I bent before thy gracious throne,

And asked for peace with suppliant knee; And peace was given,-nor peace alone, But faith, and hope, and ecstacy!

THE FAMILY MEETING.

SPRAGUE.

WE are all here!
Father, Mother,

Sister, Brother,

All who hold each other dear.

Each chair is filled-we're all at home:
To-night let no cold stranger come:
It is not often thus around

Our old familiar hearth we're found:
Bless, then, the meeting and the spot;
For once be every care forgot;
Let gentle Peace assert her power,
And kind affection rule the hour;
We're all-all here.

We're not all here!

Some are away-the dead ones dear,
Who thronged with us this ancient hearth,
And gave the hour to guiltless mirth.
Fate, with a stern, relentless hand,
Looked in and thinned our little band:

Some like a night-flash passed away,
And some sank, lingering, day by day;
The quiet grave-yard-some lie there;
And cruel Ocean has his share:

We're not all here.

We are all here!

Even they-the dead-though dead, so dear;
Fond Memory, to her duty true,
Brings back their faded forms to view.
How life-like, through the mist of years,
Each well-remembered face appears!
We see them as in times long past,
From each to each kind looks are cast;
We hear their words, their smiles behold,
They're round us as they were of old :
We are all here.

We are all here!

Father, Mother,

Sister, Brother,

You that I love with love so dear.

This may not long of us be said;
Soon must we join the gathered dead;
And by the hearth we now sit round,
Some other circle will be found.
O! then, that wisdom may we know,
Which yields a life of peace below;
So, in the world to follow this,
May each repeat, in words of bliss,
We're all-all here!

MAN.

YOUNG.

How poor, how rich, how abject, how august,
How complicate, how wonderful is man!
How passing wonder HE who made him such!
Who centred in our make such strange extremes!
From different natures, marvellously mixed,
Connexion exquisite of distant worlds!
Distinguished link in being's endless chain!
Midway from nothing to the Deity!

A beam ethereal, sullied and absorbed !
Tho' sullied and dishonoured, still divine!
Dim miniature of greatness absolute!
An heir of glory! a frail child of dust!
Helpless immortal! insect infinite!
A worm! a god!—I tremble at myself,

And in myself am lost. At home, a stranger,
Thought wanders up and down, surprised, aghast,
And wondering at her own. How reason reels!
O what a miracle to man is man,

Triumphantly distressed! what joy! what dread! Alternately transported and alarmed!

What can preserve my life? or what destroy? An angel's arm can't snatch me from the grave; Legions of angels can't confine me there.

MY CHILD.

PIERPONT.

I CANNOT make him dead!
His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study chair;
Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,

The vision vanishes-he is not there!

I walk my parlour floor,
And, through the open door,

I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;

I'm stepping toward the hall

To give the boy a call;

And then bethink me that he is not there!

I thread the crowded street;

A satcheled lad I meet,

With the same beaming eyes and coloured hair;

And as he's running by,

Follow him with my eye, Scarcely believing that he is not there!

I know his face is hid

Under the coffin lid;

Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead fair; My hand that marble felt;

O'er it in prayer I knelt;

Yet my heart whispers that he is not there!

I cannot make him dead!

When passing by the bed,

So long watched over with parental care,
My spirit and my eye

Seek it inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that he is not there!

When, at the cool, gray break

Of day, from sleep I wake,

With my first breathing of the morning air,

My soul goes up, with joy,

To Him who gave my boy,

Then comes the sad thought that—he is not there!

When at the day's calm close,

Before we seek repose,

I'm, with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Or evening anthems tuning,

In spirit, I'm communing

With our boy's spirit, though-he is not there!

Not there!-Where, then, is he?

The form I used to see

Was but the raiment that he used to wear.

The grave, that now doth press

Upon that cast-off dress,

Is but his wardrobe locked;—he is not there!

He lives!-In all the past

He lives; nor, to the last,

Of seeing him again will I despair.

In dreams I see him now;

And, on his angel brow,

I see it written, "Thou shalt see me there!"