THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. The priest-like father reads the sacred page, With Amalek's ungracious progeny; Beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire; Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire; Or other holy Seers that tune the sacred lyre. Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme, How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; 47 And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command. Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King, No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, In such society, yet still more dear; While circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. THE SAME CONTINUED. Compared with this, how poor Religion's pride, 48 THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT. The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert, May hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; And in his Book of Life the inmates poor enroll. Then homeward all take off their several way; And proffer up to Heaven the warm request For them, and for their little ones, provide! From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs, The cottage leaves the palace far behind: O Scotia! my dear, my native soil! For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent; Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content; And, oh may Heaven their simple lives prevent From Luxury's contagion, weak and vile; Then howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. O Thou! who poured the patriotic tide That streamed through Wallace's undaunted heart; THE FLIGHT OF XERXES. Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, But still the patriot, and the patriot bard, In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! 49 THE FLIGHT OF XERXES. I SAW him on the battle-eve, When like a king he bore him— The warrior, and the warrior's deeds- He looked on ocean-its broad breast On earth-and saw, from east to west, While rock, and glen, and cave, and coast, He heard the imperial echoes ring— I saw him next alone-nor camp, E Burns. He who with Heaven contended, He stood;-fleet, army, treasure-gone- While wave and wind swept ruthless on, And Xerxes in a single bark, Where late his thousand ships were dark, What a revenge-a trophy, this, For thee, immortal Salamis! Miss Jewsbury. ON PRAYER. PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire, The motion of a hidden fire That trembles in the breast. Prayer is the burden of a sigh, The upward glancing of an eye, Prayer is the simplest form of speech Prayer the sublimest strains that reach Prayer is the Christian's vital breath, His watchword at the gates of death: PATRIOTISM. Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice, In prayer on earth the saints are one; O Thou, by whom we come to God, J. Montgomery. PATRIOTISM. BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, 51 |