What holy hands are lifted up,
To bless the sacramental cup?
Full well I know that reverend form,

And if a voice could reach the dead,
Those tones would reach thee, though the worm,
My brother, makes thy heart his bed.
That sire, who thy existence gave,
Now stands beside thy lowly grave.
It is not long since thou wert wont
Within these sacred walls to kneel;
This altar, that baptismal font,

These stones, which now thy dust conceal,
The sweet tones of the Sabbath-bell,
Were holiest objects to thy soul;
On these thy spirit loved to dwell,
Untainted by the world's control.
My brother, those were happy days,
When thou and I were children yet!
How fondly memory still surveys
Those scenes, the heart can ne'er forget!
My soul was then, as thine is now,
Unstain'd by sin, unstung by pain:
Peace smiled on each unclouded brow-
Mine ne'er will be so calm again.
How blithly then we hailed the ray
Which ushered in the Sabbath-day!
How lightly then our footseps trod
Yon pathway to the house of God!
For souls, in which no dark offence
Hath sullied childhood's innocence,
Best meet the pure and hallowed shrine
Which guiltier bosoms own divine.

I feel not now as then I felt ;

The sunshine of my heart is o'er;

The spirit now is changed which dwelt
Within me in the days of yore.

But thou wert snatched, my brother, hence
In all thy guileless innocence;

One Sabbath saw thee bend the knee,
In reverential piety,-

(For childish faults forgiveness crave)-
The next beamed brightly on thy grave.
The crowd, of which thou late wert one,
Now throngs across thy burial-stone:
Rude footsteps trample on the spot,
Where thou liest mouldering-not forgot;
And some few gentler bosoms weep
In silence o'er thy last long sleep.
I stood not by thy feverish bed,
I looked not on thy glazing eye,
Nor gently lulled thy aching head,
Nor viewed thy dying agony;
I felt not what my parents felt,-
The doubt-the terror-the distress;-
Nor vainly for my brother knelt ;

My soul was spared that wretchedness:
One sentence told me, in a breath,
My brother's illness and his death!

And days of mourning glided by,
And brought me back my gaiety;
For soon in childhood's wayward heart
Doth crushed affection cease to smart.
Again I joined the sportive crowd
Of boyish playmates, wild and loud;
I learned to view with careless eye
My sable garb of misery;

No more I wept my brother's lot,-
His image was almost forgot;

128

And every deeper shade of pain
Had vanished from my soul again.
The well-known morn, I used to greet

With boyhood's joy, at length was beaming,
And thoughts of home and raptures sweet
In every eye but mine were gleaming;
But I, amidst that youthful band

Of bounding hearts and beaming eyes,
Nor smiled nor spoke at joy's command,
Nor felt those wonted ecstacies!
I loved my home, but trembled now
To view my father's altered brow;
I feared to meet my mother's eye,
And hear her voice of agony;
I feared to view my native spot,
Where he who loved it now was nol.
The pleasures of my home were fled;
My brother slumbered with the dead.

I drew near to my father's gate;
No smiling faces met me now,
I entered,-all was desolate,

Grief sat upon my mother's brow;
I heard her, as she kissed me, sigh;

A tear stood in my father's eye;
My little brothers round me pressed,
In gay, unthinking childhood blessed.
Long, long, that hour has pass'd; but when
Shall I forget its gloomy scene!

The Sabbath came. With mournful face
I sought my brother's burial-place;
That shrine, which when I last had view'd,
In vigour by my side he stood.

The spring of life's unclouded weather,

I SAW an Angel on a cloud,

Come floating through the air;

The heavens look'd like the world's dark shroud,
All blacken'd with despair:

With mighty stride he stalked forth,
Encompassing the south and north,

And eke the middle clime;

Earth reel'd beneath his ponderous weight,
The ocean roll'd all agitate,
Tumultuous and sublime.

A garb of light he round him cast,
Blended with heaven's pure blue;
And thunder's blighting, withering blast,
He round his pathway threw :
Heaven's radiant arch entwined his brow,
(Which shone forth with a heavenly glow
Of majesty divine,)

Seal of the Covenant firm and sure,
That through all ages shall endure,
Until the end of time.

The heavens drew back to let him pass,-
With terror hence they fled;