ELEGY WRITTEN IN A COUNTRY CHURCHYARD. 129 On some fond breast the parting soul relies, For thee, who, mindful of the unhonored dead, Some kindred spirit should inquire thy fate, Haply some hoary-headed swain may say, "There, at the foot of yonder nodding beech, Hard by yon wood, now smiling, as in scorn, Muttering his wayward fancies, he would rove; Now drooping, woful-wan, like one forlorn, Or crazed with care, or crossed in hopeless love. “One morn I missed him on the 'customed hill, Along the heath, and near his favorite tree; Another came; nor yet beside the rill, Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood, was he. "The next, with dirges due, in sad array, Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne ; Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay, Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn. 130 YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. “There scattered oft, the earliest of the year, By hands unseen, are showers of violets found; The redbreast loves to build and warble there, And little footsteps lightly print the ground.” THE EPITAPH. Here rests his head upon the lap of earth, Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere ; He gained from Heaven ('t was all he wished) a No further seek his merits to disclose, Or draw his frailties from their dread abode, (There they alike in trembling hope repose,) The bosom of his Father and his God. YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. - Campbell. YE Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, Your glorious standard launch again, To match another foe! And sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow ; YE MARINERS OF ENGLAND. While the battle rages loud and long, The spirit of your fathers For the deck it was their field vi fame, Britannia needs no bulwark,-. Her march is o'er the mountain-waves, Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak She quells the floods below, As they roar on the shore, When the battle rages loud and long, The meteor flag of England Till danger's troubled night depart, To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow, K 131 132 A TUFT OF GREEN MOSS IN THE AFRICAN DESERT. ON MUNGO PARK'S FINDING A TUFT OF GREEN MOSS IN THE AFRICAN DESERT. — Edinburgh Christian Herald. THE sun had reached its midday height, No cloudy veil obscured the sky, No mighty rock upreared its head No palm-trees, with refreshing green, Dauntless and daring was the mind And, ah! shall we less daring show, Who seek to lead the savage mind Whence flows salvation's stream? Let peril, nakedness, and sword, A tuft of GREEN MOSS IN THE AFRICAN DESERT. 133 Yet, martyr-like, we 'll lift the voice, And blossom as the rose. Sad, faint, and weary, on the sand Above, beneath, behind, around, No resting for the eye he found; All nature seemed as dead. One tiny tuft of moss alone, Mantling with freshest green a stone, Through bursting tears of joy he smiled, O, shall not He who keeps thee green, Me from a scorching grave. The heaven-sent plant new hope inspired, And bore him safe along, Till, with the evening's cooling shade, He slept within the verdant glade, Thus we, in this world's wilderness, |