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THE HOUR OF PRAYER.

CHILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Call'd thy harvest-work to leave;
Pray!-ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Traveller, in the stranger's land
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone ;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea-
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun!
Woman, o'er the lowly slain

Weeping on his burial plain;

Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,

Heaven's first star alike ye see—

Lift the heart and bend the knee!

THE VOICE OF SPRING.

I come!

I COME,
ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song !
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass.

I have breathed on the south, and the chesnut flowers

By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,

Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains ;
-But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!

I have look'd o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,

And the rein-deer bounds o'er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,

And the moss looks bright, where my foot hath been.

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Oh! hadst thou still on earth remain'd,
Vision of beauty! fair, as brief!

How soon thy brightness had been stain'd
With passion or with grief!
Now not a sullying breath can rise,
To dim thy glory in the skies.

We rear no marble o'er thy tomb,

No sculptured image there shall mourn;
Ah! fitter far the vernal bloom
Such dwelling to adorn.

Fragrance, and flowers, and dews, must be
The only emblems meet for thee.

Thy grave shall be a blessed shrine, Adorn'd with Nature's brightest wreath, Each glowing season shall combine

Its incense there to breathe; And oft, upon the midnight air,

Shall viewless harps be murmuring there.

And oh! sometimes in visions blest,
Sweet spirit! visit our repose,

And bear from thine own world of rest,

Some balm for human woes!

What form more lovely could be given

Than thine, to messenger of Heaven?

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