Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield;

Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke: How jocund did they drive their team afield!

How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,

Their homely joys and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of
power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Await, alike, the inevitable hour;-

The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye proud, impute to these the fault,
If memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where, through the long-drawn aisle, and fretted vault,
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn, or animated bust,

Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull, cold ear of death?

Perhaps, in this neglected spot, is laid

Some heart, once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have swayed,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unrol;

Chill Penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village Hampden, that, with dauntless breast,
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute, inglorious Milton here may rest;
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,

And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade : nor circumscribed alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined ;Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne, And shut the gates of mercy on mankind;

The struggling pangs of conscious Truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous Shame;
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride

With incense kindled at the muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learned to stray :
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life

They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.

Yet even these bones from insult to protect,
Some frail memorial, still erected nigh,

With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture decked,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelled by the unlettered muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply;

And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,

This pleasing, anxious being e'er resigned,-
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,-
Nor cast one longing, lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies :
Some pious drops the closing eye requires:
Even from the tomb the voice of nature cries,
Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of the unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate,
If, chance, by lonely Contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate,

Haply, some hoary-headed swain may say,
"Oft have we seen him, at the peep of dawn,
Brushing, with hasty steps, the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

"There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech,
That wreathes its old, fantastic roots so high,
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

"Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove;
Now drooping, woful wan, like one forlorn,

Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love.

"One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill, Along the heath, and near his favourite tree : Another came; nor yet beside the rill,

Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he:

"The next, with dirges due, in sad array,

Slow through the churchway path we saw him borne. Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn."

The Epitaph.

HERE rests his head upon the lap of earth
A youth, to fortune and to fame unknown:
Fair Science frowned not on his humble birth,
And Melancholy marked him for her own.

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere:
Heaven did a recompense as largely send :-
He gave to misery all he had-a tear;

He gained from heaven-'twas all he wished-a friend.

No farther seek his merits to disclose,

Or draw his frailties from their dread abode,(There they, alike, in trembling hope, repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God,

LESSON CXXII.

The Grave of Körner.-MRS. HEM'ANS.

CHARLES THEODORE KÖRNER, the young German poet and soldier, was killed in a skirmish with a detachment of French troops, on the 26th of August, 1813, a few hours after the composition of his most popular piece, "The Sword Song." He was buried under a beautiful oak, in a recess of which he had frequently deposited verses composed by him while campaigning in its vicinity. The monument erected to his memory, beneath this tree, is of cast iron, and the upper part is wrought into a lyre and sword, a favourite emblem of Körner's, from which one of his works had been entitled.

Near the grave of the poet is that of his only sister, who died of grief for his loss, having survived him only long enough to complete his portrait, and a drawing of his burial place. Over the gate of the cemetery is engraved one of his own lines, "Forget not the faithful dead."

GREEN wave the oak forever o'er thy rest!

Thou that beneath its crowning foliage sleepest,
And, in the stillness of thy country's breast,
Thy place of memory, as an altar, keepest:
Brightly thy spirit o'er her hills was poured,
Thou of the lyre and sword!

Rest, bard! rest, soldier! By the father's hand
Here shall the child of after-years be led,
With his wreath-offering silently to stand
In the hushed presence of the glorious dead,
Soldier and bard -For thou thy path hast trod
With Freedom and with God.*

The oak waved proudly o'er thy burial rite;

On thy crowned bier to slumber warriors bore thee;
And, with true hearts, thy brethren of the fight
Wept as they vailed their drooping banners o'er thee;
And the deep guns, with rolling peal, gave token
That lyre and sword were broken.

Thou hast a hero's tomb!-A lowlier bed
Is hers, the gentle girl beside thee lying,
The gentle girl, that bowed her fair young head,
When thou wert gone, in silent sorrow dying.
Brother!-true friend!-the tender and the brave!
She pined to share thy grave.

* The poems of Körner, which were chiefly devoted to the cause of his coun try, are strikingly distinguished by religious feeling, and a confidence in the Su preme Justice for the final deliverance of Germany.

Fame was thy gift from others;-but for her,-
To whom the wide earth held that only spot,-
She loved thee!-lovely in your lives ye were,
And in your early deaths divided not.
Thou hast thine oak-thy trophy-what hath she?
Her own blessed place by thee.

It was thy spirit, brother! which had made
The bright world glorious to her thoughtful eye,
Since first in childhood 'midst the vines ye played,
And sent glad singing through the free blue sky.
Ye were but two!-and, when that spirit passed,
Wo for the one, the last!

Wo:-yet not long :-she lingered but to trace
Thine image from the image in her breast;-
Once, once again, to see that buried face
But smile upon her, ere she went to rest.
Too sad a smile!—its living light was o'er;
It answered hers no more!

The earth grew silent when thy voice departed,
The home too lonely whence thy step had fled:
What, then, was left for her, the faithful-hearted?
Death, death, to still the yearning for the dead!
Softly she perished. Be the flower deplored

Here, with the lyre and sword.

Have ye not met ere now? So let those trust,
That meet for moments but to part for years,
That weep, watch, pray, to hold back dust from dust,
That love, where love is but a fount of tears'
Brother! sweet sister!
peace around ye dwell.
Lyre, sword, and flower,-farewell!

LESSON CXXIII.

God's first Temples-A Hymn.-BRYANT.

THE groves were God's first temples. Ere man learned

To hew the shaft, and lay the architrave,

And spread the roof above them,―ere he framed