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DAVID'S LAMENT OVER ABSALOM.

"Cold is thy brow, my son! and I am chill, As to my bosom I have tried to press thee. How was I wont to feel my pulses thrill,

Like a rich harp-string, yearning to caress thee, And hear thy sweet "my father," from these dumb And cold lips, Absalom!

“The grave hath won thee. I shall hear the gush Of music, and the voices of the young;

And life will pass me in the mantling blush,

And the dark tresses to the soft winds flung;-
But thou no more, with thy sweet voice, shalt come
To meet me, Absalom!

"And, oh! when I am stricken, and my heart, Like a bruised reed, is waiting to be broken, How will its love for thee, as I depart,

Yearn for thine ear to drink its last deep token! It were so sweet, amid death's gathering gloom, To see thee, Absalom!

"And now, farewell! 'Tis hard to give thee up,
With death so like a gentle slumber on thee:-
And thy dark sin!-Oh! I could drink the cup,
If from this wo its bitterness had won thee.
May God have called thee, like a wanderer, home,
My erring Absalom!"

He covered up his face, and bowed himself
A moment on his child: then, giving him
A look of melting tenderness, he clasped
His hands convulsively, as if in prayer;
And, as a strength were given him of God,
He rose up calmly, and composed the pall

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Firmly and decently, and left him there,
As if his rest had been a breathing sleep.

TO THE LADY ANNE HAMILTON.

W. R. SPENCER.

Too late I stayed, forgive the crime,
Unheeded flew the hours;

How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!

What eye with clear account remarks
The ebbing of his glass,

When all its sands are diamond sparks
That dazzle as they pass!

Ah! who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of Paradise have lent
Their plumage to its wings?

THE WINGED WORSHIPERS.

C. SPRAGUE.

[graphic]

AY, guiltless pair.

What seek ye from the fields of heaven? Ye have no need of prayer,

Ye have no sins to be forgiven.

Why perch ye here,
Where mortals to their Maker bend?
Can your pure spirits fear

The God ye never could offend?

Ye never knew

The crimes for which we come to weep:
Penance is not for you,
Blessed wanderers of the upper deep.

To you 'tis given

To wake sweet nature's untaught lays;
Beneath the arch of heaven

To chirp away a life of praise.

Then spread each wing,

Far, far above, o'er lakes and lands,
And join the choirs that sing
yon blue dome not reared with hands.

In

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On upward wings could I but fly, I'd bathe in yon bright cloud, the sky.

And seek the stars that gem

"Twere heaven indeed,

Through fields of trackless light to soar, On nature's charms to feed,

And nature's own great God adore.

THE ISLE OF THE LONG AGO.

BENJ. F. TAYLOR.

[By permission of S. C. Griggs & Co.]
A WONDERFUL stream is the river Time,
As it runs through the realm of tears,
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a boundless sweep and a surge sublime,
As it blends with the ocean of years.

How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, And the summers like buds between,

And the year in the sheaf,-so they come and they go,
On the river's breast, with its ebb and flow,
As it glides in the shadow and sheen.

There's a magical Isle up the river Time,
Where the softest of airs are playing;
There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime,
And a song as sweet as a vesper chime,

And the Junes with the roses are straying.

And the name of that Isle is the Long Ago,

And we bury our treasures there;

There are brows of beauty and bosoms of snow;
There are heaps of dust-but we loved them so!
There are trinkets and tresses of hair;

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