Oh, ask no sign from Heav'n; catch but one note
From Nature's lyre; from mount to listening vale,
What undiscerned sounds thus dimly float?

Still does she utter one unvaried tale,-
That man is trembling, borne at will
Upon the verge of good and ill;

Yet tells she not why daily doth she give
The guiltless Lamb to die for guilty man to live.

Still doth he live, still spared, still loved in vain ;
Yea, her appointed time the stork descries
In Heav'n; and, faithful to her guide, the crane
Follows an unseen hand o'er pathless skies;
The stranger swallows come and go

At Nature's beck; the ox doth know

His owner. Thou in thine own ways dost dwell Apart; and Me thou wilt not know, Mine Israel.

Go, ask of Nature; to the pensive ear

She whispers, often widow'd souls, forlorn, Have felt One at their side in mercy near, Though they of fellow-men have been the scorn: Yea, surely as God sits on high,

In wondrous meekness He is nigh;

'Mid paths of lowly pity to be found,

And not where pride of earth and passion doth abound.

Yea, now He comes, as summer sunset mild,

And Peace, 'mid parting storms and clouds of even, Hath look'd from her calm hermitage, and smil❜d: This is no time for sign in rended Heaven. There is a time when lowering sky

And clouds shall speak His coming nigh;

When rended Heav'ns, stars falling, mountains

torn,

Shall usher in the wheels of the eternal Morn.

WRITTEN IN A CHURCHYARD.

Little child, upon thy bier,
There is a solitary tear;

But that tear is not thy mother's.
And by thine open grave is seen
Another little cell of green;

A lowly grave-but not a brother's.

Little child, thy days are past,
And none was painless but the last;
Unwatch'd but by a stranger's eye:
Yet through thy little days of pain,
Thou hast not lived and died in vain,
Though seeming only born to die.

Little child, when thou shalt stand
Upon thy Saviour's blest right hand,
And all is mute but charity;
Oh then, the Angel bands among,
That tear shall find a trumpet's tongue,
And plead for one that lov'd thee.

Thus thou in prayer to Heav'n's door shalt draw near In holy fear,

For thus thywords, thro'veils which Christ hath riv'n, Do sound in Heav'n.

But when earth's weight the wing of Prayer doth hold And love grows cold,

Think, He who holds the stars within His hand,

Like countless sand,

Is lowly laid within a manger wild,

A helpless child,

While howling winter sings his lullaby

Dark hurrying by.

Think, that as nowthyheav'nward thoughts grow faint With sorrow's plaint,

He shews His dying wounds and pleads thy suit While Heav'n is mute.

So Fear and Love may clothe thine offerings

With Angel wings.