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Then pure, immortal, sinless, freed,
We through the Lamb shall be decreed;
Shall meet the Father face to face,
And need no more a hiding-place.

SONNET.

WHAT art Thou, mighty One? and where thy seat?
Thou broodest on the calm that cheers the lands,
And Thou dost bear within thy awful hands

The rolling thunders and the lightnings fleet;
Stern on thy dark-wrought car of cloud and wind

Thou guid'st the northern storm at night's dread noon,
Or on the red wing of the fierce monsoon
Disturb'st the sleeping giant of the Ind.
In the drear silence of the polar span

Dost Thou repose? or in the solitude

Of sultry tracts, where the lone caravan

Hears nightly howl the tiger's hungry brood?

Vain thought! the confines of his throne to trace,
Who glows through all the fields of boundless space.

FAITH.

Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in gray,
Morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes;
And from his tower of mist

Night's watchman hurries down.

The pious man

In this bad world, where mists and couchant storms
Hide heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith
Above the clouds that threat him, to the fields
Of ether, where the day is never veiled
With intervening vapors; and looks down
Serene upon the troublous sea that hides

The earth's fair breast, that sea whose nether face
To grovelling mortals frowns and darkens all;
But on whose billowy back, from man concealed,
The glaring sunbeam plays.

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LINES

WRITTEN ON A SURVEY OF THE HEAVENS.

YE many twinkling stars, who yet do tread
Your brilliant places in the sable vault
Of night's dominions! planets and central orbs
Of other systems, big as the burning sun
Which lights this nether globe, yet to our eye
Small as the glow-worm's lamp! to you I raise
My lowly orisons, while, all bewildered,
My vision strays o'er your ethereal hosts,
Too vast, too boundless for our narrow mind,
Warped with low prejudices, to unfold,

And sagely comprehend. Thence higher soaring,
Through ye I raise my solemn thoughts to Him,
The mighty Founder of this wondrous maze,
The great Creator; Him, who now sublime,
Wrapped in the solitary amplitude

Of boundless space, above the rolling spheres,
Sits on his silent throne and meditates.

Th' angelic hosts, in their inferior heaven,
Hymn to the golden harps his praise sublime,
Repeating loud, "The Lord our God is great,"
In varied harmonies: the glorious sounds
Roll o'er the air serene. Th' Æolian spheres,
Harping along their viewless boundaries,
Catch the full note and cry, "The Lord is great!
Responding to the seraphim. O'er all,
From orb to orb, to the remotest verge
Of the created world, the sound is borne,
Till the whole universe is full of Him.

Oh! 'tis this heavenly harmony which now
In fancy strikes upon my listening ear,
And thrills my inmost soul. It bids me smile
On the vain world and all its bustling cares,
And gives a shadowy glimpse of future bliss.
Oh! what is man, when at ambition's height,

!"

What e'en are kings, when balanced in the scale
Of these stupendous worlds! Almighty God!
Thou, the dread Author of these wondrous works,
Say, canst thou cast on me, poor passing worm,
One look of kind benevolence? Thou canst ;
For Thou art full of universal love,

And in thy boundless goodness wilt impart
Thy beams as well to me as to the proud,
The pageant insects of a glittering hour!

Oh! when reflecting on these truths sublime,
How insignificant do all the joys,

The gauds, and honors of the world, appear!
How vain ambition! Why has my wakeful lamp
Outwatched the slow-paced night? Why on the page,
The schoolman's labored page, have I employed
The hours devoted by the world to rest,
And needful to recruit exhausted nature?
Say, can the voice of narrow fame repay
The loss of health? Or can the hope of glory
Lend a new throb unto my languid heart,
Cool, even now, my feverish aching brow,
Relume the fires of this deep-sunken eye,
Or paint new colors on this pallid cheek?

Say, foolish one, can that unbodied fame,
For which thou barterest health and happiness,
Say, can it soothe the slumbers of the grave—
Give a new zest to bliss, or chase the pangs
Of everlasting punishment condign?
Alas! how vain are mortal man's desires!
How fruitless his pursuits! Eternal God,
Guide thou my footsteps in the way of truth,
And, oh! assist me so to live on earth,
That I may die in peace, and claim a place
In thy high dwelling. All but this is folly,
The vain illusions of deceitful life.

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JOHN PIERPONT,

THE author of the "Airs of Palestine," is a native of Litchfield, Connecticut, and was born on the sixth of April, 1785. Having embarked in business which resulted disastrously, in 1816 he sought a solace in literary pursuits, and in the same year published "The Airs of Palestine." Soon afterwards he entered seriously upon the study of theology, first by himself, in Baltimore, and afterwards as a member of the theological school connected with Harvard College. He left that seminary in October, 1818, and in April, 1819, was ordained as minister of the Hollis-street Unitarian Church, in Boston, as successor to the Rev. Dr. Holley, who had recently been elected to the presidency of the Transylvania University, in Kentucky. In 1835 and 1836, in consequence of impaired health, he spent a year abroad, passing through the principal cities in England, France, and Italy, and extending his tour into the East, visiting Smyrna, the ruins of Ephesus, in Asia Minor, Constantinople, and Athens, Corinth, and some of the other cities of Greece; of his travels in which, traces will occasionally be found in some of the short poems which he has written since his return. Many of his hymns, odes, and other brief poems, are remarkably spirited and melodious. Several of them, distinguished alike for energy of thought and language, were educed by events connected with the moral and religious enterprises of the time. Mr. Pierpont-now sixty-three years of age is settled in Troy, New York.

MY CHILD.

I CANNOT make him dead!

His fair sunshiny head

Is ever bounding round my study chair;

Yet, when my eyes, now dim
With tears, I turn to him,

The vision vanishes-he is not there!

I walk my parlor floor,
And, through the open door,

I hear a footfall on the chamber stair;
I'm stepping towards the hall

To give the boy a call;

And then bethink me that he is not there!

I thread the crowded street;

A satchelled lad I meet,

With the same beaming eyes and colored hair:
And, as he's running by,

Follow him with my eye,
Scarcely believing that he is not there!

I know his face is hid
Under the coffin lid;

Closed are his eyes; cold is his forehead;
My hand that marble felt;

O'er it in prayer I knelt;

Yet my heart whispers that he is not there!

I cannot make him dead!

When passing by the bed,

So long watched over with parental care,

My spirit and my eye

Seek it inquiringly,

Before the thought comes that he is not there!

When, at the cool, gray break

Of day, from sleep I wake,

With my first breathing of the morning air

My soul goes up, with joy,

To Him who gave my boy,

Then comes the sad thought that he is not there!

When at the day's calm close,

Before we seek repose,

I'm with his mother, offering up our prayer,
Whate'er I may be saying,

I am, in spirit, praying

For our boy's spirit, though-he is not there!

Not there!-Where, then, is he?

The form I used to see

Was but the raiment that he used to wear.

The

grave, that now doth press

Upon that cast-off dress,

Is but his wardrobe locked ;-he is not there!

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