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ON MY FRIEND PRESENTING HIS INFANT AT THE BAPTISMAL FONT.

THAT cherub bloom which vies the rose,
Was wet with fond paternal tears;

The love that but a parent knows,

Has dewed the child of hopes and fears.

With rapture has the father prest
Those parting lips of coral hue,
While, pillowed on the mother's breast,
Her wistful smile has blest it too.

But other dews have wet that brow,
And other, brighter gems are there,
The drops that from the altar flow-
The tears of mingled faith and prayer.

Sweet the emotions that reveal
Affection's ever living flood,

But lovelier, holier is the seal
That consecrates the child to God.

YE DEAD!

YE Dead! ye Dead! your rest is sweet,
From dreamy trouble free;

The labouring heart forgets to beat
Beneath the alder tree:

S

O, gladly, 'neath the grassy turf

The care-worn would recline;

Or 'neath the wave where fairy hands
Bedeck the lowly shrine.

Ye Dead! ye Dead! he comes! he comes!
And he that woke to weep,
Shall bosom every secret ill
Where ye long vigils keep.

Ye solitary relics, pent

In earth, to earth a prey;
Ye voiceless lips how eloquent
To me is your decay!

O, sweet the consecrated soil,
Where pilgrims cease to roam,
Where fainting mortals end their toil,

And misery finds a home:

And sweet the couch where coral wreaths,
Deep in the surging brine,
In ocean's dark unfathomed caves,
The sleeping dust entwine.

Unwept, they sank to lasting sleep,
When tempests rode the cloud;
Or when the night star paled the deep,
The deep became their shroud.
Think not for those who press that bed
No seemly knell is rung;

Think not no rites embalm the dead,

Nor holy hymn is sung;

Heard ye not on the midnight wave,

When whispered anthems stole?

"Twas o'er the sea-boy's early grave,
A requiem for his soul.

Dear to the shipwrecked is the port
Where, on a stormless sea,

His barque rides safe from every gale,
From shoals and quicksands free.
Dear to the wanderer is the star
That points his doubtful way,
That cheers and guides him when afar
His faltering footsteps stray.

And dear the hour when I this head,
May pillow on its rest,
When I, amid the thronging dead,
Shall be a welcome guest;
O, dear to me that last repose,
Where I this wasting form
May shelter 'neath the opening rose,
That knows no wintry storm.

ARARAT.

OCCASIONED BY READING THE ACCOUNT OF THE PRO

JECTED JEWISH SETTLEMENT ON GRAND ISLAND, NEW YORK.

And the Ark rested upon the mountains of Ararat.-Bible.

ARARAT! on thy brow of blighted green,
That morn, the pilgrim-ark was seen,

When the waste of waters, rebuked, had fled,
And a world restored, looked out from the dead.
That weeping world--Could Jehovah forget
The work he had made and blessed! O yet
That hour was seen, a God revealing
Himself in love to the patriarch kneeling.
The light of his mercy shone abroad
On the mighty wine-press, Wrath had trod;
And above, in glorious pomp reclining,
The beautiful bow of promise shining,
As it flung along the rejoicing sky
Its noble arch of Eternity's dye-
Seemed in its strength to link, like some
Bright chain, this world with the world to come.
The bow of God abides in its splendour,
And His love who spanned it, is yet tender
And bright and warm in its living glow,
As the mellow tints of that radiant bow:
Ararat in verdure lifts its head,

As it did ere that morn of life, from the dead;
And greener its olive flourishes now,

Than when the spent dove reposed on its bough.
That messenger-bird found her wonted nest,
But Israel! where is the place of thy rest?
In love, God withdrew his curtain of billows
From the world he had whelmed, where men made
their pillows

In death, when the Just, the Avenger was there,
Yet not for support in that dream of despair.

The light of his anger forever passed by,

When his rainbow of peace blushed out on the sky;

In its scabbard is hidden the flame of the sword,
Where then is his temple-the ark of the Lord?
Rejoice! for the ark of the Lord is here—
His glory looks out in the penitent's tear;
With the humble in heart Jehovah is found,
Where the contrite prays is holy ground.
Then ye that build!-O build to His Name,
Who died, who rose, and lives to reclaim
From sin and its pains his ransomed own;
Whose was the suffering--whose is the throne.
TO JESUS the City of Refuge raise,
Call its walls Salvation, its bulwarks Praise.

DEATH-BED OF THE PIOUS.

THERE is a smile of purer ray,
Than fancy's features wear;
A flame whose wavy pinions play,
With glow divinely fair.

There is a holy vestal calm,

That breathes of bliss and heaven;

A solitude of lovelier charm,

Than dews the wing of even.

There is a bright and pleasing hour,
When all is love serene;

When angels whisper from their bower,
And joys untold are seen.

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