last hour draws near,
While neither clouds of fear nor doubt
Before our view appear.

THE CHRISTMAS OFFERING.

WE come not with a costly store,
O LORD, like them of old,
The masters of the starry lore,

From Ophir's shore of gold:
No weepings of the incense tree
Are with the gifts we bring,
To olorous myrrh of Araby
Blends with our offering.

But still our love would bring its best, A spirit keenly tried

"By fierce affliction's fiery test,

And seven times purified: The fragrant graces of the mind, The virtues that delight

fo give their perfume out, will and Acceptance in thy sigh:

MR. PRENTICE is a native of Preston, in Connecticut, and was educated at Brown University, in Providence, where he was graduated in 1823. He edited for several years, at Hartford, "The New England Weekly Review," in connection, I believe, with JOHN G. WHITTIER; and in 1831

he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, where he has since conducted the "Journal," of that city, one of the most popular gazettes ever published in this country. Nearly all his poems were written while he was in the university. They have never been published collectively.

THE CLOSING YEAR.

"Tis midnight's holy hour-and silence now
Is brooding, like a gentle spirit, o'er
The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds
The bell's deep tones are swelling; 'tis the knell
Of the departed year. No funeral train
Is sweeping past; yet, on the stream and wood,
With melancholy light, the moonbeams rest,
Like a pale, spotless shroud; the air is stirr'd,
As by a mourner's sigh; and on yon cloud,
That floats so still and placidly through heaven,
The spirits of the seasons seem to stand, [form,
Young Spring, bright Summer, Autumn's solemn
And Winter with his aged locks, and breathe
In mournful cadences, that come abroad
Like the far wind-harp's wild and touching wail,
A melancholy dirge o'er the dead year,
Gone from the earth forever. 'Tis a time
For memory and for tears. Within the deep,
Stil. chambers of the heart, a spectre dim,
Whose tones are like the wizard voice of Time,
Heard from the tomb of ages, points its cold
And solemn finger to the beautiful
And holy visions that have pass'd away,

And left no shadow of their loveliness.
On the dead waste of life. That spectre lifts
The coffin-lid of hope, and joy, and love,
And, bending mournfully above the pale
Sweet forms that slumber there, scatters dead flowers
O'er what has pass'd to nothingness. The year
Has gone, and, with it, many a glorious throng
Of happy dreams. Its mark is on each brow,
Its shadow in each heart. In its swift course,
It waved its sceptre o'er the beautiful,
And they are not. It laid its pallid hand
Upon the strong man, and the haughty form
Is fallen, and the flashing eye is dim.
It trod the hall of revelry, where throng'd
The bright and joyous, and the tearful wail
Of stricken ones is heard, where erst the song
And reckless shout resounded. It pass'd o'er
The battle-plain, where sword and spear and shield
Flash'd in the light of midday-and the strength
Of serried hosts is shiver'd, and the grass,
Green from the soil of carnage, waves above
The crush'd and mouldering skeleton. It came
And faded like a wreath of mist at eve;
Yet, ere it melted in the viewless air,
It heralded its millions to their home

In the dim land of dreams. Remorseless Time-
Fierce spirit of the glass and scythe-what power
Can stay him in his silent course, or melt
His iron heart to pity? On, still on
He presses, and forever. The proud bird,
The condor of the Andes, that can soar
Through heaven's unfathomable depths, or brave
The fury of the northern hurricane,
And bathe his plumage in the thunder's home,
Furls his broad wings at nightfall, and sinks down
To rest upon his mountain-crag,--but Time
Knows not the weight of sleep or weariness,
And night's deep darkness has no chain to bind
His rushing pinion. Revolutions sweep

O'er earth, like troubled visions o'er the breast
Of dreaming sorrow; cities rise and sink,
Like bubbles on the water; fiery isles
Spring, blazing, from the ocean, and back
go
To their mysterious caverns; mountains rear
To heaven their bald and blacken'd cliffs, and bow
Their tall heads to the plain; new empires rise,
Gathering the strength of hoary centuries,
And rush down like the Alpine avalanche,
Startling the nations; and the very stars,
Yon bright and burning blazonry of GoD,
Glitter a while in their eternal depths,
And, like the Pleiad, loveliest of their train,
Shoot from their glorious spheres, and pass away,
To darkle in the trackless void :-yet Time-
Time, the tomb-builder, holds his fierce career,
Dark, stern, all-pitiless, and pauses not
Amid the mighty wrecks that strew-his path,
To sit and muse, like other conquerors,
Upon the fearful ruin he has wrought.

LINES TO A LADY.

LADY, I love, at eventide,

When stars, as now, are on the wave, To stray in loneliness, and muse

Upon the one dear form that gave

Its sunlight to my boyhood; oft
That same sweet look sinks, still and soft.
Upon my spirit, and appears
As lovely as in by-gone years.

Eve's low, faint wind is breathing now,
With deep and soul-like murmuring,
Through the dark pines; and thy sweet worda
Seem borne on its mysterious wing;

And oft, inid musings sad and lone,
At night's deep noon, that thrilling tone
Swells in the wind, low, wild, and clear,
Like music in the dreaming air.

When sleep's calm wing is on my brow,
And dreams of peace my spirit lull,
Before me, like a misty star,

That form floats dim and beautiful;
And, when the gentle moonbeam smiles
On the blue streams and dark-green isles,
In every ray pour'd down the sky,
That same light form seems stealing by.

It is a blessed picture, shrined

In memory's urn; the wing of years
Can change it not, for there it glows,
Undimm'd by "weaknesses and tears;"
Deep-hidden in its still recess,
It beams with love and holiness,
O'er hours of being, dark and dull,
Till life seems almost beautiful.

The vision cannot fade away;

"Tis in the stillness of my heart, And o'er its brightness I have mused In solitude; it is a part

Of my existence; a dear flower

Breathed on by Heaven: morn's earliest our
That flower bedews, and its blue eye
At eve still rests upon the sky.

Lady, like thine, my visions cling

To the dear shrine of buried years;

The past, the past! it is too bright,
Too deeply beautiful for tears;

We have been bless'd; though life is made
A tear, a silence, and a shade,
And years have left the vacant breast
To loneliness-we have been bless'd!

Those still, those soft, those summer eyes,

When by our favourite stream we stood,
And watch'd our mingling shadows there,
Soft-pictured in the deep-blue flood,
Seem'd one enchantment. O! we felt,
As there, at love's pure shrine, we knelt,
That life was sweet, and all its hours
A glorious dream of love and flowers.

And still 'tis sweet. Our hopes went by
Like sounds upon the unbroken sea;
Yet memory wings the spirit back
To deep, undying melody;
And still, around her early shrine,
Fresh flowers their dewy chaplets twine,
Young Love his brightest garland wreathes,
And Eden's richest incense breathes.

Our hopes are flown-yet parted hours Stilt in the depths of memory lie, Like night-gems in the silent blue

Of summer's deep and brilliant sky; And Love's bright flashes seem again To fall upon the glowing chain Of our existence. Can it be That all is but a mockery?

Lady, adieu! to other climes

I go, from joy, and hope, and thee; A weed on Time's dark waters thrown, A wreck on life's wild-heaving sea; I go; but O, the past, the past! Its spell is o'er my being cast,And still, to Love's remember'd eves, With all but hope, my spirit cleaves. Adieu! adieu! My farewell words

Are on my lyre, and their wild flow Is faintly dying on the chords,

Broken and tuneless. Be it so! Thy name-O, may it never swell My strain again-yet long 't will dwell Shrined in my heart, unbreathed, unspokenA treasured word-a cherish'd token.

THE DEAD MARINER.

SLEEP on, sleep on! above thy corse
The winds their Sabbath keep;
The waves are round thee, and thy breast
Heaves with the heaving deep.
O'er thee mild eve her beauty flings,
And there the white gull lifts her wings,
And the blue halcyon loves to lave
Her plumage in the deep blue wave.

Sleep on; no willow o'er thee bends
With melancholy air,

No violet springs, nor dewy rose

Its soul of love lays bare;

But there the sea-flower, bright and young,

Is sweetly o'er thy slumbers flung,
And, like a weeping mourner fair,
The pale flag hangs its tresses there.

Sleep on, sleep on; the glittering depths
Of ocean's coral caves
Are thy bright urn-thy requiem
The music of its waves;
The purple gems forever burn
In fadeless beauty round thy urn,
And, pure and deep as infant love,
The blue sea rolls its waves above.

Sleep on, sleep on; the fearful wrath
Of mingling cloud and deep
May leave its wild and stormy track
Above thy place of sleep;

But, when the wave has sunk to rest,
As now, 'twill murmur o'er thy breast,
And the bright victims of the sea
Perchance will make their home with thee.

Sleep on; thy corse is far away,

But love bewails thee yet;
For thee the heart-wrung sigh is breathed,
And lovely eyes are wet:

And she, thy young and beauteous bride.
Her thoughts are hovering by thy side.
As oft she turns to view, with tears,
The Eden of departed years.

SABBATH EVENING.

How calmly sinks the parting sun!
Yet twilight lingers still;

And beautiful as dream of Heaven

It slumbers on the hill;

Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things,
Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings,
And, rendering back the hues above,
Seems resting in a trance of love.

Round yonder rocks the forest-trees

In shadowy groups recline,

Like saints at evening bow'd in prayer

Around their holy shrine;

And through their leaves the night-winds blow
So calm and still, their music low
Seems the mysterious voice of prayer,
Soft echo'd on the evening air.

And yonder western throng of clouds,

Retiring from the sky,

So calmly move, so softly glow,

They seem to fancy's eye
Bright creatures of a better sphere,
Come down at noon to worship here,
And, from their sacrifice of love,
Returning to their home above.

The blue isles of the golden sea,
The night-arch floating by,

The flowers that gaze upon the heavens,
The bright streams leaping by,
Are living with religion-deep
On earth and sea its glories sleep,
And mingle with the starlight rays,
Like the soft light of parted days.

The spirit of the holy eve

Comes through the silent air
To feeling's hidden spring, and wakes
A gush of music there!
And the far depths of ether beam
So passing fair, we almost dream
That we can rise, and wander through
Their open paths of trackless blue.

Each soul is fill'd with glorious dreams,
Each pulse is beating wild;

And thought is soaring to the shrine
Of glory undefiled!

And holy aspirations start,

Like blessed angels, from the heart,

And bind-for earth's dark ties are rivenOur spirits to the gates of heaven.

TO A LADY.

I THINK of thee when morning springs
From sleep, with plumage bathed in dew,
And, like a young bird, lifts her wings
Of gladness on the welkin blue.
And when, at noon, the breath of love

O'er flower and stream is wandering free, And sent in music from the grove,

think of thee-I think of thee.

I think of thee, when, soft and wide,
The evening spreads her robes of light,
And, like a young and timid bride,

Sits blushing in the arms of night.
And when the moon's sweet crescent springs
In light o'er heaven's deep, waveless sea,
And stars are forth, like blessed things,
I think of thee-I think of thee.

I think of thee;-that eye of flame,
Those tresses, falling bright and free,
That brow, where "Beauty writes her name,"
I think of thee-I think of thee.

WRITTEN AT MY MOTHER'S GRAVE

THE trembling dew-drops fall

Upon the shutting flowers; like souls at rest The stars shine gloriously: and all Save me, are blest.

Mother, I love thy grave!

The violet, with its blossoms blue and mild, Waves o'er thy head; when shall it wave Above thy child?

'Tis a sweet flower, yet must

Its bright leaves to the coming tempest bow; Dear mother, 't is thine emblem; dust Is on thy brow.

And I could love to die:

To leave untasted life's dark, bitter streams-By thee, as erst in childhood, lie,

And share thy dreams.

And I must linger here,

To stain the plumage of my sinless years, And mourn the hopes to childhood dear With bitter tears.

Ay, I must linger here,

A lonely branch upon a wither'd tree, Whose last frail leaf, untimely sere, Went down with thee!

Oft, from life's wither'd bower,

In still communion with the past, I turn,
And muse on thee, the only flower
In memory's urn.

And, when the evening pale

Bows, like a mourner, on the dim, blue wave, I stray to hear the night-winds wail Around thy grave.

Where is thy spirit flown?

I gaze above-thy look is imaged there;
I listen and thy gentle tone
Is on the air.

O, come, while here I press

My brow upon thy grave; and, in those mild And thrilling tones of tenderness

Bless, bless thy child!

Yes, bless your weeping child;

And o'er thine urn-religion's holiest shrineO, give his spirit, undefiled,

To blend with thine.

MR. PALMER is descended from a Puritan anestor who came to America in the next ship after the May Flower. His father was a youthful soldier in the Revolution, and one of the latest, if not the last, of the survivors of the Jersey prison ship. Having acquired a competency as the captain of a New York merchantman, he retired from the sea early in the present century, to Stockbridge, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, where he spent the remainder of his days, in that sunshine of love and respect which has gilded the declining years of so many men of our heroic age. There, on the twenty-second of February, 1805, our poet was born, and named in honour of the great orator whose claims to gratitude are recognised among us in a thousand living monuments which bear the name of WILLIAM PITT.

In his native county, Mr. PALMER has told me, the first and happiest half of his life was spent on the farm, in the desultory acquisition of such know. ledge as could then be obtained from a New Eng. land common school, and a “ college" with a single professor. The other half has been chiefly passe. in New York, as a medical student, teacher, writer for the gazettes, and, for several years, clerk in a public office.

Mr. PALMER is a man of warm affections, who finds a heaven in a quiet home. He is a lover of nature, too, and like most inhabitants of the pent-up city, whose early days have been passed in the country, he delights in recollections of rural life. Some of his poems have much tenderness and delicacy, and they are generally very complete and pol shed.

LIGHT.

FROM the quicken'd womb of the primal gloom
The sun roll'd black and bare,

Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast,
Of the threads of my golden hair;
And when the broad tent of the firmament
Arose on its airy spars,

I pencill'd the hue of its matchless blue,
And spangled it round with stars.

I painted the flowers of the Eden bowers,
And their leaves of living green,
And mine were the dyes in the sinless eyes
Of Eden's virgin queen;

And when the fiend's art, on her trustful heart,
Had fasten'd its mortal spell,

In the silvery sphere of the first-born tear
To the trembling earth I fell.

When the waves that burst o'er a world accursed
Their work of wrath hath sped,

And the Ark's lone few, the tried and true,
Came forth among the dead;

With the wondrous gleams of my braided beams
I bade their terrors cease;

As I wrote on the roll of the storm's dark scroll
GoD's covenant of peace.

Like a pall at rest on a pulseless breast,
Night's funeral shadow slept,

Where shepherd swains on the Bethlehem plains
Their lonely vigils kept;

When I flash'd on their sight the heralds bright Of heaven's redeeming plan,

As they chanted the morn of a Saviou bornJoy, joy to the outcast man!

Equal favour I show to the lofty and low,
On the just and unjust I descend;
E'en the blind, whose vain spheres roll in darkness
and tears,

Feel my smile the best smile of a friend: Nay, the flower of the waste by my love is embraced, As the rose in the garden of kings;

As the chrysalis bier of the worm I appear,
And lo! the gay butterfly's wings!
The desolate Morn, like a mourner forlorn,
Conceals all the pride of her charms,
Till I bid the bright Hours chase the Night from
her bowers,

And lead the young Day to her arms;
And when the gay rover seeks Eve for his lover,
And sinks to her balmy repose,

I wrap their soft rest by the zephyr-fann'd west,
In curtains of amber and rose.

From my sentinel steep, by the night-brooded deep,
I gaze with unslumbering eye,
When the cynosure star of the mariner

Is blotted from the sky;

And guided by me through the merciless sea,
Though sped by the hurricane's wings,
His compassless bark, lone, weltering, dark,
To the haven-home safely he brings.

I waken the flowers in their dew-spangled bowers,
The birds in their chambers of green,

And mountain and plain glow with beauty again,
As they bask in my matinal sheen.
O, if such the glad worth of my presence to earth
Though fitful and fleeting the while,
What glories must rest on the home of the bless'd
Ever bright with the DEITY's smile!