Should we deem ourselves forgot,
Let thy mercies fail us not;
But in doubt's distrustful hour
Magnify thy love and power.
ASLEEP in Jesus! Blessed sleep!
From which none ever wakes to weep;
A calm and undisturbed repose,
Unbroken by the last of foes!
Asleep in Jesus! peaceful rest!
Whose waking is supremely blest;
No fear, no woe shall dim the hour
That manifests the Saviour's power.
Asleep in Jesus! Time nor space
Debars this precious "hiding place;"
On Indian plains, or Lapland snows
Believers find the same repose.
Asleep in Jesus! Far from thee
Thy kindred and their graves may be ;
But thine is still a blessed sleep
From which none ever wakes to weep.
MAN, like a flower, at morn appears,
And blooms perhaps a few short years:
The flatterer, Hope, still leads him on
In quest of pleasure, finding none;
Or if he finds it for a day,
It soon takes wings and flies away.
Oft things which promise passing fair,
Deceive and yield him nought but care
Care, ever varying, ever new,
Must still our fallen race pursue;
Comes joy? care with it comes along,
And spoils the charmer's sweetest song
See pleasure with bewitching charms,
Man grasps it in his eager arms;
The vision swift dissolves in air,
He grasps-but finds it is not there :
The airy phantom still he views,
And still as vainly he pursues.
A better hope the Christian cheers, Which joyful thro' life's gloom appears Firm on a rock his hope he builds, Which to no storm nor tempest yields; Let earth dissolve-he will not fear; And why? his hope is not fix'd here,
He looks to heav'n, where ev'ry joy
Is pure, unmixed, without alloy;
Joys such as mortals never knew,
Nor raptured fancy ever drew,
Joys which shall never pass away,
Tho' heav'n and earth should both decay.
Tho' worldly pleasures here should fail,
And sorrows for awhile prevail;
Tho' friends forsake, and death remove
The dearest objects of our love;
Yet there remains a heavenly rest
For those whom Christ the Lord has blest.
And shall the world's deceitful smile
Us of this glorious hope beguile ?
Shall we earth's empty pleasures prize,
And heav'n seem little in our eyes?
It must not be-vain dream away,
We look for joys which ne'er decay.
THE SEASONS.
SERVE the God of love and truth,
In the spring-time of your youth:
Yield to Him the flower and prime,
Of your vigorous Summer time;
Let a life of grateful praise,
Crown the Autumn of your days,
And your Winter pass away
Into changeless, heavenly day
A SPIRIT of unwearied zeal,
Patience, which nothing could subdue,
A heart the woes of man to feel,
In every varied form and hue;
An open hand, and eye, and ear,
For all in prisons doomed to pine;
A voice the captive's hopes to cheer;-
These, noble Howard! these were thine.
In cells by Mercy's feet untrod
'Twas thine the mourner's lot to scan; Thy polar star the love of God,
Thy chart and compass love to man.
To mitigate the law's stern wrath
Thou trod'st, with stedfast heart and eye,
An open, unfrequented path
To fame and immortality!
What was thy meed ? a stranger's grave,
Divided from thy native land
By many a white and stormy wave,
By many a weary waste of sand.
Yet to that lone and distant tomb,
Thy name its memory may entrust,
Till cloudless glory burst its gloom,
And thou shall rise to meet the just!
PRAISE AND PRAYER.
CAN words alone the first display ?
Prove we the last by bended knee?
The right to praise, the power to pray,
Must both be given us, Lord, by Thee.
Thy Spirit must the heart prepare,
And faith in thy dear Son be known,
Before the voice of praise, or prayer,
Can rise like incense to thy throne.
Then give the power thy grace imparts,
The love by Jesus shown of yore;
That praiseless lives, and prayerless hearts,
May prove our guilt and shame no more.
BARTON.
TO THE SWALLOW.
AERIAL Voyager, who spread'st thy wing
O'er trackless waves to seek a sunnier clime !
To man's immortal spirit thou should'st bring
Thoughts of a lot more glorious and sublime.
Thou, when stern winter comes to strip our bowers,
Prompted by instinct only, tak'st thy flight
To distant lands, where fair and beauteous flowers,
Still but of earth-with splendour charm the sight.
But souls immortal, in the gathering gloom
Of death's dark winter, trust Faith's guiding ray, And soar where flowers of more than earthly bloom
Shine forth to gladden an eternal day.
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