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My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For thou, O Lord, art with me still;
Thy friendly hand shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.

Tho' in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds, I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile;
The barren wilderness shall smile,

With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.

ADDISON.

TRUST IN PROVIDENCE.

ALMIGHTY Father of mankind,

On thee my hopes remain;
And when the day of trouble comes,
I shall not trust in vain.

Thou art our kind Preserver, from
The cradle to the tomb :
And I was cast upon thy care,
Ev'n from my mother's womb.

In early years thou wast my guide,
And of my youth the friend:
And as my days began with thee,
With thee my days shall end.

I know the Pow'r in whom I trust,
The arm on which I lean;
He will my Saviour ever be,
Who has my Saviour been.

In former times, when trouble came,
Thou didst not stand afar;

Nor didst thou prove an absent friend
Amid the din of war.

My God, who causedst me to hope,
When life began to beat,

And when a stranger in the world,
Didst guide my wand'ring feet;

• Thou wilt not cast me off, when age,
And evil days descend;

Thou wilt not leave me in despair,
To mourn my latter end.

Therefore in life I'll trust to thee,
In death I will adore;

And after death will sing thy praise,
When time shall be no more.

LOGAN.

HYMN TO VIRTUE.

EVER lovely and benign,
Endow'd with energy divine,

Hail, Virtue! hail! From thee proceed
The great design, the heroic deed,
The heart that melts for human woes,
Valour, and truth, and calm repose.
Though fortune frown, though fate prepare
Her shafts and wake corroding care,
Though wrathful clouds involve the skies,
Though lightnings glare and storms arise,
In vain, to shake the guiltless soul,
Chang'd fortune frowns, and thunders roll.
Pile, Avarice, thy yellow hoard;
Spread, Luxury, thy costly board;
Ambition, crown thy head with bays;
Let Sloth recline on beds of ease;
Admir'd, ador'd, let Beauty roll
The magic eye that melts the soul;

H

Unless, with purifying fires,
Virtue the conscious soul inspires ;
In vain, to bar intruding woe,

Wealth, Fame, and Power, and Pleasure, flow.

To me thy sovereign gift impart,
The resolute unshaken heart,

To guide me from the flow'ry way
Where Pleasure tunes her syren lay:
Deceitful path! where shame and care
The pois'nous shaft, conceal'd, prepare!
And shield me with thy gen'rous pride,
When fashion scoffs and fools deride.

Ne'er let ambition's meteor ray
Mislead my reason and betray
My fancy with the gilded dream
Of hoarded wealth and noisy fame.
But let my soul, consenting, flow,
Compassionate of other's woe.
Teach me the kind endearing art
To heal the mourner's broken heart,
To ease the rankling wounds of care,
And soothe the frenzy of despair.

So, lovely virgin, may I gain
Admission to thy hallow'd fane;
Where peace of mind, of eye serene,
Of heavenly hue, and placid mein,
Leads, smiling, thy celestial choir,
And smites the consecrated lyre.
And may that minstrelsy, whose charm
Can rage, and grief, and care, disarm,
Can passion's lawless force control,
Soothe, melt, and elevate, my soul!

ANON.

VERSES.

IF I had thought thou couldst have died,
I might not weep for thee;
But I forgot, when by thy side,

That thou couldst mortal be:
It never through my mind had past,
The time would e'er be o'er,

And I on thee should look my last,
And thou shouldst smile no more!

And still upon that face I look,
And think 'twill smile again;

And still the thought I will not brook,
That I must look in vain!

But when I speak-thou dost not say,
What thou ne'er left'st unsaid;
And now I feel, as well I may,
Sweet Mary! thou art dead!

If thou wouldst stay, e'en as thou art,
All cold and all serene-

I still might press thy silent heart,

And where thy smiles have been!
While e'en thy chill, bleak corse I have,
Thou seemest still mine own;
But there I lay thee in thy grave-
And I am now alone!

I do not think, where'er thou art,
Thou hast forgotten me;

And I, perhaps, may soothe this heart,

In thinking too of thee:

Yet there was round thee such a dawn
Of light ne'er seen before,

As fancy never could have drawn,
And never can restore!

WOLFE.

[graphic]

THE SACRED LYRE

To rise again, death's slumber done, Glorious like thee, sweet setting sun!

173

ANON.

A MOTHER ON THE DEATH OF A PROMISING
CHILD.

E not thus, tho' the child thou hast lov'd,
Still, still as the grave in silence sleeps on;
ist the tears that are shed, his eye is unmov'd,
And the beat of that bosom forever is gone:
en weep not thus, for the moment is blest
Then the wand'rer sleeps on his couch of rest.
The world to him, with its sorrow and sighs,
Has fed like a dream when the morn appears;
Thile the spirit awakes in the light of the skies,
No more to revisit this valley of tears:
Then weep not thus, for the moment is blest
Then the wand'rer sleeps on his couch of rest.

ew, few were his years, but had they been more,
The sunshine which smil'd might have vanish'd

And he might have fall'n on some far friendless
shore,

Or been wreck'd amidst storms in some desolate
bay:

weep not thus, for the moment is blest
Then the wand'rer sleeps on his couch of rest.
e a rosebud of promise, when fresh in the morn,
Was the child of thy heart while he lingered
here;

But now from thy love-from thine arms he is

Tet, to bloom in a lovelier, happier sphere.

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