ON HEARING A CLOCK STRIKE AT MIDNIGHT ON THE 31ST OF DECEMBER. KNELL of departed years! Thy voice is sweet to me; I hear a sound, Diffusing through the air a holy calm around. Thou art the voice of LOVE; To chide each doubt away; That love divine Will o'er my future path of life in mercy shine. Thou art the voice of HOPE; A song of blessings yet to come, By nature grieved, Still am I nearer rest than when I first believed. Thou art the voice of LIFE; A sound that seems to say, "O prisoner in this gloomy vale, Thy flesh shall faint, thy heart shall fail : That cannot pass away; Here grief and pain Thy steps detain, There in the image of the Lord, thou wilt arise and reign." THE HOLY COMMUNION. FORTH from the dark and stormy sky, Long have we roam'd in want and pain, A NEW YEAR'S THOUGHTS. SOON another year is gone, Quickly have the seasons passed; This we enter now upon, Mercy hitherto has spared, But have mercies been improved? Life is like a battle-plain, Some as fair for life as we, When the former year begun, Now our eyes no longer see; They their mortal race have run. Unto Christians, while below, With new years new mercies come ; And the happiest they know, J. NEWTON. THE PLOUGHING OF THE SWORD. THE ploughing of the sword Breaks up the greensward deep, And then they madly sow They reap with murderous sickles, The widow's pang, the orphan's tear, Oh! mourning mother earth, Lift up thy heart and pray, Be for ever done away : Pray for the day when promised peace, MRS. SIGOUrney. NOVEMBER. THE autumn wind is moaning low the requiem of the year; The days are growing short again, the fields forlorn appear; The sunny sky is waxing dim, and chill the hazy air; And waving trees before the breeze are turning brown and bare. No more 'tis sweet to walk abroad among the ev’ning dews; The flow'rs have fled from ev'ry path, with all their scents and hues ; The joyous bird no more is heard, save where his slender song The robin drops, as meek he hops the wither'd leaves among. Those wither'd leaves, that slender song, a solemn truth convey, In wisdom's ear they speak aloud of frailty and de cay: They say that man's apportion'd year shall have its winter too, Shall rise and shine, and then decline, as all around him do. |