The Longest Day.

O Paradise! O Paradise!

We want to sin no more;

We want to be as pure on earth
As on thy spotless shore;
Where loyal hearts and true
Stand ever in the light,

All rapture through and through,
In God's most holy sight.

L

The Longest Day.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

ET us quit the leafy arbour,

And the torrent murmuring by;

For the sun is in his harbour,
Weary of the open sky.

Evening now unbinds the fetters

Fashion'd by the glowing light;

All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.

Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;
For the day that now is ended,
Is the longest of the year.

Summer ebbs; each day that follows
Is a reflux from on high,

Tending to the darksome hollows

Where the frosts of winter lie.

173

He who governs the creation,
In His providence, assign'd
Such a gradual declination

To the life of human kind.

Yet we mark it not; fruits redden,

Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown, And the heart is loath to deaden

Hopes that she so long hath known.

Be thou wiser, youthful maiden!
And, when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or bough fruit-laden,
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.

Now, e'en now, ere wrapp'd in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea

That absorbs time, space, and number--
Look thou to eternity!

The Worth of Time.

J. E. CARPENTER.-Music by E. Perry.

AN old man and a little child

Together went their way,

Amid the blossoms of the wild

The child oft paused to play; "Ah! trifle not amid the flowers,"

The gray-hair'd teacher said,

"For precious are the passing hours, And mourn'd as soon as fled."

Holy Ground.

The old man took the little child
And led him by the hand,
But still where'er a blossom smiled
The boy contrived to stand;
"Ah! linger not, although the flowers
To thee a joy may bring,
They but remind me of the hours
I lost in my life's spring."

The child went on-the old man fled,
But ne'er the boy forgot

The words that gray-hair'd teacher said
Through all his future lot:

And wisely are his children taught
When in some olden rhyme

He tells them how he first was brought
To know the worth of time.

175

Holy Ground.

J. E. CARPENTER.

OT alone by the old gray towers,

NOT

Where the dim cathedral shadow lowers;

Not alone where the line they trace

Points to the "consecrated place;

Not alone where the churchman kneels,
Nor where the solemn organ peals,
Nor where the anthem's echoes sound,-
There are other spots call'd-holy ground!

Where heroes fallen in battle sleep,

Where the sailor lies 'neath the surging deep,

Where the emigrant, in the forest wild,
Leaves the corse of his darling child.
Far away on the sun-burnt sod,

Where the exiled Christian kneels to God,
Distant far from the city's sound;

These spots are hallow'd, and—holy ground!

Not alone where the willow waves

O'er sculptured urns and trophied graves;
Not alone where the sunbeams smile

Through the colour'd panes of the cloister'd aisle ;
'Tis a sacred spot where, in solemn prayer,
The mother kneels with her children fair,—
A spot 'neath the humblest roof-tree found;
"There tread lightly," 'tis-holy ground.

Sleep.

MRS JANE T. WORTHINGTON.

T visiteth the desolate,

IT

Who hath no friend beside,

And bringeth peace to sadden'd souls
Whose hope, deferr'd, had died:
It layeth its caressing hand

Upon the brow of care,

And calleth to the faded lips

The smile they used to wear.

And lovely is the angel light
Of a little child's repose,
The holiest and the sweetest rest

Our human nature knows.

Fallen is thy Throne.

Such rest as cannot close the eyes,
Grown old with many tears,
That never soothes the pilgrim path
Of life's dejected years.

"He giveth His beloved sleep!"
And thanks for such a boon,
And thanks, too, for the deeper sleep,
That will be with us soon-
From which our long o'erladen hearts
Shall wake to pain no more,
But find fulfill'd the fairest thoughts
They only dream’d before.

177

Fallen is thy Throne.

T. MOORE.-Air, Martini.

FALLEN

ALLEN is thy throne, O Israel!
Silence is o'er thy plains;

Thy dwellings all lie desolate,

Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham's barren shore?

That fire from heaven which led thee,
Now lights thy path no more.

Lord! Thou didst love Jerusalem—
Once she was all Thine own;
Her love Thy fairest heritage,*
Her

power Thy glory's throne.+

Till evil came and blighted

Thy long-loved olive-tree,+

And Salem's shrines were lighted
For other gods than Thee.

* Jer. xii. 7.

† Jer. xiv. 21.

Jer. xi. 16.

M