Arrest the sun in mid-day course,

the wheels of nature bind;

Then may'st thou fling thy chains around, the unconquerable mind.

Oh! false the thought that gloomy fears
on the christian's rest intrude,
When shut from a corrupting world,
in quiet solitude.
Congenial spirits from above,

stoop downward to his prayer, And come on wings of holy love, to sojourn with him there.

And he who left the city's throng,
to seek his island home;
Left but a wilderness behind,

through paradise to roam.

He stepped upon the rocky strand, and bade the world farewell;

Angels, and heaven, and God, came down with him on earth to dwell.

Nature in all her varied charms

to him was given yet,

The marvels and the pomps of heaven, with earth's in concord met.

ST. JOHN IN EXILE.

Far in the bosom of the deep,

'Greece, living Greece' appeared, And there the clustering Cyclades' round, their forms of beauty reared :— Vibrations of a thousand strings,

in music met his ear;

The glorious canopy of stars,
the sky serenely clear:

The winds and waters whispered peace
upon the lonely shore,
And white-winged spirits of repose

Brooded its stillness o'er.

But views of loftier, holier things, to him were granted there. The New-Jerusalem appeared,

in dazzling splendor crowned ; Bright jasper walls, with gates of pearl,

encircled it around.

The future glories of the Church

in vision were revealed;

And mingling songs of earth and heaven,

in swelling peans pealed.

The reign of error long usurped,

was prostrate o'er the world;

71

And the banners of redeeming love,

triumphantly unfurled.

This was the exile's solitude

celestial visions given;

Communion with the world denied, communion held with heaven!

THE DELUGE.

AN EXTRACT.

BY WILLIAM G. CROSBY.

THE birds had sought the silence of the woods,
And the beasts crouched them in their solitudes;
Man hurried to and fro with pallid cheek,
And wandering eyes, such as in terror speak
Unutterable things :-no voice was heard,

Save as some falling leaf the drooping foliage stirred.

There was a silence brooding o'er the earth, Like that which heralds the young earthquake's

birth.

Dark clouds were sweeping slowly o'er the sea, And far above, a blackened canopy

Shut out the last rays of the sickly sun ;

The eternal voice went forth-the work of death begun!

Then pealed the thunder of offended Heaven! The trembling earth from its deep centre riven, Sent forth one wild and agonizing cry,

Its bursting waters, rushing to the sky :

The lightnings met them in their midway path, And bore them back to earth, stern ministers of wrath.

Then rose one loud, last shriek !-the torrent

poured,

And death's dark angel o'er the ruin soared,— Echoed each struggling prayer, each mad'ning cry, And mocked his victims in their agony !

Hope with her mimicry of smiles had fled, And Ruin hovered wide above the countless dead.

There lay the mother round whose lifeless breast, Clung the loved babe her dying arms had pressed; And there, half shrouded in her golden hair, Floated the wreck of all that once was fair; While he, whose arm in vain was stretched to save, Slept many a fathom deep beneath the howling wave.