(Original.) SONNET. REV. C. STRONG. IN health-not rich nor meanly poor, my state And gaze on fruits whose sweets untasted be, I feel the LOVE that wakes each vernal flower, That pours from secret urns the tuneful brooks, And gives to summer suns their ripening power: Deep things I read in autumn's thoughtful looks; And when the snow falls thick in darkening shower, How bright my chamber, and what friends my books! AUTUMN. FRANCES BROWN. OH! welcome to the corn-clad slope, Thou promised Autumn! for the hope Through all the hours of splendour past Thou comest with the gorgeous flowers With morning mists and sunny hours, But never seem'd thy steps so bright On Europe's ancient shore, Since faded from the poet's sight That golden age of yore; For early harvest-home hath pour'd Its gladness on the earth, And the joy that lights the princely board Hath reach'd the peasant's hearth. O Thou! whose silent bounty flows With gifts that ever claim from us If thus Thy goodness crown the year, When all Thy harvest whitening here LIFE AND DEATH. JANE C. SIMPSON. It is a solemn thing to live! To feel we bear within A perpetuity of years. Soon as those years begin— To know Eternal Power hath placed, An essence kindred with His own, A mind, a soul, a priceless part, It is a solemn thing to live! To think that throned on high, On every word, and deed, and thought, God bends His holy eye; And marks in this the appointed term For man to prove his way, What doom at last shall be our own, When earth and time decay; Yes! every morn that dawns, each night On whose starr'd vault we look, Adds a fresh leaf for good or ill To Heaven's unerring book. It is a solemn thing to live! To feel how sin hath flung Such deadly blight o'er souls that once So dark our guilt, that nought could wash But uncreated Love must bear Most wonderful, most fearful truth! To self-condemning hearts. It is a solemn thing to live! Is passing swift away: The accents kind, the looks of love, The friend that shared youth's hours, Are one by one fast gathering hence, Cut down like autumn flowers! What is there breathes and fadeth not? Our time is waning too To all that gladdens here, or grieves, |