Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not.
Let all the ends thou aim'st at be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's; then, if thou fall'st,
O Cromwell,

Thou fall'st a blessed martyr.

There take an inventory of all I have;

To the last penny, 'tis the king's. My robe,
And my integrity to heaven, are all

I dare now call my own.

O Cromwell! Cromwell! Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not, in mine age, Have left me naked to mine enemies.

SHAKESPEARE.

116. THE BEAUTIES OF CREATION,
Psalm lxxiv. 16, 17.

HOU art, O God! the life and light

THOU

Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,

Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.
When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the op'ning clouds of even,
And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into heaven-
Those hues, that make the sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are thine.

When night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes-
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are thine.

When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;
And every flower the summer wreathes,
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.

T. MOORE.

117. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

HE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,

brown

and sere: Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the wither'd leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread: The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrub the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow, through all the gloomy day,

Where are the flowers, the fair young flowers, that lately sprung

and stood

In brighter light and softer airs, a beauteous sisterhood?
Alas! they all are in their graves: the gentle race of flowers
Are lying in their lowly beds, with the fair and good of ours:
The rain is falling where they lie; but the cold November rain
Calls not from out the gloomy earth, the lovely ones again.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago,
And the wild-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow ;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,
And the yellow sunflower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,
Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague

on men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone from upland, glade, and glen.

And now, when comes the calm, mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home, When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south-wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore,

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

And then I think of one, who in her youthful beauty died,
The fair, meek blossom that grew up and faded by my side;
In the cold, moist earth we laid her, when the forest cast the leaf,
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief:
Yet not unmeet it was, that one like that young friend of ours
So gentle and so beautiful, should perish with the flowers.

W. C. BRYANT.

118. LOVE OF OUR COUNTRY.

BREATHES there a man with soul so dead,

Who never to himself hath said,
"This is my own, my native land!”
Whose heart has ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,

From wand'ring on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell!

High though his title, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.

sprung,

SIR W. SCOTT.

119. ON THE RECEIPT OF MY MOTHER'S PICTURE.

H that those lips had language! Life hath pass'd
With me but roughly since I heard thee last:
Those lips are thine-thine own sweet smiles I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me;
Voice only fails; else, how distinct they say,
"Grieve not, my child, chase all thy fears away!"
The meek intelligence of those dear eyes
(Blest be the art that can immortalise,
The art that baffles time's tyrannic claim
To quench it) here shines on me still the same.
Faithful remembrancer of one so dear,
Oh! welcome guest, though unexpected here;
Who bidd'st me honour with an artless song
Affectionate, a mother lost so long!

I will obey, not willingly alone,
But gladly, as the precept were her own:
And, while that face renews my filial grief,
Fancy shall weave a charm for my relief,—

Shall steep me in Elysian reverie,

A momentary dream that thou art she.

My mother when I learnt that thou wast dead, Say wast thou conscious of the tears I shed? Hover'd thy spirit o'er thy sorrowing son, Wretch even then, life's journey just begun? Perhaps thou gav'st me, though unseen, a kiss; Perhaps a tear, if souls can weep in blissAh, that maternal smile! it answers-Yes. I heard the bell toll'd on thy burial day, I saw the hearse that bore thee slow away, And, turning from my nursery window, drew A long, long sigh, and wept a last adieu! But was it such ?-it was- Where thou art gone Adieus and farewells are a sound unknown: May I but meet thee on that peaceful shore, The parting word shall pass my lips no more! Thy maidens, grieved themselves at my concern, Oft gave me promise of a quick return: What ardently I wish'd, I long believed, And, disappointed still, was still deceived; By hopes unfounded every day beguiled, Dupe of to-morrow even from a child. Thus many a sad to-morrow came and went, Till, all my stock of infant sorrow spent, I learnt at last submission to my lot,

But, though I less deplored thee, ne'er forgot.

Where once we dwelt our name is heard no more, Children not thine have trod my nursery floor: And where the gardener, Robin, day by day, Drew me to school along the public way,

N