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 haunts 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;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried, and purified,
Then hath in heaven its perfect rest:
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of love is there.
MORE Sweet than odours caught by him who sails
Near spicy shores of Araby the blest,
A thousand times more exquisitely sweet,
The freight of holy feeling which we meet,
In thoughtful moments, wafted by the gales
From fields where good men walk, or bowers
wherein they rest.
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
Where stood the weed, the tower;
No present hour its likeness leaves
To any future hour.
Of each imperial city, built
Far on the eastern plains,
A desert waste of tomb and sand
Is all that now remains.
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.
Go and watch the autumn leaves
Which the winds are strewing;
Say you that the summer grieves
O'er her joys undoing?
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?
They fade, that better joys may grow For a life undying.
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.
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