I FLY from the face of my foe in his might, I ask from the sky but the shadow of night, I am lonely, yet dread lest the wandering wind Should bring me the step or the voice of my partner of his throne "sleep the sleep that knows no kind. I hear the soft voices that sing in the cave, An arid plain leads to the luxuriant gardens which still adorn the mausoleum where Nour Jahan and the lovely waking." Ponds of gold and silver fish are the common ornaments of a great man's grounds in India. They are covered after sunset with a gauze frame, to protect them When from the rent limestone out-gushes the from their various nightly enemies. Notwithstanding the wave; While the echoes that haunt the dim caverns repeat, The music they make in repeating more sweet. There are colours like rainbows spread over the wall, For the damps treasure sunbeams wherever they fall; In each little nook where the daylight finds room Wild flow'rets like fairy gifts burst into bloom. The small lakes are mirrors, which give back the sky, The stars in their depths on a dark midnight lie, From the sparry roof falls a perpetual shower, My heart, like the rock that surrounds me, is stone, Beside me forever a pale shadow stands, My hands clasp for prayer, but there's blood on those hands. I rue not my anger-I rue but my shame: Let my old halls be lonely, and perish my name! * A rugged path leads to this beautiful and spacious cavern, which may well, in former days, have been the place of refuge supposed in the foregoing poem. The brook which runs through it is broken by the pointed rock into many waterfalls, and also feeds several small lakes; a spring trickles from the roof, and the sides are covered with a profusion of moss, and weeds, and wild flowers. Like most of these caverns, the walls are covered with sparry incrustations. care taken for their preservation, they often become the prey of the kingfisher. Tombs in India are palaces, vast and immutable as the slumbers which they cover. As if to add the contrast of natural fertility to human decay, the garden always surrounds the grave. MOURNFULLY they pass away, Though thy smiles around thee fling Though thy presence seems to spring Like a poet's vision; Though the full heart worship thee, Though the cold earth common be, Yet thou dost decay and die, And beside thee perish All that grew beneath thine eye, Every gentle hope and thought Hues from thine own heaven brought, Fare thee well-thou soon art flown THE WIDOW'S MITE. It is the fruit of waking hours When others are asleep, When moaning round the low thatch'd roof The winds of winter creep. It is the fruit of summer days Past in a gloomy room, When others are abroad to taste The pleasant morning bloom. 'Tis given from a scanty store And miss'd while it is given : 'Tis given for the claims of earth Are less than those of heaven. Few save the poor feel for the poor, The rich know not how hard It is to be of needful food And needful rest debarr'd. Their paths are paths of plenteousness; They sleep on silk and down, And never think how heavily They know not of the scanty meal They never by their window sit, The rich, they give they miss it notA blessing cannot be Like that which rests, thou widow'd one, Upon thy gift and thee! SIR THOMAS HARDY, GOVERNOR OF GREENWICH HOSPITAL, SILENCE is now upon the seas, The battle-flag droops o'er the mast, For it hath won in wilder hours Now let it wave above their home, Of those who fought afar; The victors of the Baltic sea, The brave of Trafalgar. Upon a terrace by the Thames, He who received the latest clasp* Age, toil, and care had somewhat bow'd His bearing proud and high; I felt no wonder England holds Still the red cross will face the world, And gather'd there beneath the sun And former days they told. No prouder trophy hath our isle, Her other domes-her wealth, her pride, Her science may declare; But Greenwich hath the noblest claim, Her gratitude is there. ESKDALE, CUMBERLAND.t O! NO: I do not wish to see The sunshine o'er these hills again; I hear the skylark's matin songs * His favourite captain; -Nelson died in Sir Thomas Hardy's arms. Too long for extract here, the account of that battle and death is at once the most exciting and yet touching record I know in English history. + In the midst of these secluded mountain districts, says Mr. Warren in his Northern Tour, lives one of the most independent, most moral, and most respectable characters existing, the estatesman, as he is called in the language of the country, whose hospitality to the wayfarer and traveller has been thus touchingly illustrated:-"Go," said an estatesman to a person whom he had entertained for some days at his house, "go to the vale on the other side of the mountain, to the house of -, (naming the party,) and tell him you came from me. I know him not, but he will receive you kindly, for our sheep mingle on the mountains." IF there be one object more material, more revolting, more gloomy than another, it is a crowded churchyard in a city. It has neither sympathy nor memory. The presseddown stones lie heavy upon the very heart. The sunshine cannot get at them for smoke. There is a crowd; and, like most crowds, there is no companionship. Sympathy is the softener of death, and memory of the loved and the lost is the earthly shadow of their immortality. But who turns aside amid those crowds that hurry through the thronged and noisy streets? No one can love London better than I do; but never do I wish to be buried there. It is the best place in the world for a house, and the worst for a grave. An Irish patriot once candidly observed to me, "Give me London to live in; but let me die in green Ireland:"-now, this is precisely my opinion. I PRAY thee lay me not to rest Life is too gay-life is too near- The ceaseless roll of wheels would wake The slumbers of the dead; I cannot bear for life to make Its pathway o'er my head. The flags around are cold and drear, They stand apart, alone; And no one ever pauses here, To sorrow for the gone. No: lay me in the far green fields The summer sunshine cheers; And where the early wild flower yields The tribute of its tears; O! make such grave for me! And passers-by, at evening's close, Will pause beside the grave, And moralize o'er the repose They fear, and yet they crave. Perhaps some kindly hand may bring Its offering to the tomb; And say, as fades the rose in spring, So fadeth human bloom. But here there is no kindly thought No fancies and no flowers are brought, Here Poesy and Love come not It is a world of stone; The grave is bought-is closed-forgot! And then life hurries on. Sorrow, and beauty-nature-love Redeem man's common breath; Ah! let them shed the grave aboveGive loveliness to death. BORRO BOEDOOR.* An ancient temple of an ancient faith, When man, to show the vanity of man, Was left to his own fantasies. All life Was conscious of a God; the sun, the wind, The mighty ocean, and the distant stars, Become his prototypes. At length there came The great appointed hour; the Truth shone forth, The living waters of the Gospel flow'd, And earth drank life and hope. The work is still Gradual and incomplete; -it is man's task, And more his glorious privilege, to aid. Our England is a living fountain now, Whence flow the waves of life, - eternal life. O, what a power and duty is our own! 'Tis ours to shed upon man's present day The blessing of the future and the past. How much of India yet in darkness lies! We must dethrone the idol, and dispel The shadows that but herald the true faith. * The temple of Borro Bordoor was in former days the most celebrated Budha temple in the Island of Java equally distinguished for its extent and its magnificence. * The remains of Fountain's Abbey are considered the finest in England. The cloisters are a vast extent of straight vault, three hundred feet long, and forty-two broad; divided lengthways by nineteen pillars and twenty arches; each pillar divides into eight ribs at the top, which diverge and intersect each other on the roof. Here is a large stone basin, the remains of a fountain. We must give peace, love, charity, to earth; And from old superstitions, vain beliefs, And false religions, realize the true : There is fear in the eyes that are glaring around, As they pass like the spectres of death without sound: So morning springs from out the depths of night. Over rocks, without summer, the dull sea-wee's THE PΠΑΝΤΟМ. I COME from my home in the depth of the sea, Unbroken its silver, undream'd of its swell, While drooping around were the wings white and wild, Of the ship that was sleeping, as slumbers a child. I turn'd to look from thee, to look on the bower, Which thou hast been training in sunshine and shower; So thick were the green leaves, the sun and the rain Sought to pierce through the shelter from summer in vain. It was not its ash tree, the home of the wren, I come to thee now, my long hair on the gale, veil, It is dark with the sea damps, and wet with the spray, The gold of its auburn has long past away. And the roof is incrusted with white coral cells, dwells. There is life in the shells that are strew'd o'er the sands, Not fill'd but with music as on our own strands; Around me are whitening the bones of the dead, And a starfish has grown to the rock overhead. Sometimes a vast shadow goes darkly along, The shark or the sword-fish, the fearful and strong: trail, And the blossoms that hang there are scentless and pale; Amid their dark garlands, the water-snakes glide, And the sponge, like the moss, gathers thick at their side. O! would that the sunshine could fall on my grave, That the wild flower and willow could over it wave; O! would that the daisies grew over my sleep, That the tears of the morning could over me weep. Thou art pale 'mid the dreams, I shall trouble no more, The sorrow that kept me from slumber is o'er : To the depths of the ocean in peace I depart, For I still have a grave greener far in thy heart' FOUNTAIN'S ABBEY.* ALAS, alas! those ancient towers, No more beneath the moonlight dim, No more within some cloister'd cell, With windows of the sculptured stone, By sign of cross, and sound of bell, The world-worn heart can beat alone. How needful some such tranquil place, How many, too heart-sick to roam, DR. ADAM CLARKE AND THE TWO PRIESTS OF BUDНА. I HAVE rarely been so interested as by the account Sir Alexander Johnstone gave me of the two young Priests, whose enterprise had as many difficulties, and a far higher object, than our forefathers' pilgrimages to the Holy Land. They waited on Sir Alexander, to consult him as to the means of reaching England. Lady Johnstone's health rendering an instant return imperative, he had fitted out a small vessel, whose accomodations were too limited to admit more than his own family and suite. In this ship, however, they worked their way as common sailors. Before we can appreciate this sacrifice, we must understand that they were of birth, education, and high standing in their own country. Let us for a moment suppose one of our prelates working before the mast on a mission of Christian faith; we shall then comprehend the depth and sincerity of the belief that urged the young Cingalese. Sir Alexander placed them under the care of Dr. Adam Clarke, of Liverpool, rightly judging that London, with its usual selfish and stimulating course of lionization, would defeat the high purposes of their visit. The progress of the strangers was so satisfactory, that at the end of two years Dr. Clarke publicly baptized them. They returned to Ceylon, where one is employed as a Missionary, and the other is an officer in the civil service. The benefit of their example and instruction may be more easily imagined than calculated. THEY heard it in the rushing wind, They felt it in the thousand flowers That there must be some holier faith They saw this world was very fair, Their idols answer'd not--the mind Than ever breathed from carved wood, They heard of more exalted hopes, Revealing God above, That spoke a universal creed, Of universal love, And look'd beyond the little space And made of yonder glorious heaven Men's own and native sphere. They craved for knowledge, whose pure light Might pierce the moral gloom; They left the temple of their race, They left them for a distant isle, But they were strong in faith, and felt What high and holy thoughts sustain'd A power far mightier than their own At last they reach'd our English isle, Thy ships have master'd many a sea, A nobler enterprise awaits In many a foreign soil. Freedom, and knowledge, justice, truth, Are gifts which should be thine; And, more than all, that purer faith Which maketh men divine. Those strangers sought an English home, And there they learnt to know Those hopes which sweeten life and cheer, Yet have no rest below. They learnt to lisp in foreign words That every one should share. They bear it to their native land, And labour to impart The Christian knowledge that subdues Yet elevates the heart. O, noble enterprise! how much For man by man is won! Doth it not call on all mankind To see what two have done? O, fair thou art, thou lovely isle, The summer loves thine hours; Thy waves are fill'd with warm white pearls, Thy groves with spice and flowers. But nature hath no gift assign'd, Like that pure creed of Christian love |