IV.

And Love, the choicest gift we own,
Comes smiling from above;

'Tis given, to youthful heart's alone,

To feel the force of Love.

V.

Then, Youth! thou art a dream of bliss

Too bright, too pure, to last;

A trance, our gathering years dismiss, A vision, fading fast!

"THERE WAS SILENCE IN HEAVEN."

CAN angel-spirits need repose

In the full sun-light of the sky?
And, can the veil of slumber close
A cherub's bright and blazing eye?

Have seraphim a weary brow,

A fainting heart, an aching breast?
No, far too high their pulses flow,
To languish with inglorious rest.

How could they sleep amid the bliss,
The banquet of delight above?
Or bear for one short hour to miss
The vision of the Lord they love?

Oh! not the deathlike calm of sleep
Could still the everlasting song:
No fairy dream, or slumber deep
Entrance the rapt and holy throng.

Yet, not the lightest tone was heard

From angel-voice or angel-hand; And not one plumed pinion stirr'd Among the bow'd and blissful band:

For there was silence in the sky,
A joy not angel-tongues could tell,
As from its mystic fount on high,
The peace of God in stillness fell.

Oh! what is silence here below?
The quiet of conceal'd despair!
The pause of pain, the dream of woe,
It is the rest of rapture there.

And, to the way worn pilgrim here,

More kindred seems that perfect peace,

Than the full chaunt of joy to hear

Roll on, and never, never cease.

From earthly agonies set free,

Tir'd with the path too slowly trod, May such a silence welcome me

Into the palace of my God!

J.

THE SLEEPERS.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

Sleep!--let thy mother's spirit bless her child,
And let thy sisters, to the dreaming land,
Greet thee with song !---each gentle voice be there
Of early fondness-each familiar face-

Only th' unkind be absent!

OH! lightly, lightly tread!

A holy thing is sleep,

On the worn spirit shed,

And eyes that wake to weep:

A holy thing from heaven,

A gracious dewy cloud,
A covering mantle, given
The weary to enshroud.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
Revere the pale still brow,
The meekly-drooping head,
The long hairs willowy flow!

1

Ye know not what ye do,

That call the slumberer back,
From the world unseen by you,
Unto Life's dim faded track.

Her soul is far away,

In her childhood's land perchance, Where her young sister's play, Where shines her mother's glance.

Some old sweet native sound

Her spirit haply weaves;

A harmony profound

Of woods with all their leaves:

A murmur of the sea,

A laughing tone of streams :-
Long may her sojourn be

In the music-land of dreams!

Each voice of love is there,
Each gleam of beauty fled,
Each lost one still more fair-
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!