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THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage

With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal Bard did groaning lie
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;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How his first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he, who alone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;

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And heard great Babylon's doom pronounced by Heaven's command.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope' springs exulting on triumphant wing,'
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,

No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,

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,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!

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THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.

The Power, incensed, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,

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;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,

And proffer up to Heaven the warm request
That He, who stills the raven's clamorous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flowery pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,

For them, and for their little ones, provide!
But, chiefly, in their hearts, with grace divine preside.

From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her loved at home, revered abroad:
Princes and Lords are but the breath of Kings,
'An honest man's the noblest work of God:'
And certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road,

The cottage leaves the palace far behind:
What is a lordling's pomp?—a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in hearts of hell, in wickedness refined!

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,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realms desert;

But still the patriot, and the patriot bard,

In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!

THE FLIGHT OF XERXES.

I SAW him on the battle-eve,

When like a king he bore him—
Proud hosts were there in helm and greave,
And prouder chiefs before him:

The warrior, and the warrior's deeds-
The morrow, and the morrow's meeds—
No daunting thought came o'er him;
He looked around him, and his eye
Defiance flashed to earth and sky!

He looked on ocean-its broad breast
Was covered with his fleet;

On earth and saw, from east to west,
His bannered millions meet;

While rock, and glen, and cave, and coast,
Shook with the war-cry of that host,
The thunder of their feet!

He heard the imperial echoes ring-
He heard and felt himself a king!

I saw him next alone-nor camp,
Nor chief his steps attended;
Nor banner blazed, nor courser's tramp
With war-cries proudly blended.
He stood alone, whom fortune high
So lately seemed to deify;

E

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Burns.

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He who with Heaven contended,
Fled, like a fugitive and slave!
Behind-the foe; before-the wave!

He stood;-fleet, army, treasure—gone—
Alone, and in despair!

While wave and wind swept ruthless on,
For they were monarchs there;

And Xerxes in a single bark,

Where late his thousand ships were dark,

Must all their fury dare;

What a revenge-a trophy, this,

For thee, immortal Salamis!

Miss Jewsbury.

ON PRAYER.

PRAYER is the soul's sincere desire,
Utter'd or unexprest;

The motion of a hidden fire

That trembles in the breast.

Prayer is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear;

The upward glancing of an eye,
When none but God is near.

Prayer is the simplest form of speech
That infant lips can try;

Prayer the sublimest strains that reach
The Majesty on high.

Prayer is the Christian's vital breath,
The Christian's native air;

His watchword at the gates of death:
He enters Heaven by prayer.

PATRIOTISM.

Prayer is the contrite sinner's voice,
Returning from his ways:
While angels in their songs rejoice,
And say, "Behold, he prays!"

In prayer on earth the saints are one;
They're one in word and mind,
When with the Father and his Son
Sweet fellowship they find.

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O Thou, by whom we come to God,
The Life, the Truth, the Way,
The path of prayer thyself hast trod;
Lord, teach us how to pray!

J. Montgomery.

PATRIOTISM.

BREATHES there the man, with soul so dead,
Who never to himself hath said,

This is my own, my native land!

Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd,
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down

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