Of giving thanks to God,—not thanks of form,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With covered face, and upward earnest eye.

Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day;
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air pure from the city's smoke;
While, wandering slowly up the river side,
He meditates on Him, whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers, that bloom
Around its root: and while he thus surveys,
With elevated joy, each rural charm,
He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,
That heaven

may
be one Sabbath without end.

Grahame.

REMEMBRANCE.

Man hath a weary pilgrimage,

As through the world he wends ;
On every stage from youth to age

Still discontent attends.

With heaviness be casts his eye

Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh

The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes,

Torn from his mother's arms; What then shall soothe his earliest woes,

When novelty bath lost its charms ?

Condemned to suffer through the day
Restraints which no rewards repay,

And cares where love has no concern, Hope lightens as she counts the hours

That hasten his return.
From hard control and tyrant rules,
The upfeeling discipline of schools,

The child's sad thoughts will roam;
And tears will struggle in his eye,
While he remembers with a sigh

The comforts of his home.

Youth comes : the toils and cares of life

Torment the restless mind; Where shall the tired and harassed heart Its consolation find ?

Then is not youth, as Fancy tells,

Life's summer prime of joy? Ah! no; for hopes too long delayed, And feelings blasted or betrayed,

The fabled bliss destroy; And he remembers with a sigh The careless days of infancy.

Maturer manhood now arrives

And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of youth

Its generous warmth is gone ;
Cold calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,

The dull realities of truth ;
Back on the past he turns his eye ;
Remembering with an envious sigh

The happy dreams of youth.

So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,

With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await,
And old experience learns too late

That all is vanity below;

Life's vain delusions are gone by,

Its idle hopes are o'er,
Yet age remembers with a sigh,

The days that are no more.

Southey.

LOOKING AT THE CROSS.

In evil long I took delight,

Unawed by shame or fear,
Till a new object struck my sight,

And stopped my wild career.

I saw one hanging on a tree,

In agonies and blood,
Who fixed his languid eyes on me,

As near his cross I stood.

Sure never till my latest breath

Can I forget that look ;
It seemed to charge me with his death,

Though not a word he spoke.

My conscience felt, and owned the guilt,
And plunged me in despair :

sins his blood bad spilt,
And helped to nail him there.

I saw my

Alas ! I know not what I did,

But now my tears are vain :
Where shall my trembling soul be hid ?

For I the Lord have slain.

A second look he gave, which said,

• I freely all forgive: This blood is for thy ransom paid,

I die, that thou may'st live.'

Thus, while his death my sin displays

In all its blackest hue, (Such is the mystery of grace,)

It seals my pardon too.

With pleasing grief and mournful joy,

My spirit now is filled,
That I should such a life destroy,
Yet live by him I killed.

Newton.