APRIL.

ANON.

CAPRICIOUS month of smiles and tears!
There's beauty in thy varied reign:
Emblem of being's hopes and fears-
Its hours of joy and days of pain.
A false inconstant scene is thine;

Changeful with light and shadow deep-
Oft-times thy clouds with pure sunshine

Are painted-then in gloom they sleep.

Yet is there gladness in thy hours,

Frail courier of a brighter scene→→→ Thou fragrant guide to buds and flowers, To meadows fresh and pastures green! For, as thy days grow few and brief,

The radiant looks of spring appear-
With swelling glow, and opening leaf,
To deck the morning of the year.

Yes, though thy light is checkered oft
With drifting showers of sorrowing rain-

Yet balmy airs and breezes soft

Are lingering richly in thy train: And for thy eddying gusts will come The lay of the rejoicing bird,

That tries his new and brightening plume'Mid the void sky's recesses heard.

And soon the many clouds that hang
Their solemn drapery o'er the sky,
Will pass, in shadowy folds, away-

Lo mark them now!-they break-they fly;

And over earth, in one broad smile, Looks forth the glorious eye of dayWhile hill, and vale, and ocean-isle,

Are laughing in the breath of May.

Type of existence! mayst thou be The emblem of the Christian's raceThrough all whose trials we may see The sunshine of undying grace: The calm and heaven-enkindled eye, The faith that mounts on ardent wing, That looks beyond the o'er-arching sky To heaven's undimmed and golden spring.

THE RESIGNATION.

CHATTERTON.

O God, whose thunder shakes the sky;
Whose eye this atom globe surveys;
To thee, my only rock, I fly,

Thy mercy in thy justice praise;

The mystic mazes of thy will,

The shadows of celestial light,
Are past the power of human skill-
But what th' Eternal acts is right.
O teach me in the trying hour

When anguish swells the dewy tear,
To still my sorrows, own thy pow'r,
Thy goodness love, thy justice fear.
If in this bosom aught but thee
Encroaching sought a boundless sway,
Omniscience could the danger see,
And Mercy took the cause away.

Then why, my soul, dost thou complain? Why drooping seek the dark recess? Shake off the melancholy chain,

For God created all to bless.

But, ah! my breast is human still;
The rising sigh, the falling tear,
My languid vitals' feeble rill,

The sickness of my soul declare.

But yet, with fortitude resign'd,

I'll thank th' inflicter of the blow; Forbid the sigh, compose my mind,

Nor let the gush of mis'ry flow.

The gloomy mantle of the night,
Which on my sinking spirit steals,
Will vanish at the morning light,
Which God, my East, my Sun, reveals.

Of Mercy; and perfumed our prayers with sighs
Sincere, and penitential tears, and looks
Of self-abasement. But we sought to stay
An angel on the earth; a spirit ripe

For heaven; and Mercy, in her love, refused;
Most merciful, as oft, when seeming least!
Most gracious when she seem'd the most to frown!
The room I well remember; and the bed
On which she lay; and all the faces, too,
That crowded dark and mournfully around.
Her father there, and mother, bending stood,
And down their aged cheeks fell many drops
Of bitterness; her husband, too, was there,
And brothers; and they wept-her sisters, too,
Did weep and sorrow comfortless; and I,
Too, wept, though not to weeping given: and all
Within the house was dolorous and sad.
This I remember well, but better still
The dying eye-that eye alone was bright,
And brighter grew, as nearer death approach'd;
As I have seen the gentle little flower
Look fairest in the silver beam, which fell
Reflected from the thunder-cloud that soon
Came down, and o'er the desert scatter'd far
And wide its loveliness. She made a sign

To bring her babe;-'twas brought, and by her
placed.

She look'd upon its face that neither smiled
Nor wept, nor knew who gazed upon't, and laid
Her hand upon its little breast, and sought
For it with look that seem'd to penetrate
The heavens-unutterable blessings-such
As God to dying parents only granted,
For infants left behind them in the world.
"God keep my child!" we heard her say, and heard