Thou smilest as if thy soul were soaring
To Heaven, and Heaven's God adoring!
And who can tell what visions high.
May bless an infant's sleeping eye?
What brighter throne can brightness find
To reign on than an infant's mind,
Ere sin destroy, or error dim,
The glory of the Seraphim?

NIGHT.

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY.

NIGHT is the time for rest;

How sweet, when labours close,
To gather round an aching breast
The curtain of repose;

Stretch the tired limbs and lay the head
Upon our own delightful bed!

Night is the time for dreams,

The gay romance of life;

When truth that is and truth that seems

Blend in fantastic strife;

Ah! visions less beguiling far

Than waking dreams by daylight are!

Night is the time for toil;

To plough the classic field,
Intent to find the buried spoil

Its wealthy furrows yield;
Till all is ours that sages taught,
That poets sang, or heroes wrought.

Night is the time to weep;

To wet with unseen tears

Those graves of memory where sleep
The joys of other years;

NIGHT.

Hopes that were angels in their birth, But perish'd young, like things of earth! Night is the time to watch;

On ocean's dark expanse, To hail the Pleiades, or catch

The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings unto the homesick mind
All we have loved and left behind.

Night is the time for care;
Brooding on hours misspent,
To see the spectre of despair
Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus midst his slumbering host
Startled by Cæsar's stalwart ghost.

Night is the time to muse;

Then from the eye the soul

Takes flight, and with expanding views
Beyond the starry pole;

Descries athwart the abyss of night

The dawn of uncreated light.

Night is the time to pray;

Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away,

So will his followers do;

Steal from the throng to haunts untrod,
And hold communion there with God.

Night is the time for death;

When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath

From sin and suffering cease;

Think of Heaven's bliss, and give the sign, To parting friends:-such death be mine!

THE VOICE OF MIDNIGHT.

WHEN night sits on the earth, and tower and town Are sleeping in the sea of silvery light,

That poureth from the moon who gazeth down,
Bathing earth's emerald wheels in glory bright;

When e'en the night wind and the restless sea
Wander in silence, by the hour spell-bound;
When e'en the rustling of the shadowy tree
Is hush'd the welkin bringeth forth a sound;-

It is not in the sea, nor in the air;
It is not on the valley, nor the hill;
There comes no warning from the sepulchre,
And yet the wing of silence is not still!

Is it the music of some distant sphere
Upon the lonely moonshine clearly borne?
For faintly comes the wild sound on my ear,
As when together sung the stars of morn.

I look around-still is each gloomy tree-
The waves at rest-the wind's dread flag is furl'd;
As if, so still the aery minstrelsy,

It were the day-sounds of another world.

So once the holy bird sang all night long,
Till broke the day-star's beam on Bethlehem ;
His red uprising stay'd the fearful song,
Blazing on dewy morning's diadem.

Is it the rushing sound of years to come,
Thrown from the bosom of the endless sea,
Billows of time, that on the outskirts roam
Of the dread ocean of eternity?

10

THE VOICE OF MIDNIGHT.

Is it the fairy band's unearthly sound?
Or spirits whispering in the middle air?

Or swinging chains by which the stars are bound,
To guide their golden chariots every where?

Perchance 'tis Fancy's voice-the sound of dreams,
Or the fiend slumbering in the aconite;
We may not know-yet to the bard it seems
The voice of conscience in the ear of night.

HERE'S TO THEE, MY SCOTTISH LASSIE.

BY THE REV. JOHN MOULTRIE.

HERE'S to thee, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee,

For thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free;

For all thine artless elegance, and all thy native grace, For the music of thy mirthful voice, and the sunshine of thy face;

For thy guileless look and speech sincere, yet sweet as speech can be,

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie!—though my glow of youth is o'er;

And I, as once I felt and dream'd, must feel and dream no more;

Though the world, with all its frosts and storms, has chill'd my soul at last,

And genius, with the foodful looks of youthful friendship past;

Though my path is dark and lonely, now, o'er this world's dreary sea,—

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

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HERE'S TO THEE, MY SCOTTISH LASSIE. Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie !—though I know that not for me

Is thine eye so bright, thy form so light, and thy step so firm and free;

Though thou, with cold and careless looks, wilt often pass me by,

Unconscious of my swelling heart, and of my wistful

eye;

Though thou wilt wed some Highland love, nor waste one thought on me,

Here's a health, my Scottish lassie! here's a hearty health to thee!

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie! when I meet thee in the throng

Of merry youths and maidens, dancing lightsomely along,

I'll dream away an hour or twain, still gazing on thy

form,

As it flashes through the baser crowd, like lightning through a storm;

And I, perhaps, shall touch thy hand, and share thy looks of glee,

And for once, my Scottish lassie! dance a giddy dance with thee.

Here's to thee, my Scottish lassie!—I shall think of thee at even,

When I see its first and fairest star come smiling up through heaven;

I shall hear thy sweet and touching voice, in every wind that grieves,

As it whirls from the abandon'd oak, its wither'd autumn leaves;

In the gloom of the wild forest, in the stillness of the sea, I shall think, my Scottish lassie! I shall often think

of thee.