ST. JOHN IN EXILE.

Upon that consecrated band,

the followers of the Lord.

He would not shield his aged frame from vengeance or from death,

By coward act of perfidy

denial of the faith.

Deny the faith! nay! it was bound unto the spirit's life;

The gnarled oak is not more firm, amid the whirlwind strife.

Death was the portal to the skies, but treachery would be

Parting the anchorage of hope for all eternity!

O, tyrant of a trembling world! how weak thy puny arm; The body's life is in thy power,

the soul's thou canst not harm! Thy manacles may cramp these limbs, thou may'st destroy this clay;

There thy authority must end,

the spirit spurns thy sway !

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When thou canst curb the lightning's track, or hush the winds to peace;

Fetter the free-winged elements, bid ocean's roar to cease;

Arrest the sun in mid-day course,

the wheels of nature bind;

Then may'st thou fling thy chains around, the unconquerable mind.

Oh! false the thought that gloomy fears
on the christian's rest intrude,
When shut from a corrupting world,
in quiet solitude.
Congenial spirits from above,

stoop downward to his prayer, And come on wings of holy love, to sojourn with him there.

And he who left the city's throng,
to seek his island home;
Left but a wilderness behind,

through paradise to roam.

He stepped upon the rocky strand, and bade the world farewell;

Angels, and heaven, and God, came down

with him on earth to dwell.

Nature in all her varied charms

to him was given yet,

The marvels and the pomps of heaven, with earth's in concord met.

ST. JOHN IN EXILE.

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Far in the bosom of the deep,

'Greece, living Greece' appeared, And there the 'clustering Cyclades' round, their forms of beauty reared :Vibrations of a thousand strings, in music met his ear; The glorious canopy of stars,

the sky serenely clear:

The winds and waters whispered peace
upon the lonely shore,

And white-winged spirits of repose
Brooded its stillness o'er.

*

But views of loftier, holier things, to him were granted there. The New-Jerusalem appeared,

in dazzling splendor crowned; Bright jasper walls, with gates of pearl,

encircled it around.

The future glories of the Church

in vision were revealed;

And mingling songs of earth and heaven,

in swelling peans pealed.

The reign of error long usurped,

was prostrate o'er the world;

And the banners of redeeming love, triumphantly unfurled.

This was the exile's solitude

celestial visions given;

Communion with the world denied, communion held with heaven!

THE DELUGE.

AN EXTRACT.

BY WILLIAM G. CROSBY.

THE birds had sought the silence of the woods,
And the beasts crouched them in their solitudes;
Man hurried to and fro with pallid cheek,
And wandering eyes, such as in terror speak
Unutterable things :-no voice was heard,

Save as some falling leaf the drooping foliage stirred.

There was a silence brooding o'er the earth, Like that which heralds the young earthquake's

birth.

Dark clouds were sweeping slowly o'er the sea, And far above, a blackened canopy

Shut out the last rays of the sickly sun;

The eternal voice went forth-the work of death

begun!