He bows the heav'ns-the mountains stand, The forests in his strength rejoice, Here on the hills he feeds his herds, Mount with the lark, and bear our song Or, with the nightingale, prolong In ev'ry stream his bounty flows, His blessings fall in plenteous show'rs Upon the lap of earth, That teems with foliage, fruit, and flow'rs, If God hath made this world so fair, MONTGOMERY. TO THE MORNING LARK. FEATHER'D lyric warbling high, Opening with thy matin lay, While the bloom of orient light ANON. THE DIAL. THIS shadow on the Dial's face, Hath held its course sublime ; What is it?-Mortal Man! It is the scythe of Time: A shadow only to the eye; Yet, in its calm career, It levels all beneath the sky; And still, through each succeeding year, Right onward, with resistless power, Its stroke shall darken every hour, Till Nature's race be run, And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun. Nor only o'er the Dial's face, This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years, away From hoary rock and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mould'ring walls, O'er evanescent joys; [morn, Life's flowerets glitt'ring with the dews of Then Time, the Conqueror, will suspend His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb, Whose moving shadow shall portend Each frail beholder's doom. O'er the wide earth's illumin'd space, Though Time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face Points from the church-yard stone. MONTGOMERY. MORTALITY. O WHY should the spirit of mortal be proud! The leaves of the oak and the willows shall fade, high, Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie. The child that a mother attended and lov'd, The husband that mother and infant that blest, The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye, Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by; And the memory of those that beloved her and prais'd, Are alike from the minds of the living eras'd. The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne, The brow of the priest that the mitre hath worn, The eye of the sage, and the heart of the brave, Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave. The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap, The herdsman who climb'd with his goats to the steep, The beggar that wander'd in search of his bread, The saint that enjoy'd the communion of heaven, So the multitude goes-like the flower and the weed So the multitude comes-even those we behold, To repeat every tale that hath often been told. For we are the same things that our fathers have been, We see the same sights that our fathers have see We drink the same stream, and we feel the sat sun, And we run the same course that our fathers h The thoughts we are thinking, our fathers would think, [would shrink, From the death we are shrinking from, they too To the life we are clinging to, they too would clingBut it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing. They lov'd-but their story we cannot unfold; They scorn'd-but the heart of the haughty is cold, They griev'd-but no wail from their slumbers may come, They joy'd—but the voice of their gladness is dumb. They died-ay, they died! and we things that are now, Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow, Still follow each other like surge upon surge. 'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroudO Why should the spirit of mortal be proud! ΚΝΟΧ. SECOND SUNDAY IN ADVENT. THE Lord will come! the earth shall quake, The Lord will come! but not the same |