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usical of striving to direct and controul, they labour either to subdue or crush the natural sensations and desires of man. They, therefore, clip the wings of their own fancy; and, if they soar, it is with the painful flutter of a wounded bird. Religious poetry is, for the most part, prejudicial to the cause it professes to advocate. It may influence the head; but it rarely touches the heart. Men are drawn from low thoughts and vicious habits, far less by fear than persuasion. If Religion be in "gorgon terrors clad," and "circled with a vengeful band," the effect produced must be unnatural and transitory. The Poets, therefore, who so introduce, never recommend it. Such a course is to be deprecated the more, because the very opposite is so accessible. The best auxiliaries to piety are abundant throughout Nature; the themes that most readily present themselves to the Poet are those which, by the surest and safest way, lead the heart to virtue,-and they are all graceful, and beau tiful, and cheerful. There are, undoubtedly, many glorious exceptions to the rule we have ventured to lay down; but we believe they are not to be found among writers who have exclusively devoted themselves to the treatment of Religion, in verse. Religion, therefore, is deprived of one of its most powerful and effective advocates. It is made most influential, indeed, by those who are indirectly its supporters-who describe natural objects, and excite love as well as veneration, by leading the mind through Nature up to Nature's God;-"the meanest flower that blows" has been made to teach a lesson; and he best instructs the reason, and directs the heart, who finds

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MATERNAL LOVE. FROM "THE COURSE OF TIME."

HAIL, holy love! thou word that sums all bliss,
Gives and receives all bliss,-fullest when most
Thou givest! spring-head of all felicity,
Deepest when most is drawn! emblem of God!
O'erflowing most when greatest numbers drink!

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Eternal, ever-growing, happy love!
Enduring all, hoping, forgiving all;
Instead of law, fulfilling every law :

Entirely blest, because thou seek'st no more,
Hopest not, nor fear'st; but on the present livest,

And hold'st perfection smiling in thy arms.

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THE RESURRECTION.

And now, descending from the bowers of Heaven, Soft airs o'er all the earth, spreading, were heard, And hallelujahs sweet, the harmony

Of righteous souls that came to re-possess
Their long-neglected bodies; and, anon,
Upon the ear fell horribly the sound

Of cursing, and the yells of damned despair,
Uttered by felon spirits that the trump

Had summoned from the burning glooms of hell,
To put their bodies on, reserved for woe.

Now, starting up among the living changed,
Appeared innumerous the risen dead.
Each particle of dust was claimed: the turf,
For ages trod beneath the careless foot
Of men, rose, organized in human form;
The monumental stones were rolled away;

The doors of death were opened; and in the dark
And loathsome vault, and silent charnel house,

Moving, were heard the mouldered bones that sought
Their proper place. Instinctive, every soul
Flew to its clayey part: from grass-grown mould,
The nameless spirit took its ashes up,
Reanimate; and, merging from beneath
The flattered marble, undistinguished rose
The great, nor heeded once the lavish rhyme,
And costly pomp of sculptured garnish vain.
The Memphian mummy, that from age to age,
Descending, bought and sold a thousand times,
In hall of curious antiquary stowed,

Wrapped in mysterious weeds, the wondrous theme
Of many an erring tale, shook off its rags;
And the brown son of Egypt stood beside
The European, his last purchaser.

In vale remote, the hermit rose, surprised

At crowds that rose around him, where he thought
His slumbers had been single; and the bard,
Who fondly covenanted with his friend,
To lay his bones beneath the sighing bough
Of some old lonely tree, rising, was pressed

From the same spot; and he, that richly hearsed,
With gloomy garniture of purchased woe,
Embalmed, in princely sepulchre was laid,
Apart from vulgar men, built nicely round
And round by the proud heir, who blushed to think
His father's lordly clay should ever mix
With peasant dust,- -saw by his side, awake,
The clown that long had slumbered in his arms.

The family tomb, to whose devouring mouth
Descended sire and son, age after age,
In long, unbroken, hereditary line,
Poured forth, at once, the ancient father rude,
And all his offspring of a thousand years.
Refreshed from sweet repose, awoke the man
Of charitable life,-awoke and sung:
And from his prison house, slowly and sad,
As if unsatisfied with holding near

Communion with the earth, the miser drew

His carcase forth, and gnashed his teeth, and howled,
Unsolaced by his gold and silver then.
From simple stone in lonely wilderness,
That hoary lay, o'erletter'd by the hand
Of oft-frequenting pilgrim, who had taught
The willow-tree to weep, at morn and even,
Over the sacred spot,-the martyr saint,
To song of seraph harp, triumphant rose,
Well pleased that he had suffered to the death.
"The cloud capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,"
As sung the bard by Nature's hand anointed,
In whose capacious giant numbers rolled
The passions of old Time, fell lumbering down.
All cities fell, and every work of man,

And gave their portion forth of human dust,-
Touched by the mortal finger of decay.

Tree, herb, and flower, and every fowl of heaven,
And fish, and animal-the wild and tame-
Forthwith dissolving, crumbled into dust.

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Athens, and Rome, and Babylon, and Tyre, And she that sat on Thames, queen of the seas,Cities once famed on earth, convulsed through all Their mighty ruins, threw their millions forth.

Palmyra's dead, where desolation sat

From age to age, well pleased in solitude,
And silence, save when traveller's foot, or owl
Of night, or fragment mouldering down to dust,
Broke faintly on his desert ear,-awoke.
And Salem, holy city, where the Prince
Of Life, by death, a second life secured

To man, and with him from the grave, redeemed,
A chosen number brought, to retinue

His great ascent on high, and give sure pledge
That death was foiled,-her generations, now,
Gave up, of kings, and priests, and Pharisees:
Nor even the Sadducee, who fondly said,
No morn of resurrection e'er should come,
Could sit the summons; to his ear did reach
The trumpet's voice, and ill prepared for what
He oft had proved should never be, he rose
Reluctantly, and on his face began

To burn eternal shame. The cities, too,
Of old, ensepulchred beneath the flood,

Or deeply slumbering under mountains huge,
That earthquake-servant of the wrath of God-
Had on their wicked population thrown;

And marts of busy trade, long ploughed and sown
By history unrecorded, or the song

Of bard-yet not forgotten their wickedness,
In heaven-poured forth their ancient multitudes,
That vainly wished their sleep had never broke.
From battle fields, where men by millions met
To murder each his fellow, and make sport
To kings and heroes-things long since forgot-
Innumerous armies rose, unbanner'd all,
Unpanoplied, unpraised; nor found a prince,
Or general, then, to answer for their crimes.
The hero's slaves, and all the scarlet troops
Of antichrist, and all that fought for rule,—
Many high-sounding names, familiar once
On earth, and praised exceedingly, but now
Familiar most in hell, their dungeon fit,
Where they may war eternally with God's
Almighty thunderbolts, and win them pangs
Of keener woe,--saw, as they sprung to life,
The widow and the orphan, ready stand,

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