SMILES on past misfortune's brow
Soft reflection's hand can trace,

And o'er the cheek of sorrow throw
A melancholy grace;

While hope prolongs our happier hour,
Or deepest shades that dimly lower
And blacken round our weary way,
Gilds with a beam of distant day.

Still, where rosy pleasure leads,
See a kindred grief pursue;
Behind the steps that misery treads,
Approaching comfort view :

The hues of bliss more brightly glow,
Chastised by sabler tints of woe;
And blended form, with artful strife,
The strength and harmony of life.

See the wretch that long has tost
On the thorny bed of pain,
At length repair his vigour lost,
And breathe and walk again:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale,
The common sun, the air, the skies,
To him are opening paradise.

THE presence of perpetual change

Is ever on the earth;

To-day is only as the soil

That gives to-morrow birth.

Where stood the tower, there grows
Where stood the weed, the tower;
No present hour its likeness leaves

Of each imperial city, built
Far on the eastern plains,
A desert waste of tomb and sand
Is all that now remains.

the weed;

Our own fair city, filled with life,
May have some future day,
When power, and might, and majesty,
Will all have passed away.

But in all changes, brighter things
And better have their birth;
The presence of perpetual love
Is ever on the earth.

G

Go and watch the autumn leaves
Which the winds are strewing;
Say you that the summer grieves
O'er her joys' undoing?
Not so;

She doth know

Their fall will make her stronger grow, Richer prime renewing.

Hopes that bloom to pass away,

Pleasures scattered lying,— Shall we, mourning o'er decay, Waste the hours in sighing?

Not so;

Well we know

They fade, that better joys may grow For a life undying.

CXXXV.

THE tide of time flows sparkling,

The tide of time flows darkling;

And outward weal and woe have been Still blended in this checkered scene,

And evermore will blended be,

Till time become eternity.

The tide of time flows sparkling,
The tide of time flows darkling:
Along the stream our spirits glide,
Feeling the changes of the tide,
Which ever felt by us must be,
Till time become eternity.

The tide of time flows sparkling,
The tide of time flows darkling:

And sympathy like change will keep,
And sometimes smile, and sometimes weep;
And smiles and tears will blended be,
Till time become eternity.

The tide of time flows sparkling,
The tide of time flows darkling:
But still the heavens are blue above,
And o'er our hearts the heaven of love
Makes peace and trust unchanging be,
And time become eternity.

CXXXVI.

DARKNESS shrouded Calvary,

An earthquake rent the Temple's veil; Human grief and human fear

Uttered mournful wail:

There came a voice like light athwart the skies, To-day thou'lt be with me in Paradise."

66

Darkness shrouds humanity

When death doth sunder heart from heart; Human love and human hope

Cannot bear to part:

Again that voice is heard athwart the skies,

66

To-day thou'lt be with me in Paradise."