Whose younger mind himself had taught
To seek the paths of truth;
The partner of his boyhood's couch,
The sharer of his heart,
He bless'd and pray'd that sorrow ne'er Might be that brother's part.
His sister, of all earthly things
The dearest to his breast,
The cherish'd inmate of his soul,
The fairest and the best;
Though in her gifted angel-frame
Each loveliness combined,
Still fairer was the radiant gem
The casket held enshrined.
A soul as pure as ever dwelt
In erring human form,
A heart with each affection rich,
With every virtue warm.
She was her brother's idol, all
His hopes were center'd there,
The spring of all his earthly joys,
The object of his care.
And could he leave her? Yes, the love
That burn'd within his breast,
Of Him who died, a world to save,
No more might be represt;
He left his sister, parents, all
That earth to him had given,
In heathen lands to speak His name
And guide the lost to Heaven.
But not alone he went, for prayers
Were with him on the deep,
And nightly dreams of those he left
Came o'er his peaceful sleep;
And many souls received the gift,-
The gift of Life he bore,
And grateful thousands bless'd the day
That brought him to the shore.
My Mother! Oh! what tenderness appears
In that loved name; nurse of my infancy!
(Soothing my cries through many an anxious day,)
Guide of my youth! friend of my riper years!
My Mother, well my song may be of thee,—
For thou didst lead my infant steps to God;
Strewing with Love's sweet flowers the narrow road That leads from Time to blest Eternity.
Though now my home is distant far from thee,
And other ties are twined around my heart;
Yet thy dear image never shall depart :
Thy looks of love live in my memory;
Still I retrace them with a fond delight,-
Thou art my thought by day, my dream by night.
THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHER.
PHILOSOPHY, baptized
In the pure fountain of eternal love,
Has eyes indeed; and, viewing all she sees
As meant to indicate a God to man,
Gives Him his praise, and forfeits not her own.
Learning has borne such fruit in other days
On all her branches. Piety has found
Friends in the friends of science, and true prayer
Has flow'd from lips wet with Castalian dews.
Such was thy wisdom, Newton, childlike sage!
Sagacious reader of the works of God,
And in his word sagacious.
Milton, whose genius had angelic wings,
And fed on manna.
He looks abroad into the varied field
Of nature; and though poor, perhaps, compared
With those whose mansions glitter in his sight,
Calls the delightful scenery all his own.
His are the mountains, and the valleys his,
And the resplendent rivers; his to enjoy
With a propriety that none can feel,
But who, with filial confidence inspired,
Can lift to Heaven an unpresumptuous eye,
And, smiling, say, My Father made them all.
Are they not his by a peculiar right,
And by an emphasis of interest his,
Whose eye they fill with tears of holy joy,
Whose heart with praise, and whose exalted mind
With worthy thoughts of that unwearied love,
That plann'd, and built, and still upholds a world,
So clothed with beauty, for rebellious man?
Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once,
Thine eye
shall be instructed: and thine heart
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight,
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
Brutes graze the mountain top with faces prone,
And eyes intent upon the scanty herb
It yields them, or recumbent on its brow,
Ruminate, heedless of the scene o'erspread
Beneath, beyond, and stretching far away,
From inland regions to the boundless main.
Man views it and admires, but rests content
With what he views. The landscape has its praise,
But not its Author. Unconcern'd, who form'd
The paradise he sees, he finds it such,
And such well-pleased to find it, asks no more.
Not so the mind that has been touch'd from Heaven,
And in the school of sacred wisdom taught
To read His wonders, in whose thought the world,
Fair as it is, existed ere it was:
Not for its own sake merely, but for his
Much more who fashion'd it, he gives it praise ;
Praise, that from earth resulting, as it ought,
To earth's acknowledged Sovereign, finds at once
Its only just proprietor in him.
The soul that sees him, or receives sublimed,
New faculties, or learns at least t' employ
More worthily the powers she own'd before,
Discerns in all things what with stupid gaze
Of ignorance till then she overlook'd,—
A ray of heavenly light, gilding all forms
Terrestrial, in the vast and the minute,
The unambiguous footsteps of the God,
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