But oh, my child, you must not say
"Tis hard the flowers should die,—

That joys which strewed your happy way
Should make them wings and fly;

It is not hard that ties should break,
Which, were they given to last, would make
Your sojourn here too soft, and bind you down
To scenes that dying man can never call his own.

Soft is the smile on pleasure's brow,
And soft her pleasant voice,

And her bright moments as they flow
Make the young heart rejoice;

But, like to Sorek's treacherous maid,

Who in her beauty's power betrayed

The warrior she caressed,-when pleasure smiles

And casts her fondest look, tis then she most beguiles.

Then mourn not dying pleasure's fate,

For this is not your home,

But, like the patriarchs, you wait

A country yet to come;

A land of glory now unseen,

With everlasting verdure green,

Where thou shalt form new ties no death can sever,

Bound by the heavenly love that lives and loves for ever.

EVANS.

Autumn's Voices.

HE autumn day was closing, cool and dry;
The sun was setting in a cloudless sky,

Flying around him, as he sank to rest,
A crimson glory flushing east and west.
The quiet landscape caught his bright farewell
Ere the deep shadows of the evening fell;
The gliding river, and the broken sedge,
The pollard willows by the water's edge,
Smiled for a moment in the passing gleam;

Then sighed the sedge, and darker flowed the stream,

While cottage windows flashed into a blaze,
And meadow pathways lay in purple haze;
A sudden glory touched the whirling mill,
More crimson glowed the heather on the hill;
And starting up beneath the pinewood shade,
A moment, stood a golden colonnade;
Then dropped the sun: the vision died away,
And twilight followed in her sober grey.
I wandered on: the paths were dry and fair,
A mellow freshness breathed upon the air,
And from the busy harbour far away
Came sounds unheeded in the light of day;
Then intervals of silence,-calm, profound,—
Mysterious harmony unlinked to sound,
Which all my soul in tranquil musing bound.

MARY SEWELL.

EMBLEMS OF THE BRIEFNESS OF LIFE.

"Passing Away."

ASSING away," sing the breeze and rill,

As they sweep on their course by vale and hill,
Through the varying scenes of each earthly clime :

'Tis the lesson of nature-the voice of time;

And man at last, like his fathers gray,
Writes in his own dust,-" Passing away!"

Where were the endless river,

Did not the rill flow on?

And where heaven's blest" for ever,"

If life's hours ne'er were gone?

What is Life ?

M. J. JEWSBURY.

IFE'S a hand's-breadth: 'tis a tale ;

'Tis a vessel under sail;

'Tis an eagle, in its way

Darting down upon its prey;
'Tis an arrow, in its flight

Mocking the pursuing sight;
'Tis a short-lived fading flower;
'Tis a rainbow on a shower;
'Tis a momentary ray
Smiling in a winter's day;
"Tis a torrent's rapid stream;
'Tis a shadow, 'tis a dream;
'Tis the closing watch of night,
Dying at the rising light;
'Tis a bubble; 'tis a sigh:
Be prepared, O man, to die!

Man's Life.

IKE to the falling of a star,

Or as the flights of eagles are;

Or like the fresh spring's gaudy hue,

Or silver drops of morning due ;
Or like a wind that chased the flood,
Or bubbles which on water stood.

Ev'n such is man, whose borrow'd light
Is straight call'd in and paid to night.
The wind blows out, the bubble dies,
The spring entomb'd in autumn lies;
The dew dries up, the star is shot,
The flight is past, and man forgot.

KING.

M

On an Hour-glass.

ARK the golden grains that pass
Brightly through this channell'd glass,
Measuring by their ceaseless fall

Heaven's most precious gift to all!
Pauseless, till its sand be done,

See the shining current run,
Till, its inward treasure shed,
Lo, another hour has fled!

Its task perform'd, its travail past,
Like mortal man it rests at last.
Yet let some hand invert its frame,
And all its powers return the same,
For all the golden grains remain
To work their little hour again.
But who shall turn the glass for man
From which the golden current ran;
Collect again the precious sand

Which time hath scatter'd with his hand,
Bring back life's stream with vital power,

And bid it run another hour?

A thousand years of toil were vain

To gather up a single grain!

MONTGOMERY.