2.-NIGHT AND DEATH.

MYSTERIOUS night! when the first man but knew
Thee by report, unseen, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came,
And lo! creation widened on his view.

Who could have thought what darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O Sun? or who could find,
While fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,

That to such endless orbs thou makest us blind?
Weak man! why, to shun death, this anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life?

J. BLANCO WHITE.

3. "DELIVER US FROM EVIL."

1. "DELIVER us from evil," Heavenly Father!
It still besets us wheresoe'er we go!
Bid the bright rays of revelation gather
To light the darkness in our way of woe!
Remove the sin that stains our souls-forever!
Our doubts dispel-our confidence restore!
Write thy forgiveness on our hearts, and never
Let us in vain petition for it more.

2. Release us from the sorrows that attend us!
Our nerves are torn-at every vein we bleed!
Almighty Parent! with thy strength befriend us!
Else we are helpless in our time of need!
Sustain us, Lord, with thy pure Holy Spirit-

New vigor give to Nature's faltering frame;

And, at life's close, permit us to inherit

The hope that's promised in the Savior's name!

G. P. MORRIS

4.- -THE SABBATH.

WITH silent awe I hail the sacred morn,

Which slowly wakes while all the fields are still; A soothing calm on every breeze is borne,

A graver murmur gurgles from the rill,

And echo answers softer from the hill;
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn-
The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! Hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
The rooks float silent by in airy drove;
The sun, a placid yellow luster shows;
The gales that lately sighed along the grove,
Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose;
The hovering rack of clouds forget to move-
So smiled the day when the first morn arose !

DR. LEYDEN

CCLXII. THE ISLE OF LONG AGO.

1. O, a wondeRFUL stream is the river Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the Ocean of Years.

2. How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow,
And the summers, like buds between;

And the year in the sheaf-so they come and they go,
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.

3. There's a magical isle up the river of Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,

And the Junes with the roses are staying.

4. And the name of that Isle is the Long Ago,
And we bury our treasures there;
There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow-
There are heaps of dust-but we loved them so!--
Ther are trinkets and tresses of hair;

5. There are fragments of song that nobody sings,
And a part of an infant's prayer;

There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings,
There are broken vows and pieces of rings,
And the garments that she used to wear

6. There are hands that are waved, when the fairy shore
By the mirage is lifted in air;

And we some times hear, through the turbulent roar,
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before,
When the wind down the river is fair.

7. O, remembered for aye, be the blessed Isle,
All the day of our life till night-

When the evening comes with its beautiful smile,
And our eyes are closing to slumber awhile,
May that "Greenwood" of Soul be in sight!

B. F. TAYLOR.

CCLXIII. LLEWELLYN AND HIS DOG.

1. THE spearmen heard the bugle sound, and cheerly smiled the morn;

And many a brach, and many a hound, attend Llewellyn's horn; And still he blew a louder blast, and gave a louder cheer;

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'Come, Gelert! why art thou the last Llewellyn's horn to hear?
O! where does faithful Gelert roam, the flower of all his race?
So true, so brave,-a lamb at home, a lion in the chase!"
That day Llewellyn little loved the chase of hart or hare;
And scant and small the booty proved, for Gelert was not there.

2. Unpleased Llewellyn homeward hied, when, near the portal seat,

His truant Gelert he espied, bounding his lord to greet,

But when he gained the castle-door, aghast the chieftain stood; The hound was smeared with gouts of gore; his lips and fangs ran blood!

Llewellyn gazed with wild surprise; unused such looks to meet, His favorite checked his joyful guise, and crouched, and licked his feet.

Onward in haste, Llewellyn passed (and on went Gelert, too), And still, where e'er his eyes were cast, fresh blood-gouts shocked. his view!

3. C'erturned his infant's bed he found, the blood-stained cover

rent;

And all around the walls and ground with recent blood besprent He called his child; no voice replied; he searched with terror wild; Blood! blood! he found on every side, but no where found his child,

"Death-hound! by thee my child's devoured !” the frantic father

cried;

And to the hilt his vengeful sword he plunged in Gelert's side.
His suppliant, as to earth he fell, no pity could impart;
But still his Gelert's dying yell passed heavy o'er his heart.

4. Aroused by Gelert's dying yell, some slumberer wakened nigh: What words the parent's joy can tell, to hear his infant cry! Concealed beneath a mangled heap, his hurried search had missed, All glowing from his rosy sleep, his cherub boy he kissed! Nor scratch had he, nor harm, nor dread; but the same couch beneath

Lay a great wolf, all torn and dead, tremendous still in death! Ah! what was then Llewellyn's pain! for now the truth was clear, The gallant hound the wolf had slain, to save Llewellyn's heir.

5. Vain, vain was all Llewellyn's woe! "Best of thy kind, adieu! The frantic deed that laid thee low, this heart shall ever rue!" And now a noble tomb they raise, with costly sculpture decked; And marbles, storied with his praise, poor Gelert's bones protect. Here never could the spearmen pass, or forester, unmoved; Here oft the tear-besprinkled-grass Llewellyn's sorrow proved. And here he hung his horn and spear, and oft, as evening fell, In fancy's piercing sounds would hear poor Gelert's dying yell.

W. R. SPENCER.

CCLXIV. THE CHAMBERED NAUTILUS.

The chambered nautilus lives in a series of enlarging compartments, arranged in a widening spiral. It forsakes, after a time, one compartment, makes a new one and dwells there, and so on till it dies.

1. THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main—

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare,

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

2. Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl;

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!

And every chambered cell,

Where its dim dreaming life was wont to dwell,
As the frail tenant shaped his growing shell,
Before thee lies revealed-

Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!

3. Year after year beheld the silent toil

That spread his lustrous coil;

Still, as the spiral grew,

He left the past year's dwelling for the new,
Stole with soft step its shining archway through,
Built up its idle door,

Stretched in his last-found home, and knew the old no more

4. Thanks for the heavenly message brought to thee, Child of the wandering sea,

Cast from her lap, forlorn!

From thy dead lips a clearer note is born
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn!

While on mine ear it rings,

Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:

5. Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!

Leave thy low-vaulted past!

Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,

Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!

DR. HOLMES.

CCLXV. THE POWER OF HABIT.

I REMEMBER once riding from Buffalo to the Niagara Falls. I said to a gentleman, "What river is that, sir?" "That," he said, "is Niagara river."

“Well, it is a beautiful stream," said I; "bright and fair and glassy; how far off are the rapids?"

"Only a mile or two," was the reply.

"Is it possible that only a mile from us we shall find the water in the turbulence which it must show near to the Falls?"

"You will find it so, sir." And so I found it; and the