Whom siren pleasure beckons in
To prisons of despair,

Whose hearts, by whirlwind passions torn,
Are wrecked on folly's shore, -

But why in sorrow should we mourn
For those who sin no more?

We mourn for those who weep,
Whom stern afflictions bend
With anguish o'er the lowly sleep

Of lover or of friend;

But they to whom the sway

Of pain and grief is o'er,

Whose tears our God hath wiped away,

Oh, mourn for them no more!

Mrs Sigourney.

II.

"And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull." John xix: 17.

By the dark stillness brooding in the sky, Holiest of sufferers! round thy path of woe, And by the weight of mortal agony

Laid on thy drooping form and pale meek brow,

My heart was awed: the burden of thy pain
Sank on me with a mystery and a chain.

I look'd once more, and, as the virtue spread
Forth from thy robe of old, so fell a ray
Of victory from thy mien! and round thy head,
The halo, melting spirit-like away,

Seemed of the very soul's bright rising born,
To glorify all sorrow, shame, and scorn.

And upwards, through transparent darkness. gleaming,

Gazed, in mute reverence, woman's earnest eye, Lit, as a vase whence inward light is streaming, With quenchless faith, and deep love's fer

vency;

Gathering, like incense round some dim-veil'd

shrine,

About the Form, so mournfully divine!

Oh! let thine image, as e'en then it rose,
Live in my soul forever, calm and clear,
Making itself a temple of repose,

Beyond the breath of human hope or fear!
A holy place, where through all storms may lie
One living beam of day-spring from on high.

Mrs Hemans.

III.

"And when they were come to the place which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors; one on the right hand, and the other on the left."-Luke xxiii. 33.

CITY of God! Jerusalem,

Why rushes out thy living stream?
The turbaned priest, the hoary seer,
The Roman in his pride, are there!
And thousands, tens of thousands, still
Cluster round Calvary's wild hill.

Still onward rolls the living tide,
There rush the bridegroom and the bride;
Prince, beggar, soldier, Pharisee,
The old, the young, the bond, the free;
The nation's furious multitude,

All maddening with the cry of blood.

'Tis glorious morn; from height to height

-

Shoot the keen arrows of the light;

And glorious in their central shower,
Palace of holiness and power,
The temple on Moriah's brow,
Looks a new risen sun below.

But woe to hill, and woe to vale!
Against them shall come forth a wail:
And wo to bridegroom and to bride!
For death shall on the whirlwind ride:

And woe to thee, resplendent shrine,
The sword is out for thee and thine.

Hide, hide thee in the heavens, thou sun,
Before the deed of blood is done!
Upon that temple's haughty steep
Jerusalem's last angels weep;
They see destruction's funeral pall
Blackening o'er Sion's sacred wall.

Like tempests gathering on the shore,
They hear the coming armies' roar:
They see in Sion's hall of state

The sign that maketh desolate

The tomb, the flame, the massacre.

They see the vengeance fall; the chain,
The long, long age of guilt and pain:
The exile's thousand desperate years,
The more than groans, the more than tears;
Jerusalem, a vanished name,

Its tribes earth's warning, scoff, and shame.

Still pours along the multitude,

Still rends the heavens the shout of blood, But on the murderer's furious van,

Who totters on? A weary man;

A cross upon his shoulders bound

His brow, his frame, one gushing wound.

And now he treads on Calvary.

What slave upon that hill must die?
What hand, what heart, in guilt imbrued,
Must be the mountain vulture's food?
There stand two victims gaunt and bare,
Two culprit emblems of despair.

Yet who the third? The yell of shame
Is frenzied at the sufferer's name;
Hands clenched, teeth gnashing,vestures torn,
The curse, the taunt, the laugh of scorn,
All that the dying hour can sting,
Are round thee now, thou thorn-crowned
King!

Yet cursed and tortured, taunted, spurned,
No wrath is for the wrath returned,
No vengeance flashes from the eye;
The sufferer calmly waits to die :
The sceptre reed, the thorny crown,
Wake on the pallid brow no frown.

At last the word of death is given,
The form is bound, the nails are driven;