JACOB'S FUNERAL.

BY CHARLES

W.

UPHAM.

A TRAIN came forth from Egypt's land,
Mournful and slow their tread;
And sad the leader of that band-
The bearers of the dead.

His father's bones they bore away,
To lay them in the grave
Where Abraham and Isaac lay,
Macpelah's sacred cave.

A stately train, dark Egypt's pride,
Chariot and horse are there;

And silently, in sorrow ride

Old men of hoary hair.

For many days they passed along

To Atad's threshing floor,

And sang their last and saddest song Upon the Jordan's shore.

And Atad saw the strangers mourn,

That silent, wo-clad band,

And wondered much whose bones were borne,
Thus far from Pharaoh's land.

They saw the chieftain's grief was sore,—
He wept with manly grace ;-
They called that spot forevermore
Misraim's mourning place.

They passed the wave that Jacob passed,
His good staff in his hands,*—
They passed the wave that Jacob passed
With his returning bands.

'Twas when he met upon his path

His brother's wild array,

And fled, for fear his ancient wrath
Might fall on him that day.

Gen. xxxII, 10.

VESPERS.

BY FRANCIS BARBOUR. *

The hour of prayer!

Within the crowded chancel, while the shroud Of night comes down upon the poor and proud, Low bended there.

Perchance there be

Some lowly worshippers at eventide,

Breathing their humble prayer, on some hill-side By the deep sea:

Or in the drear

And rayless coverts of the pathless woods,
With scarce a stream to glad their solitudes,
Or light to cheer.

And suppliant now,

At altars beaten by tempest's shock,

At some rude cross upon the rifted rock,
They humbly bow.

A chastening power

Falls like the coming of an angel's spell,

O'er the calmed spirit, when the shadows tell The evening hour.

Thus at the close

Of life's short day, may its receding light Which led us on, be peaceful, calm and bright, As when it rose.

And may no fear

Upon our hearts a trembling record trace,

And may we go to our long resting place
Without a tear.

BURIAL OF THE MINNISINK.

BY HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

ON sunny slope and beechen swell,
The shadowed light of evening fell;
And where the maple's leaf was brown,
With soft and silent lapse came down
The glory that the wood receives,
At sunset, in its brazen leaves.

Far upward in the mellow light

Rose the blue hills. One cloud of white,
Around a far uplifted cone,

In the warm blush of evening shone ;

An image of the silver lakes,

By which the Indian's soul awakes.