fabling dreams, ost High, my robe of beams sky. undeluged earth, thou didst shine, s gray fathers forth sign! ustre smiled untrod, ft her child to keep, nem rang m the deep, ang. se's eye y beam: ophecy, meme! incense yields, ne sings, Le freshen'd fields, om springs. rdle cast er, and town, an vast, down! n dark, Les seem, As when the eagle from the ark THE COMMON LOT. J. MONTGOMERY. ONCE in the flight of ages past, There liv'd a man;-and wнO WAS HE! -Mortal! howe'er thy lot be cast, That man resembled thee. Unknown the region of his birth, The land in which he died unknown: That joy and grief, and hope and fear, -Oblivion hides the rest. The bounding pulse, the languid limb, He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er; n he loved, the grave u hast seen; nou hast been; ay and night, =s, the earth and main, life and light, ams, o'er his eye man race, he world began, r trace ead, thy shade, hour, and day by day epresent fade, ur steal away. e forgotten lie, ages past,) Once mark'd thy shadow with delighted eye, Nor thought it fled,-how certain and how fast! Since thou hast stood, and thus thy vigil kept, Noting each hour, o'er mouldering stones beneath; The pastor and his flock alike have slept, And "dust to dust" proclaim'd the stride of death. Another race succeeds, and counts the hour, Careless alike; the hour still seems to smile, As hope, and youth, and life, were in our pow'r; So smiling and so perishing the while. I heard the village-bells with gladsome sound (When to these scenes a stranger I drew near) Proclaim the tidings of the village round, While mem'ry wept upon the good man's bier. Even so, when I am dead, shall the same bells Ring merrily, when my brief days are gone; While still the lapse of time thy shadow tells, And strangers gaze upon my humble stone. Enough, if we may wait in calm content The hour that bears us to the silent sod; Blameless improve the time that Heav'n has lent And leave the issue to Thy will, O God. THE WIDOW OF NAIN DALE. SHE saw him-Death's untimely prey, The rose upon his cheek, she knew, A tint of fading loveliness, So gleams o'er fields of wintry snow And oft she caught his stifled moan- 273 When that false flush forsook his cheek, And moss entwines the arches gray, 4 Whate'er his inud pangs might be, He told not-mate, and meekly still, T |