Of hist❜ry teach ?—but half what truth has seen!

The heat, the struggle, the majestic toils

Of high contention, which colossal minds
Exhibit on the stage of human dreams,
By thee are traced, with emulative glow ;
But hads't thou, by some archangelic might,
The dread instruction from each dying lip
Recorded,-what a page for conscience thine!
A thrilling sermon for the soul to read,
Whose text would be-eternity unveil'd!

Around thee, for a while, recall the den,

The shore, the blood, the battle-wasted fields,

The dungeon, rock, or sickly chamber dim,

Where nature gasp'd, or groan'd its last fare

well!

From death-beds draw the curtain back, and see

How clay and spirit to the last contend.

Advance, and view a haughty sinner die!

Behold the brow where thought satanic reign'd,The glance that threaten'd to appal the tomb,

The hand whose motion made a tempest rise

In hearts and empires!-hark! the voice
That once created valour by its sound,-

How fruitless all, how infantile and vain!
He dies, as underneath our foot the dews,
Gone at a touch of death! or mark the bed,
Where he whose spirit had his God unthroned,
Annihilated heaven, hereafter mock'd,

And call'd the world a fatherless Unknown,-
Lies wild and restless as the moaning wave,-
For guilt hath set eternity on fire,

And shudd'ring, like a shrivell'd leaf, he dies!

But Death has often been by faith uncrown'd

And daunted, till his dim and icy gaze

Forewent its terror, and his summons rang,
Like fairy preludes from seraphic lyres
Heaven-wafted, on the parting spirit's ear.
And if that volume, where pure angels keep
A soul's bright history, could unfolded be,-
Pilgrims of earth! who seek the better land,
How would ye burn with apostolic love,

And in the ashes of the tomb discern

A spark immortal, kindling for the skies!-
What adorations warm as incense fire,

What bursts of faith, what notes of speechless joy,

What gleams of Christ in glorified array,

What tones and tears of overwhelming love,

Around the couch of dying virtue throng'd,

Ere rushed the spirit from its house of clay!

Oh! beautiful beyond depicting words

To paint, the hour that wafts a soul to heaven!
The world grows dim, the scenes of time depart,
The hour of peace, the walk of social joy,

The mild companion, and the deep-soul'd friend,
The lov'd and lovely-see his face no more.
The mingling spell of sun, of sea and air,

Is broken; voice and gaze, and smiles that speak,
Must perish; parents take their hush'd adieu;

A wife, a child, a daughter half divine,

Or son that never drew a father's tear,

Approach him, and his dying tones receive

Like God's own language!-'tis an hour of awe, Yet terrorless, when revelations flow

From faith immortal; view that pale-worn brow,

It gleams with glory!—in his eye there dawns

A dazzling earnest of unutter'd joy.

Each pang subdued, his longing soul respires

The gales of glorified eternity;

And round him, hues etherial, harps of light,

And lineaments of earthless beauty throng,

As, wing'd on melody, the saint departs,

While heaven in miniature before him shines.

How dread the thought,* that not a moment fleets,

But with it, many a soul hath sunk away

To that untraced abyss, within whose womb
Six thousand years have buried all they bore!
Yes, while around unvalued pleasures throng,
In the soft atmosphere of human smiles,

We play with time, as infants do with toys,-
And rarely think, how Death is heaping fast
The new-dug graves, exulting o'er a wreck,
Or counting victims from the corpse-strewn sea,
Or laughing, where the thunder-bolt has dash'd
Some lord of day to nothing! Then the flood

* See note.