WILLIS, N. P.

The Healing of the Daughter of Jairus
On witnessing a Baptism

...

...

"WEEP FOR YOURSELVES AND FOR YOUR CHILDREN."

By Mrs. SIGOURNEY, a poetess of America.

WE mourn for those who toil,

The slave who ploughs the main,
Or him who hopeless tills the soil

Beneath the stripe and chain ;
For those who in the world's hard race,

O'erwearied and unblest,
A host of restless phantoms chase ;-

Why mourn for those who rest?
We mourn for those who sin,

Bound in the tempter's snare,
Whom syren pleasure beckons in

To prisons of despair ;
Whose hearts, by whirlwind passions torn,

Are wreck'd on folly's shore ;-
But why in sorrow should we mourn

For those who sin no more?

We mourn for those who weep,

Whom stern afflictions bend
With anguish o'er the lowly sleep

Of lover or of friend ;-
But they to whom the sway

Of pain and grief is o’er,
Whose tears our God hath wiped away,

Oh, mourn for them no more!

B

THE PIGEON OF THE EAST.

BY THOMAS MOORE.

THE bird let loose in eastern skies,
When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, or flies
Where idler wanderers roam;

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Or shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every stain
Of sinful passion free,

Aloft, through virtue's purer air,
To steer my course to Thee!

No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
My soul, as home she springs,
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom on her wings.

REFLECTIONS AT MIDNIGHT.

A passage from YOUNG's "Night Thoughts."

THE bell strikes one.

But from its loss.

We take no note of time,

To give it then a tongue,

Is wise in man. As if an angel spoke,

I feel the solemn sound. If heard aright,

It is the knell of my departed hours:

Where are they? With the years beyond the flood.

It is the signal that demands despatch;

How much is to be done! My hopes and fears
Start up alarm'd, and o'er life's narrow verge
Look down-on what? A fathomless abyss!
A dread eternity! how surely mine!
And can eternity belong to me,

Poor pensioner on the bounties of an hour?

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,

How complicate, how wonderful is man!