Through faith His Righteousness is mine;
His pardon, sealed with Blood Divine,
His SPIRIT'S Light within to shine;
Revealing joys on high;
JESUS, my SAVIOUR, Surety, Friend,
On whose fair promise I depend,
Loves, and will love me to the end:
Why should I fear to die?
Soon shall a robe of purer white
Than thou hast brought me, seraph bright,
Adorn my soul in realms of Light,
Where JESUS reigns on high:
My wedding garment He'll prepare ;
His marriage supper I shall share;
JESUS Himself will meet me there;
Why should I fear to die?"
""Tis well," the angel smiling said,
And gently rais'd his hand to spread
The robe of death upon my head,
Then stretch'd his wings on high;
Methought he vanished in a cloud,
His golden pinions fluttering loud:
I wrapped my body in the shroud,
And laid me down to die.
DEEP mists hung over the mariner's grave,
When the holy funeral rite was read ;
And every breath on the dark blue wave,
Seemed hushed to hallow the friendless dead.
And heavily heaved on the gloomy sea
The ship that sheltered that homeless one,
As though her funeral hour should be
When the waves were still, and the winds were gone.
And there he lay in his coarse cold shroud,
And strangers were round the coffinless;
Not a kinsman was seen amongst the crowd,
Not an eye to weep, nor a lip to bless.
No sound, from the church's passing bell,
Was echoed along the pathless deep;
The hearts that were far away to tell,
Where the mariner lies in his lasting sleep.
Not a whisper then lingered upon the air:
O'er his body one moment his messmates bent;
But the plunging sound of the dead was there,
And the ocean is now his monument.
But many a sigh, and many a tear,
Shall be breath'd, and shed in the hours to come; When the widow shall mourn, and the fatherless hear How he died far, far from his happy home.
THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE.
Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the ramparts we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave of the hero we buried.
We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning,
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.
No useless coffin enclosed his breast,
Not in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him.
Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,
And smoothed down his lonely pillow,
The foe and the stranger will tread o'er his head,
And we far away on the billow.
Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him;
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.
But half of our heavy task was done,
When the clock struck the hour of retiring;
And we heard the distant and random gun
That the foe was suddenly firing.
Slowly and sadly we laid him down,
From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line and we raised not a stone, But we left him alone with his glory.
I AM fond of the swallow; I learn from her flight,
Had I skill to improve it, a lesson of love;
How seldom on earth do we see her alight!
She dwells in the skies: she is ever above.
It is on the wing that she takes her repose,
Suspended and poised in the regions of air; 'Tis not in our fields that her sustenance grows; It is winged like herself: 'tis ethereal fare.
She comes in the spring; all the summer she stays, And, dreading the cold, still follows the sun,
So, true to our love, we should covet his rays,
And the place where he shines not immediately shun.
Our light should be love, our nourishment prayer;
It is dangerous food that we find upon earth:
The fruit of this world is beset with a snare;
In itself it is hurtful, as vile in its birth.
Let us leave it ourselves, 'tis a mortal abode,
To bask every moment in infinite love;
Let us shun the dark winter, and follow the road.
That tends to the day-spring appearing above.
THE SCHOOL OF AFFLICTION.
FOR what shall I praise Thee, my God and my King,
For what blessing the tribute of gratitude bring?
Shall I praise Thee for pleasure, for health and for ease,
For the spring of delight, and the sunshine of peace?
Shall I praise Thee for flowers that bloomed on my
breast,
For joys in perspective, and pleasures possessed,
For the spirits that heightened my days of delight,
And the slumbers that dwelt on my pillow by night?
For these I would praise Thee, but if only for this,
I should leave half untold, more than half of my bliss.
I thank Thee for sickness, for sorrow, for care,
For the thorn I have gather'd, the anguish I bear;
For the night of anxiety, watching and tears,
The sharpness of pain and those burdens and fears.
|