Of giving thanks to God,-not thanks of form, With covered face, and upward earnest eye. Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day; Grahame. REMEMBRANCE. Man hath a weary pilgrimage, With heaviness he casts his eye And still remembers with a sigh What then shall soothe his earliest woes, Condemned to suffer through the day And cares where love has no concern, Hope lightens as she counts the hours That hasten his return. From hard control and tyrant rules, The child's sad thoughts will roam; Youth comes: the toils and cares of life Torment the restless mind; Where shall the tired and harassed heart Its consolation find? 2 Then is not youth, as Fancy tells, Life's summer prime of joy? Ah! no; for hopes too long delayed, And feelings blasted or betrayed, The fabled bliss destroy; And he remembers with a sigh The careless days of infancy. Maturer manhood now arrives And other thoughts come on, But with the baseless hopes of youth Its generous warmth is gone; Cold calculating cares succeed, The timid thought, the wary deed, The dull realities of truth ; Back on the past he turns his eye; Remembering with an envious sigh The happy dreams of youth. So reaches he the latter stage With feeble step and slow; Life's vain delusions are gone by, Its idle hopes are o'er, Yet age remembers with a sigh, The days that are no more. Southey. LOOKING AT THE CROSS. In evil long I took delight, I saw one hanging on a tree, Who fixed his languid eyes on me, As near his cross I stood. Sure never till my latest breath Can I forget that look; It seemed to charge me with his death, My conscience felt, and owned the guilt, I saw my sins his blood had spilt, And helped to nail him there. Alas! I know not what I did, But now my tears are vain : A second look he gave, which said, 'I freely all forgive: This blood is for thy ransom paid, Thus, while his death my sin displays (Such is the mystery of grace,) It seals my pardon too. With pleasing grief and mournful joy, That I should such a life destroy, Yet live by him I killed. 'Newton. |