202

A VISION OF IMMORTALITY.

The voice of triumph and the hymn of life.
The insect brood are there!—each painted wing
That flutters in the sunshine, broke but now
From the close cerements of a worm's own shroud,
Is telling, as it flies, how life may spring

In its glad beauty from the gloom of death.

Where the crushed mould beneath the sunken foot
Seems but the sepulchre of old decay,

Turn thou a keener glance, and thou shalt find

The gathered myriads of a mimic world.
The breath of evening and the sultry morn

Bears on its wing a cloud of witnesses,

That earth from her unnumbered caves of death
Sends forth a mightier tide of teeming life.
Raise then the Hymn to Immortality!

The broad green prairies and the wilderness,
And the old cities where the dead have slept,
Age upon age, a thousand graves in one,
Shall yet be crowded with the living forms
Of myriads, waking from the silent dust.

Kings that lay down in state, and earth's poor slaves,
Resting together in one fond embrace,

The white-haired patriarch and the tender babe,
Grown old together in the flight of years.
They of immortal fame and they whose praise
Was never sounded in the ears of men,—

Archon and priest, and the poor common crowd,—
All the vast concourse in the halls of death,
Shall waken from the dreams of silent years
To hail the dawn of the immortal day.

Aye, learn the lesson. Though the worm shall be
Thy brother in the mystery of death!
And all shall pass, humble and proud and gay
Together, to earth's mighty charnel-house,
Yet the Immortal is thy heritage!

A VISION OF IMMORTALITY.

The grave shall gather thee: yet thou shalt come,
Beggar or prince, not as thou wentest forth,
In rags or purple, but arrayed as those
Whose mortal puts on Immortality!

Then mourn not when thou markest the decay
Of Nature, and her solemn hymn of death
Steals with a note of sadness to thy heart.

That other voice, with its rejoicing tones,
Breaks from the mould with every bursting flower,
"O grave! thy victory!" And thou, Oh, man,
Burdened with sorrow at the woes that crowd

Thy narrow heritage, lift up thy head
In the strong hope of the undying life,
And shout the Hymn to Immortality.
The dear departed that have passed away
To the still house of death, leaving thine own,
The gray-haired sire that died in blessing thee,
Mother or sweet-lipped babe, or she who gave
Thy home the light and bloom of Paradise,—
They shall be thine again, when thou shalt pass,
At God's appointment, through the shadowy vale,
To reach the sunlight of the IMMORTAL HILLS.
And thou that gloriest to lie down with kings,
Thine uncrowned head now lowlier than their's,
Seek thou the loftier glory to be known

A king and priest to God,-when thou shalt pass
Forth from these silent halls to take thy place
With patriarchs and prophets and the blest
Gone up from every land to people heaven.
So live, that when the mighty caravan,
Which halts one night-time in the vale of Death,
Shall strike its white tents for the morning march,
Thou shalt mount onward to the Eternal Hills,
Thy foot unwearied, and thy strength renewed
Like the strong eagle's for the upward fiight!

203

BRYANT.

Che Nepenthes or Pitcher Plant.

BY CAROLINE SOUTHEY.

KNOW ye the little plant that springs,

Up from a heathen sod,
Revealing thus to human hearts,

The providence of God?

Where man to man doth idol-worship teach,

The sweet Nepenthes springs, a purer faith to preach!

Where fall not showers, and fall not dews,

And stream and fount are dry,

It lifts its little pitcher lid,

And woos the traveller's eye:

A limped water sparkles in its urn,

Though skies above are dry, and sands about it burn.

Earth sometimes like a desert seems

Life's comfort streams are dry;

Throbs wearily the heavy heart,

Grows dim the waiting eye:

Whither? oh whither shall the weary turn?

Where shall the spirit find some kind Nepenthes' urn?

Poor pilgrim of Ceylon! not thou,

That mystic urn can show,

That living water hast not thou

Thou knowest not whence its flow:

The Bible, page inspired! to that I turn,

When earth's last stream is dry, that's my Nepenthes' urn!

Intellectual pride.

"THERE is nothing which so perverts the heart, as intellectual pride. The calamities which have most afflicted and debased our race, have sprung from the abuse of the free and gifted intellect. In the perversity of a corrupt will, and in the excesses of a presumptuous understanding, man has frightfully abused the powers entrusted to him for high and holy purposes. Too often, the extent of human knowledge is the measure of human crime. As if to impress indelibly upon the soul of man, the terrible consequences of a presumptuous intellect, a jealous Deity has enforced the lesson with special revelations. He has not only bestowed upon us the godlike capacity of reason, to collect and compare the fruits of experience, in the ages which have been gathered to the past, but He has suspended the arm of the Cherubim, that we might enter the forbidden paths of paradise, to read, beneath the tree of knowledge, the price of disobedience. And He has unbarred the gates of Heaven itself, that in the fall of the angelic hosts, we might tremble at the instant and irremediable ruin which followed the single sin of thought. One truth, we therefore know that, unaccompanied with an upright heart and a chastened will, with the morality that springs from religion, the measure of man's intellect is the measure of his ruin. The pride of wealth inspires contempt, and the pride of place awakens resentment. They are human follies, and are punished by human measures: but the pride of intellect, wherein the gifted wars with the Giver, is a crime which the dread Creator has reserved for special retribution. LIEU. LYNCH'S DEAD SEA.

Virtue is made for difficulties, and grows stronger and brighter for such trials.

Inward Jufluence of Outward Beauty.

BELIEVE me, there is many a road to our hearts besides our ears and brains: many a sight, and sound, and scent, even of which we have never thought at all, sinks into our memory, and helps to shape our characters: and thus children brought up among beautiful sights and sweet sounds, will most likely show the fruits of their nursing by thoughtfulness, and affection, and nobleness of mind even by the expression of the countenance. Those who live in towns should carefully remember this, for their own sakes, for their wives' sakes, for their childrens' sakes. Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful. Beauty is God's hand-writing—a way-side sacrament: welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower: and thank for it, Him, the fountain of all loveliness, and drink it in, simply and earnestly with all your eyes: it is a charmed draught, a cup of blessing.

POLITICS FOR THE PEOPLE.

MAN of the People! not on swords and spears,
Is the reliance of the coming years!
Not by the cannon's throat shall Truth proclaim,
Her mighty mission-not with blood and flame,
Inscribe her lessons in the book of Time;
Her strongest weapons shall be words sublime :
Her armies, thoughts: her banners, printed sheets:
Her captains; voices crying in the streets!

CHARLES MACKAY.

LET the mind's sweetness have its operation,
Upon thy person, clothes and habitation.