Dost thou love when tranquil e'en
Spreads her twilight o'er the scene,
Far from folly's seat to stray,
Musing on departed day?
Are those moments sweeter far
Than the hours of sunshine are?
Tranquil eve, the care-worn breast
Finds awhile in thee a rest:
Thou dost sweetly sooth its sorrow,
Telling that the dawning morrow,
Soon to break the orient sky,
May serener day supply.
When thy sober shade is spread,
When the glitt'ring hours are fled,
Meditation seems to rise
More unfettered to the skies;
And another earthly day,
Borne by hoary time away,
Serves the memory to raise
All its store of years and days,
Which appear before the eye
Transient as the day gone by.
See o'er nature's beauteous scene,
Where the spring with smiling mien,
Cheer'd by sweetly warbled strain,
Bless'd the earth with life again;
Where the summer's glowing skies
Bade maturity arise,
Autumn sheds her blighting reign,
Strews upon the faded plain
Leaves that lately look'd so gay
In the spring and summer day.
Autumn's leaves, so poets teach,
To the sons of Adam preach:
Year by year they fall and die,
That the age that passes by,
As within a glass may see
Signs of its mortality.
Happy reader, if thine eye
Reads aright thy destiny.
THE TWILIGHT OF MORNING.
SWEET twilight of morning, with rapture I view
The dawn of thy light on the glittering dew
Which clings to the wind-shaken spray :
No more by the languors of slumber oppress'd,
With pleasure I spring from the pillow of rest,
And hail the approaches of day.
Sweet twilight of morning, I love to behold
Thy shades giving way to the azure and gold
Which follow thy tranquil advance,
Till the gloom is all chased by the glories of morn,
Which, with splendour unclouded, unequal'd, adorn
The glowing majestic expanse.
Sweet twilight of morning, the christian, in thee
A type of his mortal condition may see,
For twilight encircles him here;
But the gloom of mortality rapidly flies
When his faith wings her way to those shadowless skies,
Where eternity's glories appear.
Though dim be his prospect, and gloomy his way,
'Tis the twilight of morning, and leads on to day-
To a day that can never decline;
And soon shall the shadows of darkness be gone,
And soon shall he view the bright glories of morn,
In the face of his Saviour divine.
But ah! when earth's shadows are flying apace
From sinners who seek not the blessings of grace,
When their twilight of ev'ning expires,
Far, far from the regions of hope or delight,
It leaves them to sink in the darkness of night,
Then burn in unquenchable fires!
SAY! what is Fame? I asked of heroes dead,
Who for their country and its cause had bled.
"Fame," they replied, " O 'tis an empty show
Lost in the grave, to which mankind must go.'
I asked of orators, and poets, gone-
Who honor and immortal praise had won
Who fame had sung in every land and clime,
Whose names unsullied must endure with time.
"Fame," they replied, "O 'tis a transient breath,
No sooner drawn, than vanishing in death."
I asked the statesman, in the road to power,
On whom fresh honors gather'd every hour.
"Fame," he replied, "consists in great applause,
For deeds of merit done in honor's cause."
I asked the victor in triumphal car,
Whose name was heard with terror from afar.
"Fame," he replied, "O may I spread my fame,
And thus ensure a great immortal name."
I asked an bermit in his rustic cell,
Lost to the world, one who might truly tell,
Whose hoary locks bespoke his lengthen'd days;-
His seem'd the word of truth, not flattering praise.
"Fame!" he replied, " of sublunary things,
Nothing less comfort in possession brings,
Fruitless and vain the attempt to acquire the shade,
Grasped for a moment, but to see it fade."
I asked a missionary, on distant shores,
On India's burning plains, where Ganges roars,
Who for his Saviour had forsaken all,
And gone the vile idolater to call.
"Fame," he replied:—with holy zeal he said,
"O may the fame of Jesus' name be spread ;
May it disseminate from pole to pole,
'Till time his rapid wheels shall cease to roll." Then come the appointed hour, the Saviour's reign, The Saviour's praise, and everlasting gain.
SONNET TO THE MOON.
SUBLIMELY rising in thy silvery car,
Emerging slowly from the eastern sky,
Riding in silent cloudless majesty,
O moon, how rich and bright thy glories are:
Around thy path the richest flood of light,
Of planets, stars, and suns, within their spheres
Add to thy lustre through the ebon night,
Unchanged, unchanging, through the roll of years.
And yet what is thy light to that above,
To those eternal beams which God hath made. They call forth adoration, praise, and love;
Their glories will remain, when thou shalt fade : When sun, and moon, and earth, and stars shall fly, The blest abode of God remains eternally.
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