"A stranger, ignorant of the trade,

Would say, no meaning's there conveyed;

For where's the middle, where's the border?
Thy carpet now is all disorder."

Quoth Dick, "My work is yet in bits:

But still in every part it fits:
Besides, you reason like a lout:

Why, man, that carpet's inside out."

Says John, "Thou sayest the thing I mean,
And now I hope to cure thy spleen:

This world, which clouds thy soul with doubt,
Is but a carpet inside out.

66 As when we view these shreds and ends,
We know not what the whole intends;
So, when on earth things look but odd,
They're working still some scheme of God.

"No plan, no pattern, can we trace;
All wants proportion, truth, and grace;
The motley mixture we deride,
Nor see the beauteous upper side.

"But when we reach the world of light,
And view these works of God aright;
Then shall we see the whole design,

And own, the Workman is Divine.

“What now seem random strokes, will there All order and design appear;

Then shall we praise what then we spurned,

For then the carpet will be turned."

"Thou'rt right," quoth Dick, "no more I'll grumble

That this world is so strange a jumble;

My impious doubts are put to flight,

For my own carpet sets me right."

WHAT IS TIME?

BY MARSDEN.

I ASKED an aged man, with hoary hairs,
Wrinkled and curved with worldly cares;
"Time is the warp of life," he said; “oh, tell
The young, the fair, the gay, to weave it well!"
I asked the ancient, venerable dead,

Sages who wrote, and warriors who bled;

From the cold grave a hollow murmur flowed,
"Time sowed the seed we reap in this abode !"
I asked a dying sinner, ere the tide

Of life had left its veins; "Time!" he replied;
“I've lost it! ah, the treasure!”— and he died.
I asked the golden sun and silver spheres,
Those bright chronometers of days and years;
They answered, "Time is but a meteor glare,"
And bade me for Eternity prepare.

I asked the Seasons, in their annual round
Which beautify or desolate the ground;
And they replied, (no oracle more wise,)

""Tis Folly's blank, and Wisdom's highest prize!"
I asked a spirit lost,-but oh, the shriek
That pierced my soul! I shudder while I speak,
It cried, "A particle! a speck! a mite
Of endless years, duration infinite!"
Of things inanimate, my dial I

Consulted, and it made me this reply,—
"Time is the season fair of living well,
The path of glory or the path of hell.”
I asked my Bible, and methinks it said,
"Time is the present hour, the past is fled;
Live! live to-day! to-morrow never yet
On any human being rose or set."

I asked Old Father Time himself at last ;
But in a moment he flew swiftly past,-
His chariot was a cloud, the viewless wind
His noiseless steeds, which left no trace behind.
I asked the mighty angel,' who shall stand
One foot on sea, and one on solid land;
"Mortal!" he cried, "the mystery now is o'er;
Time was, Time is, but Time shall be no more!

256

POETIC RECITATIONS.

That pavement, damp and cold,
No smiling courtiers tread;
One silent woman stands
Lifting with meagre hands
A dying head.

No mingling voices sound-
An infant wail alone;

A sob suppressed-again

That short deep gasp, and then

The parting groan.

Oh! change-oh! wondrous change

Burst are the prison-bars,—
This moment there, so low,

So agonised, and now

Beyond the stars!

Oh! change-stupendous change!

There lies the soulless clod:

The sun eternal breaks

The new immortal wakes

Wakes with his God.

DRAMATIC RECITATIONS.

S