LOVE'S IMMORTALITY.

[SOUTHEY.]

THEY sin who tell us love can die!
With life all other passions fly,

All others are but vanity,
In heaven ambition cannot dwell
Nor avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth:
But love is indestructible,

Its holy flame for ever burneth,

From heaven it came, to heaven returneth :
For oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried and purified,

Then bath in heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest time of love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high,
The babe she lost in infancy,

Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrows, all her tears,

An over-payment of delight?

ODE TO DUTY.

[WORDSWORTH.]

STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love;
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;

From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.
There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do the work, and know it not :
May joy be theirs while life shall last!

[fast!

And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,

When love is an unerring light,

And joy its own security.

And bless'd are they who in the main

This faith, even now, do entertain:

Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yet find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried;

No sport of every random gust,

Yet being to myself a guide,

Too blindly have reposed my trust:
Resolved that nothing e'er should press

Upon my present happiness,

I shoved unwelcome tasks away;

But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought.
I supplicate for thy control;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance desires:

My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose which ever is the same.

Yet not the less would I throughout
Still act according to the voice
Of my own wish; and feel past doubt
That my submissiveness was choice:
Not seeking in the school of pride
For precepts over dignified,'

Denial and restraint I prize

No farther than they breed a second Will more wise.

Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear

The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we any thing so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And fragrance in thy footing treads;

Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;

And the most ancient Heavens through thee are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh! let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give,

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

LOVE'S GROWTH.

[REV. H. STEBBING.]

I KNEW them when the rosiest light of love was on their brow

When their hearts were throbbing deep and quick first conscious of its glow.

Beautiful were they in its joy and the brightness of their truth,

And musical as silver harps the voices of their youth.

I walked with them through many years—their gladness shed a light

O'er a path that my own fate or hopes had never made so bright;

And every sun that rose and set, their love more

fervent grew,

As if heaven never from hearts its burning beams with

drew.

And sweeter seemed the tones of each gentle voice to

sound,

As time and converse fond and sweet, their souls more closely bound;

And brighter every day, I thought, their beaming brows became,

With the living thoughts that nurture hope, and love's undying flame.

I saw them in their happy home, and by their winter

hearth,

The world nor harmed them with its lures, nor tempests with their wrath;

A charmed life was in their hearts, a spell divinely

wrought,

O would that oftener human hearts that spell divine were taught!

Love changeless kept all else from change, and glad they past along,

Life's course but varied as the flow and measure of a

song;

And time prest on them, but with form so gracious and

so mild,

I ever deemed their smiles the same I loved so when a

child.

Beautiful were they in their youth-and when I saw

them lie

In their last sleep, I looked and knew man's spirit could not die:

Love filled them with its purest light-their hearts its place of birth,

And would that bright Immortal dwell in shrines that are but earth?

EVENING PRAYER.

[REV. T. DALE.]

SHOULD some seraph wing his flight,
From the realms of cloudless light,
Earth and ocean soaring over,
Where would he delight to hover?

Not o'er halls of regal pride;
Not o'er fields with carnage dyed,
Where, 'mid shouts of triumph breathing,

Fame the hero's brow is wreathing;