II.

And therefore, to our hearts, the days gone by, When lived the honoured sage whose death we wept,

And the soft virtues beamed from many an eye, And beat in many a heart that long has slept,Like spots of earth where angel-feet have stepped,

Are holy; and high-dreaming bards have told Of times when worth was crowned, and faith

was kept,

Ere friendship grew a snare, or love waxed cold— Those pure and happy times-the golden days of old.

III.

Peace to the just man's memory; let it grow Greener with years, and blossom through the

flight

Of ages; let the mimic canvas show

His calm benevolent features; let the light Stream on his deeds of love, that shunned the

sight

Of all but heaven, and in the book of fame,
The glorious record of his virtues write,

And hold it up to men, and bid them claim
A palm like his, and catch from him the hal-
lowed flame.

IV.

But oh, despair not of their fate who rise
To dwell upon the earth when we withdraw!
Lo! the same shaft by which the righteous dies,
Strikes through the wretch that scoffed at
mercy's law,

And trode his brethren down, and felt no awe
Of Him who will avenge them. Stainless worth,
Such as the sternest age of virtue saw,

Ripens, meanwhile, till time shall call it forth From the low modest shade, to light and bless the earth.

V.

Has Nature, in her calm, majestic march Faltered with age at last? does the bright sun Grow dim in heaven? or, in their far blue

arch,

Sparkle the crowd of stars, when day is done, Less brightly? when the dew-lipped Spring

comes on,

Breathes she with airs less soft, or scents the

sky

With flowers less fair than when her reign be

gun?

Does prodigal Autumn, to our age, deny

The plenty that once swelled beneath his sober

eye?

5

VI.

Look on this beautiful world, and read the truth
In her fair page; see, every season brings
New change, to her, of everlasting youth;
Still the green soil, with joyous living things,
Swarms, the wide air is full of joyous wings,
And myriads, still, are happy in the sleep
Of ocean's azure gulfs, and where he flings
The restless surge. Eternal Love doth keep
In his complacent arms, the earth, the air, the
deep.

VII.

Will then the merciful One, who stamped our

race

With his own image, and who gave them sway
O'er earth, and the glad dwellers on her face,
Now that our swarming nations far away

Are spread, where'er the moist earth drinks the

day,

Forget the ancient care that taught and nursed
His latest offspring? will he quench the ray
Infused by his own forming smile at first,
And leave a work so fair all blighted and ac-
cursed?

VIII.

Oh, no! a thousand cheerful omens give
Hope of yet happier days, whose dawn is nigh.
He who has tamed the elements, shall not live
The slave of his own passions; he whose eye
Unwinds the eternal dances of the sky,
And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,
In God's magnificent works his will shall scan-
And love and peace shall make their paradise
with man.