All our duties lighter grow;

Pleasant seems the meanest station;

And from light to light we go

To the fulness of salvation.

Be our spirits ever such,

Tuned into harmonious meetness,

Till their chords to every touch

Answer in some tone of sweetness;

Quickened by celestial grace,

Purified of earthly leaven,

Shining, like the Prophet's face,

With a glory caught from heaven.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

EXTRACT FROM AN UNPUBLISHED POEM.

How lovely is domestic harmony,

Where mind on mind and heart on heart repose
Undoubting; and the friends, whom Providence
Has cast together, sharing each with each

Their hopes, their joys, their cares, appear to live
One common life, and breathe one common will!
This fallen world brings forth no other flower
So beautiful as this; and where the love
Of God is added to this love of man,
Somewhat of heaven itself to earth descends.
For what is heaven, but one immortal home,
Where all are brother, Parent, child, or friend,

And all are happy, loving and beloved?

And what is hell, but the abode of hate

And envy, where discordant elements

Mingle, and hiss, and jar eternally?

Bright comes the morn and soft descends the

night

On the fair dwelling-place of love and peace;
And from the buffetings of this rude world
Its happy inmates, like the wandering dove
Home to her ark, for refuge there can fly.

Prayer meets no hindrance there; and praise from thence,

Of hearts and lips in unison, ascends
More acceptable to the God of love.

The idol Self is from his throne cast down,

And God set up instead; and where He reigns

There must be happiness, there must be heaven.

L

SAD THOUGHTS.

1815.

YES, I am calm, am humbled now;
The storm is rocked to rest;

And I have learnt my head to bow,
And count my lot the best.

I would not struggle with my God,
Or chide what He has given :
Why should I murmur at the rod
That drives me on to heaven?

Yet withering thoughts at times will break

Across my calmer frame ;

And then I feel how hearts may ache,

Though still they bow the same.

Dark moods, too long and fondly nursed,
Will o'er me come unsought:

And thou, ah thou, beloved the first,

To be the last forgot!

I meet thy pensive, moonlight face;
Thy thrilling voice I hear;

And former hours and scenes retrace,

Too fleeting, and too dear!

Then sighs and tears flow fast and free,

Though none is nigh to share;

And life has nought beside for me

So sweet as this despair.

There are crushed hearts that will not break ;

And mine, methinks, is one;

Or thus I should not weep and wake,

And thou to slumber gone.