GOD'S ACRE-FRIEDHOF.

Though I may long and hope, nay, fondly trust-
Yet know I not that Heaven will deign to keep,
Round the sin-tainted field of human dust,
Merciful watchings over all that sleep.

Nor know I when the waking hour shall be,
Nor what shall dazzle the rekindled eye,
When the rent veil of the grave's mystery
Hideth no more the life that may not die.

But, humbly, this at least, meseems I know,
That, when the clod shall lie upon my breast,
Though there be lonely truce to joy and woe,
Yet, lacking both, I still shall be at rest.

Then, by the lowlier name be mine to call

The silent spot where toil and yearning cease;

I pray it be God's Acre unto all,

Blest, if to me it be the Vale of Peace!

STARLIGHT.

Glad watching his, who, when he turns
Unto the kindled lights of even,
By every star that o'er him burns
Sees but a nearer path to Heaven !

Poor dweller in the valley, he

To whom the midnight tells no story,
Save of dark distances that be

Betwixt him and its fields of glory!

Ah! blessed orbs! shall I not gaze,
Some time, upon the blue above me,
And catching in your dewy rays

The tenderness of eyes that love me,

Feel that the skies are near indeed,

When creatures good and bright beside us,
Part of the Heaven to which they lead,
Will share it with us, as they guide us!

QUO FATA TRAHUNT.

Have I not flung away already more

Of hope, and love, and anxious heart, and peace,

On thought of others-ten times o'er and o'er-
Than I have left? And should not such things cease?

Oh! God that made me! wherefore formed was I,
So full of things opposed, so clear to see
Behind each folly, pain, its shadow, lie,

Yet sure to walk just where the shadows be?

Who hath had teachings more than I have had?

Who, for such lessons, hath a sense more keen? Who hath had more of grief from what was sad, Or turned, more fated, back to what had been?

Is it my sin, or shame, that I do tread,

In spite of knowledge, paths of pain foregone? Or hath some judgment fallen on my head,

That I shall see, and know, and yet go on?

FOR AN ALBUM.

The fairy scene the painter's hand
Here spreads before the eye,
Speaks loudly to us of the land
Where life's strange travels lie.

Here, coldly see the hill-top gleam
Where fame and fortune climb;
There, humbly sings the glowing stream
Its lowly, cheerful chime!

The woodland king, here, spreads his arms,

In pride of leafy power,

And there, as lifelike, blush the charms

Of yonder peasant flower.

And mark ye not what o'er them throws

The joyous smile they wear,
Without whose kissing, tree and rose
Would vainly woo the air?

It is the glorious sunlight's ray
That blesses wood and cloud,
The streamlet near, and, far away
Hallows the mountain proud!

So rays there are, without whose glow,
The field of human fate,
Alike its hills, and valleys low
Are cold, sad, desolate.

It is the sunshine of the heart,
And he, who reads aright,
Will find this holy lesson start
From every flash of light.

Treasures are wealth and wit and power,
And beauty and renown;

In wisdom's scale, one heart-warm hour Would weigh a worldful down!

FOR AN ALBUM.

Behold! where, borne on gilded wing,
Yon fair and fluttering insect thing

Flies to the open flow'r;

Blind to the future as the past,

Resolved, while sweets and sunshine last,

To revel through its hour.

'Tis not for me, the moral old, By saints and sages better told,

From this poor insect's lot;

How that, with all its purple gone, The beauty which at morning shone, At even-tide is not.

With gayer faith, the poet deems
It is not ill, to love our dreams

Of brightness and of bloom

That blossoms would not hang so fair, That fragrance would not load the air, Were life all meant for gloom!

So too, he thinks yon silly fly
May not, all useless, flutter by
To those who see aright;

And that a life amid the flowers,
May, longer than the moth's, be ours,
More happy, not less bright!

It is that through our live-long day,
We should, unyielding, wing our way,
By no false brightness led,

And only give our pinions rest, When lighted on the fragrant breast Of buds from pure earth fed.

Not dazzling here and flitting there,
Our pride to glisten everywhere,

Mid noon-day's gaudy crowd;