By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee :

-The dying hear it; and as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.

THE LITTLE BEACH-BIRD.

THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
And with that boding cry

O'er the waves dost thou fly?

O rather, bird, with me

Through the fair land rejoice!

Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,

As if thy mates had shared

The doom of us : Thy wail

What does it bring to me?

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge, Restless and sad as if, in strange accord

With the motion and the roar

Of waves that drive to shore,

One spirit did ye urge—

The Mystery-the Word.

Of thousands, thou both sepulchre and pall,
Old ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells

A tale of mourning tells

Tells of man's wo and fall,

His sinless glory fled.

Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight

Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring
Thy spirit never more.

Come, quit with me the shore,

For gladness and the light

Where birds of summer sing.

WILLIAM KNOX.

WILLIAM KNOX, the author of "Songs of Israel," and "The Harp of Sion," was born in humble life in Roxburgshire, in 1789, and died in Edinburgh in 1825. Some of his pieces evince fancy and feeling, and a fine command of poetical language.

MORTALITY.

Он, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!
Like a fast flitting meteor, a fast flying cloud,
A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave-
He
passes from life to his rest in the grave.

The leaves of the oak and the willows shall fade,
Be scattered around, and together be laid;

And the young and the old, and the low and the high,
Shall moulder to dust, and together shall lie.

The child whom a mother attended and loved,
The mother that infant's affection who proved,
The husband that mother and infant who blessed,
Each-all are away to their dwelling of rest.

The maid on whose cheek, on whose brow, in whose eye,
Shone beauty and pleasure-her triumphs are by;
And the memory of those who loved her and praised,
Are alike from the minds of the living erased.

The hand of the king who the sceptre hath borne,
The brow of the priest who the mitre hath worn,
The eye of the sage and the heart of the brave
Are hidden and lost in the depths of the grave.

The peasant whose lot was to sow and to reap,

The herdsman who climbed with his goats to the steep,
The beggar who wandered in search of his bread,
Have faded away like the grass that we tread.

The saint who enjoyed the communion of heaven,
The sinner who dared to remain unforgiven,
The wise and the foolish, the guilty and just,
Have quietly mingled their bones in the dust.

So the multitude goes-like the flower and the weed
That wither away to let others succeed;

So the multitude comes-even those we behold,
To repeat every tale that has often been told.

For we are the same things that our fathers have been, We see the same sights that our fathers have seen; We drink the same stream, and we feel the same sun, And we run the same course that our fathers have run.

The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think, From the death we are shrinking from, they too would shrink,

To the life we are clinging to, they too would cling,
But it speeds from the earth like a bird on the wing.

They loved-but their story we cannot unfold,
They scorned-but the heart of the haughty is cold,
They grieved but no wail from their slumbers may come,
They joyed-but the voice of their gladness is dumb.

They died-ay, they died! and we things that are now,
Who walk on the turf that lies over their brow,
Who make in their dwellings a transient abode,
Meet the changes they met on their pilgrimage road.

Yea; hope and despondence, and pleasure and pain,
Are mingled together in sunshine and rain;
And the smile, and the tear, and the song, and the dirge,
Still follow each other like surge upon surge.

'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath,
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud-
Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud!

OH! Youth is like the springtide morn,
When roses bloom on Jordan's strand,
And far the turtle's voice is borne

Through all Judea's echoing land!
When the delighted wanderer roves
Through cedar woods and olive groves,

That spread their blossoms to the day;
And climbs the hill, and fords the stream,
And basks him in the noontide beam,
"Oh! I would live alway."

But Age is like the winter's night,

When Hermon wears his mantle cloud,
When moon and stars withdraw their light,
And Hinnom's blast is long and loud;

When the dejected pilgrim strays
Along the desert's trackless maze,

Forsaken by each friendly ray;

And feels no vigor in his limb,
And finds no home or earth for him,
And cries, amid the shadows dim,

'I would not live alway."

Oh! Youth is firmly bound to earth,

When hope beams on each comrade's glance;

His bosom chords are tuned to mirth,

Like harp-strings in the cheerful dance;

But Age has felt those ties unbound,
Which fixed him to that spot of ground

Where all his household comforts lay;
He feels his freezing heart grow cold,
He thinks of kindred in the mould,
And cries, amid his grief untold,
"I would not live alway."

THE fool hath said, "There is no God:"
No God!-Who lights the morning sun,
And sends him on his heavenly road,

A far and brilliant course to run?
Who, when the radiant day is done,
Hangs forth the moon's nocturnal lamp,
And bids the planets, one by one,
Steal o'er the night-vales, dark and damp?

No God!-Who gives the evening dew,

The fanning breeze, the fostering shower? Who warms the spring-morn's budding bough, And paints the summer's noontide flower? Who spreads in the autumnal bower, The fruit-tree's mellow stores around; And sends the winter's icy power, T'invigorate the exhausted ground?

No God-Who makes the bird to wing
Its flight like arrow through the sky,
And gives the deer its power to spring
From rock to rock triumphantly?
Who formed Behemoth, huge and high,
That at a draught the river drains,
And great Leviathan to lie,

Like floating isle, on ocean plains?

No God!-Who warms the heart to heave
With thousand feelings soft and sweet,
And prompts the aspiring soul to leave
The earth we tread beneath our feet,
And soar away on pinions fleet,
Beyond the scene of mortal strife,

With fair ethereal forms to meet,

That tell us of an after life?