To feel as I used to feel, Before I knew the woes of want And the walk that costs a meal! "Oh! but for one short hour! A respite however brief! No blessed leisure for Love or Hope, A little weeping would ease my heart, My tears must stop, for every drop With fingers weary and worn, In poverty, hunger, and dirt, And still with a voice of dolorous pitch, Would that its tone could reach the Rich! She sang this "Song of the Shirt!" DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL. Alexander Pope. Vital spark of heavenly flame, Quit, oh quit this mortal frame; Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying — Oh, the pain, the bliss of dying! Cease, fond Nature, cease thy strife, And let me languish into life. Hark! they whisper; angels say, Sister spirit, come away! What is this absorbs me quite? Steals my senses, shuts my sight, O death! where is thy sting? EXTRACT FROM "A RHAPSODY OF LIFE'S PROGRESS." Mrs. Browning. Help me, God-help me, man! I am low, I am weak Death loosens my sinews and creeps in my veins ; And I feel the externe and insensate creep in I sob not, nor shriek, Yet I faint fast away! I am strong in the spirit, - deep-thoughted, clear-eyed,— Oh! the soul keeps its youth — But the body faints sore, it is tired in the race, - The rein drops from its hold It sinks back with the death in its face! Of the strange and the sweet! Love us, God!-love us, man! We believe, we achieve— Let us love, let us live, COWPER'S GRAVE. "I will invite thee, from thy envious herse To rise, and 'bout the world thy beams to spread, Ibid. That we may see there 's brightness in the dead."-Hab ngton. It is a place where poets crowned May feel the heart's decaying It is a place where happy saints And timid hares were drawn from woods To share his home-caresses, But while, in blindness he remained And things provided came without Like a sick child that knoweth not That turns his fevered eyes around- The fever gone, with leaps of heart Which closed in death, to save him. Thus! oh, not thus! no type of earth Wherein he scarcely heard the chant Of seraphs, round him breaking Or felt the new immortal throb Of soul from body parted; But felt those eyes alone, and knew "My Saviour! not deserted!" Deserted! who hath dreamt that when The cross in darkness rested, Upon the victim's hidden face No love was manifested? What frantic hands outstretched have e'er Th' atoning drops averted What tears have washed them from the soul That one should be deserted? That of the lost, no son should use Those words of desolation; That, earth's worst phrenzies, marring hope, And I, on Cowper's grave, should see I wait and watch: before my eyes To see the golden spears uprise Beneath the oriflamme of day! Like one whose limbs are bound in trance The shining ones with plumes of snow! |