To whom the very Heavens themselves appear
A boundless waste, a vast unmeaning sphere?
For them in vain the nightingale may try

Her most enchanting pean in the sky:
Their sweetest music is the buzzing wheel,
With heart of iron and with nerves of steel;
Unmoved the poor man's little one they see,
Slave-like, compelled, e'en from its infancy,

To creep along some dark and gloomy mine,
Where the bright sun is never known to shine:

Or with an eye that never shed a tear

On the poor widow's or the orphan's bier,

Alike can see the careworn mother go,
Torn from her babe, but newly-born, and so
To tend the bounding shuttle as it flies,

The parting tear still glistening in her eyes,
While she reflects, with all a parent's love

Implanted in her bosom from above,

E

On the dear babe that she has left behind,

Heart-rending thoughts revolving through her mind

How will her darling in her absence fare?

Who to her child will lend a mother's care?

But though the all-absorbing love of gold

Has often robbed the poor man's scanty fold,
Poisoned the air, and made our streams to flow

With reeking death, that lays its thousands low,—

Thank God, His light shall yet illumine all

Who prostrate at the shrine of Mammon fall;
The pearl of greatest price to man shall be,

His all on earth and in eternity.

Tines

COMPOSED JANUARY 1ST, 1866.

"Think we, or think we not, time hurries on

With a resistless unremitting stream;

Yet treads more soft than e'er did midnight thief
That slides his hand under the miser's pillow,

And carries off the prize.

NOTHER year is past and gone,

Yet yonder sun is still the same,

And shines as brightly as it shone

When God first lighted up its flame.

The stars give out as clear a light,

And glitter in the vaulted sky,
As when they burst the womb of night

To meet their glorious queen on high.

BLAIR.

The earth upon its axis rolls

As when its motion first began,

And from the centre to the poles,
Provideth for the wants of man.

But where are our forefathers now?

Where are the mighty men of old? Who will their dark sepulchres show? The ravages of death unfold?

Where are the orators who made

The despot King to quake with fear?

His citadel in ruins laid,

And summoned Freedom to appear?

Where are the boasted works of man,

The wonders of the ages past?

Like him, their day is but a span,

Like him, they fall to dust at last!

And so 'twill be-a few more years

And we too shall be dust again,

While yonder heavens, with all their spheres, Their pristine glory shall retain.

Yea, like a meteor, we shall pass

From this unchanging world away; Like to the withering, wasting grass,

The flower that blooms but for a day.

Then shall we not improve the year,

To God's unerring precepts bow,

And nobly do our duty here,

The work assigned to us below?