Prompter of silent prayer, Be the wild picture there

In the mind's chamber,
And, through each coming day
Him, who, as staff and stay,
Watch'd o'er thy wandering way,
Freshly remember.

So, when the call shall be
Soon or late unto thee,

As to all given,
Still may that picture live,
And its fair forms survive,
And to thy spirit give

Gladness in heaven!

THE REFORMER.

ALL grim, and soil'd, and brown with tan,
I saw a strong one, in his wrath,
Smiting the godless shrines of man
Along his path.

The Church beneath her trembling dome
Essay'd in vain her ghostly charm:
Wealth shook within his gilded home
With strange alarm.

Fraud from his secret chambers fled
Before the sunlight bursting in:
Sloth drew her pillow o'er her head
To drown the din.

Spare," Art implored, "yon holy pile; That grand, old, time-worn turret spare!" Meek Reverence, kneeling in the aisle,

Cried out, "Forbear!"

Gray-bearded Use, who, deaf and blind,
Groped for his old, accustom'd stone,
Lean'd on his staff, and wept, to find
His seat o'erthrown.

Young Romance raised his dreamy eyes,

66

O'erhung with paly locks of gold: Why smite," he asked in sad surprise, "The fair, the old ?"

Yet louder rang the strong one's stroke, Yet nearer flash'd his axe's gleam! Shuddering and sick of heart I woke, As from a dream.

I look'd: aside the dust-cloud roll'dThe waster seem'd the builder too; Upspringing from the ruin'd old,

I saw the new.

'Twas but the ruin of the bad

The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had,
Was living still.

Calm grew the brows of him I fear'd;
The frown which awed me pass'd away,
And left behind a smile which cheer'd
Like breaking day.

The grain grew green on battle-plains,
O'er swarded war-mounds grazed the cow;
The slave stood forging from his chains
The spade and plough.

Where frown'd the fort, pavilions gay

And cottage windows, flower-entwined,
Look'd out upon the peaceful bay
And hills behind.

Through vine-wreath'd cups with wine once red,
The lights on brimming crystal fell,
Drawn, sparkling, from the rivulet head
And mossy well.

Through prison walls, like Heaven-sent hope,
Fresh breezes blew, and sunbeams stray'd,
And with the idle gallows-rope

The young child play'd.

Where the doom'd victim in his cell
Had counted o'er the weary hours,
Glad school-girls, answering to the bell,
Came crown'd with flowers.

Grown wiser for the lesson given,

I fear no longer, for I know

That, where the share is deepest driven,
The best fruits grow.

The outworn rite, the old abuse,
The pious fraud transparent grown,
The good held captive in the use

Of wrong alone

These wait their doom, from that great law
Which makes the past time serve to-day,
And fresher life the world shall draw
From their decay.

Oh! backward-looking son of Time!-
The new is old, the old is new-
The cycle of a change sublime
Still sweeping through.

So wisely taught the Indian seer;

Destroying SEVA, forming BRAHM, Who wake by turns Earth's love and fear, Are one, the same.

As idly as, in that old day,

Thou mournest, did thy sires repine: So, in his time, thy child grown gray, Shall sigh for thine.

Yet, not the less for them or thou

The eternal step of Progress beats To that great anthem, calm and slow, Which God repeats!

Take heart!-the waster builds again-
A charmed life old Goodness hath;
The tares may perish-but the grain
Is not for death.

God works in all things; all obey

His first propulsion from the night: Ho, wake and watch!-the world is gray With morning light!

MY SOUL AND I.

STAND still, my soul: in the silent dark I would question thee,

Alone in the shadow drear and stark

With God and me!

What, my soul, was thine errand here?

Was it mirth or ease,

Or heaping up dust from year to year?
"Nay, none of these."

Speak, soul, aright in His holy sight
Whose eye looks still

And steadily on thee through the night:
"To do his will!"

What hast thou done, oh, soul of mine,
That thou tremblest so ?-

Hast thou wrought His task, and kept the line
He bade thee go?

What, silent all!-art sad of cheer?

And whither this troubled life of thine Evermore doth tend?

What daunts thee now?-what shakes thee so? My sad soul, say.

"I see a cloud like a curtain low Hang o'er my way.

"Whither I go I cannot tell :

That cloud hangs black,
High as the heaven and deep as hell,
Across my track.

"I see its shadow coldly enwrap
The souls before.

Sadly they enter it, step by step,
To return no more!

"They shrink, they shudder, dear God! they kneel To thee in prayer.

They shut their eyes on the cloud, but feel

That it still is there.

"In vain they turn from the dread Before
To the Known and Gone;

For while gazing behind them evermore,
Their feet glide on.

"Yet, at times, I see upon sweet, pale faces

A light begin

To tremble, as if from holy places

And shrines within.

"And at times methinks their cold lips move With hymn and prayer,

As if somewhat of awe, but more of love
And hope were there.

"I call on the souls who have left the light, To reveal their lot;

I bend mine ear to that wall of night,
And they answer not.

"But I hear around me sighs of pain

And the cry of fear,

And a sound like the slow, sad dropping of rain, Each drop a tear!

"Ah, the cloud is dark, and, day by day,

I am moving thither:

I must pass beneath it on my way

God pity me!-WHITHER?"

Ah, soul of mine, so brave and wise
In the life-storm loud,
Fronting so calmly all human eyes
In the sunlit crowd!

Now standing apart with God and me,
Thou art weakness all,

Gazing vainly after the things to be

Through Death's dread wall.

But never for this, never for this

Was thy being lent;

For the craven's fear is but selfishness,
Like his merriment.

Folly and Fear are sisters twain:

One closing her eyes,

The other peopling the dark inane

With spectral lies.

Know well, my soul, God's hand controls Whate'er thou fearest;

Round him in calmest music rolls

Whate'er thou hearest.

What to thee is shadow, to him is day,
And the end he knoweth,

And not on a blind and aimless way
The spirit goeth.

Man sees no future-a phantom show

Is alone before him;

Past Time is dead, and the grasses grow, And flowers bloom o'er him.

Nothing before, nothing behind:

The steps of Faith

Fall on the seeming void, and find

The rock beneath.

The Present, the Present is all thou hast

For thy sure possessing;

Like the patriarch's angel, hold it fast
Till it gives its blessing.

Why fear the night? why shrink from Death,
That phantom wan?

There is nothing in heaven, or earth beneath,
Save God and man.

Peopling the shadows, we turn from Him
And from one another;

All is spectral, and vague, and dim,
Save God and our brother!

Like warp and woof, all destinies
Are woven fast,

Linked in sympathy like the keys
Of an organ vast.

Pluck one thread, and the web ye mar;

THINE is a grief, the depth of which another
May never know;

Yet, o'er the waters, oh, my stricken brother!
To thee I go.

I lean my heart unto thee, sadly folding
Thy hand in mine;

With even the weakness of my soul upholding
The strength of thine.

I never knew, like thee, the dear departed,
I stood not by

When, in calm trust, the pure and tranquil-hearted
Lay down to die.

And on thine ears my words of weak condoling
Must vainly fall:

The funeral-bell which in thy heart is tolling,
Sounds over all!

I will not mock thee with the poor world's common
And heartless phrase,

Nor wrong the memory of a sainted woman
With idle praise.

With silence only as their benediction,
God's angels come

Where, in the shadow of a great affliction,
The soul sits dumb!

Yet, would I say what thine own heart approveth:
Our Father's will,

Calling to him the dear one whom he loveth,
Is mercy still.

Not upon thee or thine the solemn angel
Hath evil wrought:

Her funeral-anthem is a glad evangel—
The good die not!

God calls our loved ones, but we lose not wholly
What he hath given ;

They live on earth, in thought and deed, as truly
As in his heaven.

And she is with thee: in thy path of trial
She walketh yet;

Still with the baptism of thy self-denial
Her locks are wet.

Up, then, my brother! Lo, the fields of harvest
Lie white in view!

She lives and loves thee, and the God thou servest To both is true.

Thrust in thy sickle! England's toil-worn peasants Thy call abide;

And she thou mourn'st, a pure and holy presence, Shall glean beside!

WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER, the son of an Irish patriot who came to this country soon after the rebellion, and married in New Jersey, was born in Philadelphia in 1808, and in 1816 emigrated with his widowed mother to Ohio. He learned the business of printing in Cincinnati, and has been from an early age conspicuous as a journalist and a man

CONSERVATISM.

THE owl, he fareth well

In the shadows of the night,
And it puzzleth him to tell
Why the eagle loves the light.
Away he floats-away,

From the forest dim and old,
Where he pass'd the garish day-
The night doth make him bold!
The wave of his downy wing,

As he courses round about, Disturbs no sleeping thing,

That he findeth in his route.
The moon looks o'er the hill,

And the vale grows softly light;
And the cock, with greeting shrill,
Wakes the echoes of the night.
But the moon-he knoweth well
Its old familiar face;
And the cock-it doth but tell,

Poor fool! its resting-place.
And as still as the spirit of Death

On the air his pinions play;
There's not the noise of a breath
As he grapples with his prey.
Oh, the shadowy night for him!
It bringeth him fare and glee:
And what cares he how dim

For the eagle it may be?
It clothes him from the cold,
It keeps his larders full;
And he loves the darkness old,
To the eagle all so dull.
But the dawn is in the east,

And the shadows disappear;
And at once his timid breast
Feels the presence of a fear.
He resists but all in vain!

The clear light is not for him; So he hastens back again

To the forest old and dim. Through his head strange fancies run: For he cannot comprehend Why the moon, and then the sun, Up the heavens should ascend--

SHE came in Spring, when leaves were green, And birds sang blithe in bower and treeA stranger, but her gentle mien

It was a calm delight to see.

In every motion, grace was hers;

On every feature, sweetness dwelt;
Thoughts soon became her worshippers-
Affections soon before her knelt.
She bloom'd through all the summer days
As sweetly as the fairest flowers,
And till October's softening haze
Came with its still and dreamy hours.
So calm the current of her life,

So lovely and serene its flow,
We hardly mark'd the deadly strife
Disease forever kept below.

But autumn winds grew wild and chill,
And pierced her with their icy breath;
And when the snow on plain and hill
Lay white, she pass'd, and slept in death.

Tones only of immortal birth

Our memory of her voice can stir; With things too beautiful for earth Alone do we remember her.

She came in Spring, when leaves were green, And birds sang blithe in bower and tree, And flowers sprang up and bloom'd between Low branches and the quickening lea.

The greenness of the leaf is gone,

The beauty of the flower is riven, The birds to other climes have flown,

And there's an angel more in heaven'

THE EARLY LOST.

WHEN the soft airs and quickening showers Of spring-time make the meadows green, And clothe the sunny hills with flowers,

And the cool hollows scoop'd betweenYe go, and fondly bending where

The bloom is brighter than the day, Ye pluck the loveliest blossom there

Of all that gem the rich array. The stem, thus robb'd and rudely press'd, Stands desolate in the purple even; The flower has wither'd on your breast, But given its perfume up to heaven. When, mid our hopes that waken fears, And mid our joys that end in gloom, The children of our earthly years Around us spring, and bud, and bloomAn angel from the blest above

Comes down among them at their play, And takes the one that most we love,

And bears it silently away. Bereft, we feel the spirit's strife;

But while the inmost soul is riven, Our dear and beauteous bud of life Receives immortal bloom in heaven.

FIFTY YEARS AGO.

A SONG for the early times out west,
And our green old forest-home,
Whose pleasant memories freshly yet
Across the bosom come:
A song for the free and gladsome life
In those early days we led,
With a teeming soil beneath our feet,

And a smiling heaven o'erhead!
Oh, the waves of life danced merrily,
And had a joyous flow,

In the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

The hunt, the shot, the glorious chase,

The captured elk or deer;

The camp, the big, bright fire, and then
The rich and wholesome cheer;
The sweet, sound sleep, at dead of night,

By our camp-fire blazing high-
Unbroken by the wolf's long howl,

And the panther springing by. Oh, merrily pass'd the time, despite

Our wily Indian foe,

In the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

We shunn'd not labour; when 't was due

We wrought with right good will; And for the home we won for them, Our children bless us still.

We lived not hermit lives, but oft

In social converse met;

And fires of love were kindled then,
That burn on warmly yet.
Oh, pleasantly the stream of life

Pursued its constant flow,

In the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

We felt that we were fellow-men;
We felt we were a band
Sustain'd here in the wilderness

By Heaven's upholding hand.
And when the solemn sabbath came,
We gather'd in the wood,
And lifted up our hearts in prayer

To God, the only good.

Our temples then were earth and sky;
None others did we know

In the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

Our forest life was rough and rude,
And dangers closed us round,
But here, amid the green old trees,

Freedom we sought and found.
Oft through our dwellings wintry blasts
Would rush with shriek and moan;
We cared not-though they were but frail,
We felt they were our own!
Oh, free and manly lives we led,
Mid verdure or mid snow,
In the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

But now our course of life is short;
And as, from day to day,
We're walking on with halting step,
And fainting by the way,
Another land, more bright than this,

To our dim sight appears,
And on our way to it we'll soon

Again be pioneers!

Yet while we linger, we may all

A backward glance still throw
To the days when we were pioneers,
Fifty years ago!

TRUTH AND FREEDOM.

On the page that is immortal,

We the brilliant promise see: "Ye shall know the truth, my people,

And its might shall make you free!" For the truth, then, let us battle, Whatsoever fate betide; Long the boast that we are freemen,

We have made and publish'd wide. He who has the truth, and keeps it, Keeps what not to him belongs But performs a selfish action,

That his fellow-mortal wrongs.

He who seeks the truth, and trembles At the dangers he must brave,

Is not fit to be a freeman

He at best is but a slave.

He who hears the truth, and places
Its high promptings under ban,
Loud may boast of all that's manly,
But can never be a man!
Friend, this simple lay who readest,
Be not thou like either them-
But to truth give utmost freedom,
And the tide it raises stem.