Prompter of silent prayer, Be the wild picture there In the mind's chamber, So, when the call shall be As to all given, Gladness in heaven! THE REFORMER. ALL grim, and soil'd, and brown with tan, The Church beneath her trembling dome Fraud from his secret chambers fled Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare!" Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle, Cried out, "Forbear!" Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind, Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes, 66 O'erhung with paly locks of gold: Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old ?" Yet louder rang the strong one's stroke, Yet nearer flash'd his axe's gleam! Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream. I look'd: aside the dust-cloud roll'dThe waster seem'd the builder too; Upspringing from the ruin'd old, I saw the new. 'Twas but the ruin of the bad The wasting of the wrong and ill; Calm grew the brows of him I fear'd; The grain grew green on battle-plains, Where frown'd the fort, pavilions gay And cottage windows, flower-entwined, Through vine-wreath'd cups with wine once red, Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope, The young child play'd. Where the doom'd victim in his cell Grown wiser for the lesson given, I fear no longer, for I know That, where the share is deepest driven, The outworn rite, the old abuse, Of wrong alone These wait their doom, from that great law Oh! backward-looking son of Time!- So wisely taught the Indian seer; Destroying SEVA, forming BRAHM, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same. As idly as, in that old day, Thou mournest, did thy sires repine: So, in his time, thy child grown gray, Shall sigh for thine. Yet, not the less for them or thou The eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats! Take heart!-the waster builds again- God works in all things; all obey His first propulsion from the night: Ho, wake and watch!-the world is gray With morning light! MY SOUL AND I. STAND still, my soul: in the silent dark I would question thee, Alone in the shadow drear and stark With God and me! What, my soul, was thine errand here? Was it mirth or ease, Or heaping up dust from year to year? Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight And steadily on thee through the night: What hast thou done, oh, soul of mine, Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the line What, silent all!-art sad of cheer? And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend? What daunts thee now?-what shakes thee so? My sad soul, say. "I see a cloud like a curtain low Hang o'er my way. "Whither I go I cannot tell : That cloud hangs black, "I see its shadow coldly enwrap Sadly they enter it, step by step, "They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel To thee in prayer. They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel That it still is there. "In vain they turn from the dread Before For while gazing behind them evermore, "Yet, at times, I see upon sweet, pale faces A light begin To tremble, as if from holy places And shrines within. "And at times methinks their cold lips move With hymn and prayer, As if somewhat of awe, but more of love "I call on the souls who have left the light, To reveal their lot; I bend mine ear to that wall of night, "But I hear around me sighs of pain And the cry of fear, And a sound like the slow, sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear! "Ah, the cloud is dark, and, day by day, I am moving thither: I must pass beneath it on my way God pity me!-WHITHER?" Ah, soul of mine, so brave and wise Now standing apart with God and me, Gazing vainly after the things to be Through Death's dread wall. But never for this, never for this Was thy being lent; For the craven's fear is but selfishness, Folly and Fear are sisters twain: One closing her eyes, The other peopling the dark inane With spectral lies. Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest; Round him in calmest music rolls Whate'er thou hearest. What to thee is shadow, to him is day, And not on a blind and aimless way Man sees no future-a phantom show Is alone before him; Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And flowers bloom o'er him. Nothing before, nothing behind: The steps of Faith Fall on the seeming void, and find The rock beneath. The Present, the Present is all thou hast For thy sure possessing; Like the patriarch's angel, hold it fast Why fear the night? why shrink from Death, There is nothing in heaven, or earth beneath, Peopling the shadows, we turn from Him All is spectral, and vague, and dim, Like warp and woof, all destinies Linked in sympathy like the keys Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar; THINE is a grief, the depth of which another Yet, o'er the waters, oh, my stricken brother! I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding With even the weakness of my soul upholding I never knew, like thee, the dear departed, When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted And on thine ears my words of weak condoling The funeral-bell which in thy heart is tolling, I will not mock thee with the poor world's common Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman With silence only as their benediction, Where, in the shadow of a great affliction, Yet, would I say what thine own heart approveth: Calling to him the dear one whom he loveth, Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel Her funeral-anthem is a glad evangel— God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly And she is with thee: in thy path of trial Still with the baptism of thy self-denial Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest To both is true. Thrust in thy sickle! England's toil-worn peasants Thy call abide; And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, Shall glean beside! WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER. [Born, 1808.] WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, the son of an Irish patriot who came to this country soon after the rebellion, and married in New Jersey, was born in Philadelphia in 1808, and in 1816 emigrated with his widowed mother to Ohio. He learned the business of printing in Cincinnati, and has been from an early age conspicuous as a journalist and a man CONSERVATISM. THE owl, he fareth well In the shadows of the night, From the forest dim and old, As he courses round about, Disturbs no sleeping thing, That he findeth in his route. And the vale grows softly light; Poor fool! its resting-place. On the air his pinions play; For the eagle it may be? And the shadows disappear; The clear light is not for him; So he hastens back again To the forest old and dim. Through his head strange fancies run: For he cannot comprehend Why the moon, and then the sun, Up the heavens should ascend-- SHE came in Spring, when leaves were green, And birds sang blithe in bower and treeA stranger, but her gentle mien It was a calm delight to see. In every motion, grace was hers; On every feature, sweetness dwelt; So lovely and serene its flow, But autumn winds grew wild and chill, Tones only of immortal birth Our memory of her voice can stir; With things too beautiful for earth Alone do we remember her. She came in Spring, when leaves were green, And birds sang blithe in bower and tree, And flowers sprang up and bloom'd between Low branches and the quickening lea. The greenness of the leaf is gone, The beauty of the flower is riven, The birds to other climes have flown, And there's an angel more in heaven' THE EARLY LOST. WHEN the soft airs and quickening showers Of spring-time make the meadows green, And clothe the sunny hills with flowers, And the cool hollows scoop'd betweenYe go, and fondly bending where The bloom is brighter than the day, Ye pluck the loveliest blossom there Of all that gem the rich array. The stem, thus robb'd and rudely press'd, Stands desolate in the purple even; The flower has wither'd on your breast, But given its perfume up to heaven. When, mid our hopes that waken fears, And mid our joys that end in gloom, The children of our earthly years Around us spring, and bud, and bloomAn angel from the blest above Comes down among them at their play, And takes the one that most we love, And bears it silently away. Bereft, we feel the spirit's strife; But while the inmost soul is riven, Our dear and beauteous bud of life Receives immortal bloom in heaven. FIFTY YEARS AGO. A SONG for the early times out west, And a smiling heaven o'erhead! In the days when we were pioneers, The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase, The captured elk or deer; The camp, the big, bright fire, and then By our camp-fire blazing high- And the panther springing by. Oh, merrily pass'd the time, despite Our wily Indian foe, In the days when we were pioneers, We shunn'd not labour; when 't was due We wrought with right good will; And for the home we won for them, Our children bless us still. We lived not hermit lives, but oft In social converse met; And fires of love were kindled then, Pursued its constant flow, In the days when we were pioneers, We felt that we were fellow-men; By Heaven's upholding hand. To God, the only good. Our temples then were earth and sky; In the days when we were pioneers, Our forest life was rough and rude, Freedom we sought and found. But now our course of life is short; To our dim sight appears, Again be pioneers! Yet while we linger, we may all A backward glance still throw TRUTH AND FREEDOM. On the page that is immortal, We the brilliant promise see: "Ye shall know the truth, my people, And its might shall make you free!" For the truth, then, let us battle, Whatsoever fate betide; Long the boast that we are freemen, We have made and publish'd wide. He who has the truth, and keeps it, Keeps what not to him belongs But performs a selfish action, That his fellow-mortal wrongs. He who seeks the truth, and trembles At the dangers he must brave, Is not fit to be a freeman He at best is but a slave. He who hears the truth, and places |