THE HAPPY DEAD.*
BLEST Spirit, where art thou this Sabbath eve?
Amid the fields of glory dost thou range?

THIS view is about twenty miles from the head of Lake George. The point is said to have received its name from an English peer, who, one Sabbath morning, || Or, pausing, dost thou drink the crystal stream landed there for breakfast. The Catholics have denom- That flows beneath the throne, and eat the fruit inated this beautiful sheet of water, Lake Sacrament. Of life's immortal tree, and wear the palm Nature, in some of her aspects, seems to be sacrament- Of victory? This moment dost thou bow al-as, for instance, the tree of life, in the garden of Before the Lamb, and plunge into the beams Eden, which, though its fruit was prohibited on com. That from the uncreated Sun break forth? mon occasions, would doubtless, but for the fall, have Dost thou look down on us who toil below, subserved a peculiar and sacred purpose. The rain- || And feel a sympathy at our distress? bow is one of nature's sacraments, being especially | Or dost thou hover, in the sable night, adopted as the seal of a covenant between the patri-Above our sleeping pillow, breathing peace, arch Noah and Jehovah. But such significant names And guarding, with celestial vigilance, as sacrament and Sabbath should betoken sacred things. The beings that were dear to thee on earth? The scene of secular life in this engraving is therefore Methinks I see thee move in all the grace, in bad taste. The associations are too modern; that is, And bloom, and beauty of that world of life. too irreverent of holy themes. The aspects of nature, I hear thee sing the song of the redeemed; in the picture, seem sacred enough; and if those forms And from the heights of paradise I see of life represented a Sabbath day gathering to God's Thee beckon us, with smiles of holy joy, sanctuary, for religious devotion and the holy euchar- To hasten up the steeps, and join you there. ist, we should wholly admire the application of the Then I recall the days, for ever gone, names, Lake Sacrament, and Sabbath Day Point, to When those same smiles were wont to gild our paththe Lake and the promontory. These moral criticisms | When those same eyes that so regard us now, have nothing to do with the skill of the artists. The Looked through the vail of flesh to catch our glance; picture is well drawn, and the engraver has done it And when those hands, which now thou wav'st in light, justice. Grasp'd ours, and helped us to pursue our way.

Original.

I now bethink me of the bliss you gave-
The sorrows that you shared-the pains you soothed-
The hours that you beguiled-the lights you threw
Across this shadowy scene! And then the change!
O, here the heart recoils! Darkness and death
se-Close in upon us-yet we turn again

THE GREAT PROMISE. How precious are God's promises! Under the verest temptations and most pressing wants, they pledge to us support and consolation. They are set forth in the most alluring language, and reiterated in the plainest terms, that we need not fear to rest in them, and seize the blessings which they proffer us. To encourage trust, and nearly render distrust impossible, they are addressed to us with almost an exuberance of phrases and variations. Amongst these promises, one is so comprehensive in its brevity, that it should be treasured up in our heart of hearts, and remembered daily and hourly. It is the sum of all promises-"My grace is sufficient for thee." No sense of weakness, want, or misery, can carry the soul beyond the purview of that precious promise. It meets every possible state | of depression and destitution, and leaves the doubting soul without excuse. Take it, Christian, and set it as a seal upon thine arm. Never forget, wherever and however you may be assailed by want, or adversity, or persecution, that God has pledged you sufficient gracehas said, "As thy day is, so shall thy strength be."

To where you dwell, and, with a zeal renewed
By your example, conquest, and your crown,
Address us to our way. We ask the aid
Of Him whom you adore, and pledge ourselves,
To tread, unfaltering and untired, the length
Of the celestial road, and meet thee there.
And wilt thou hail us over Jordan's stream,
Or meet us in the wave, and guide our flight
Up to the presence of your heaven and ours?
O, sainted one! thy holy life-thy death
Shall draw our hearts from earth and all its charms!
Then still attract; but let those cords of love,
Which almost call our spirits from their clay,
Draw us more closely to each other still,
Till, mingled into one, our kindred souls
Aspire, and soar, and lose themselves with thine
In the abyss of life, and heaven, and God!

Mrs. Morris.

GERTRUDE.

194

Original.

SPIRIT OF POETRY.

SPIRIT OF POETRY.

BY T. G. BLAIR.

"O! there are spirits of the air,

And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts with eyes as fair

As star-beams among twilight trees."

SHELLEY. "Twas night-and death the curtains drew 'mid agony secure, While there a willing spirit went home to a glorious shore; Yet still it sighed, e'en where was spread the waiting angel's wing,

C, speak no ill of poetry, for 'tis a holy thing."

MRS. SIGOURNEY.

soars calmly and serenely forth into the bright heaven of fancy. The voice that called us in our youth, breathing from the quiet sky, from the blue misty hills, the clashing waters, like some half forgotten strain of music, is familiar now. We hear it in the early spring-time, when the sound of the streams is like a thousand silvery voices calling to each other from all the hills, or when the murmur of the summer woods is like deep answering unto deep, or when the hues of autumn's boughs rival the fiery clouds of her sunset, or when all the wintry winds clap their hands, and the snow flakes come down like the white blossoms of early summer showering from the branches. We have learned that the spell is in our own hearts, and we are blessed in the knowledge.

OUR first recollections of this bright and breathing world are rather of feelings than of thought. They There comes a time when this rich strain of music come back to us visions of bright sunshine and dancing in the heart, answering to all that is grand or beautiful shadow-long wanderings for many a sunny day-in the moral or material world, seems the last remnant hours of sport, whose very remembrance sends the of childhood and youth. The eye grows dim, the blood thrilling through our veins, and day dreams, || cheek pale-worse, the heart grows cold. When the whose vividness and beauty will sometimes return long after life's stern realities have quenched the fire of the eye, and wrought deep lines upon the forehead. We were too happy and too busy then for sober thought; but sometimes, perchance in the midst of our most , boisterous mirth, there would come a sudden thrill, as we looked upon the blue sky, or far hills, and we would pause, with the jocund shout yet upon our lip, and gaze as if our very soul were lost in that silent and cloudless space. Over all the wild mirth of the heart there would come soft sadness, like the shadow of a fair cloud chasing the golden sunshine from the earth. A joyous feeling, and yet it moved us almost to tears! The heart was overflowing with new and indefinable emotions, and it seemed as if we beheld the exceeding beauty of the earth for the first time. The eye has now a deeper and more chastened glad ness, and the smile of the lip is softened with sensibility. Youth is now calling home the wild affections, the causeless emotions, the overflowing joy which childhood has scattered on the world, and gathering them into itself, as if the heart foresaw the wearing struggle of life, and called home its resources for the combat. The spirit hovers upon the verge of an un-liness that is not, and extending over all around us, by tried life-behind, bathed in purple light, lie the years that have glided away. The future stretches far off in the distance, filled with a thousand indistinct forms of surpassing beauty.

But we have learned by experience that the world is not all it seems. A sense of its selfishness, its heartlessness, has breathed over us like an icy wind; but we have, as it were, beheld afar off, that the pinion of the soul is not yet soiled or torn in the contest. The little knowledge we have gained has served to awaken the sensibilities, to give a tinge of sadness to our anticipations, and to call reflection to the little world of our own hearts.

This is a temperament highly favorable to poetry. Now the spirit revels in the beauty of the material creation, and the imagination, unwearied and unworn,

thought of death comes over our weariness, it brings a cold shuddering; for the heart is not so near heaven as it once was. We here come to know we are not what we have been, and to feel we are not what we should be; and when we look back upon the high and noble resolves with which we first commenced the struggle of life, we are humbled to the dust, for we ask ourselves how have we kept them? And that humiliation, though bitter, is most salutary. Then the purer and holier feelings of our youth, blended with its poetry, came back to us. Blessed be that spirit which is as an electric chain to refresh the weary soul of later life with the fresh and unworldly thoughts of earlier years! Whence is the spirit of poetry, whose office seems to be to cheer us along the rugged way of life, and to elevate the mind above the petty vexations that lie in our path? It is that loving sense of the grand and the beautiful which makes it a glorious boon but to live in the free air and the smiling sunlight-it is that deep sensibility to whatever is good or noble or beautiful in moral nature, which causes the sudden swelling up from the heart, and flushes the cheek, and brightens the eye—it is that which makes the cheek early pale with visions of love

a blessed alchymy converts every thing into the precious metal of the heart. Where this spirit dwells, it is gentleness to man and strength to woman. We meet it in daily life; for poetry is not confined to the page of the schoolman alone. Here it prompts kindness, and affection, and generous self-sacrifice, with many a thought and act, which, though unknown and unsung on earth, shall be written with the sunbeam on that day when the deeds of conquerers shall make their actors pale with shame and affright.

It is sometimes doubted whether a high degree of the poetic spirit is conducive to the happiness of its possessor. Why, we would ask, should it not be so? If the poet feel intensely the evils of life-if his heart be deeply wounded by treachery, unkindness, and neglect-if his soul be daily disgusted with cold selfish

THE UNATTENDED HEARSE.