ilor's
Life-Tale.

THE MOURNERS.

Where'er I wander forth I view the mournful ones of earth:
They tread no more, with buoyant feet, the radiant halls of mirth;
Around their trembling frames are drawn the weary weeds of wo;
Their sighs, like cold November rains, with saddened cadence flow;
From the dead hopes and faded joys of bright departed years,
They twine a garland for the brow, impearled with many tears;
Upon the graves of buried loves they sit awhile and sigh,
Then, mid the ruin-mantled waste of time, lie down to die.

They close their weary eyes upon God's calm and holy light;
They dwell girt round with misery as with a starless night;
They fold a thick and icy shroud their care-worn bosoms round,
And rest beneath the baleful charm like streams by winter bound;
They nurse their sorrow till of all their thoughts it grows a part,
And, like a cold and mighty snake, twines round the bleeding heart;
And then its hissing tones descend in drops of fiery rain,
And scathe, as lightning flashes blast, the weak and wandering brain.

The mourners chant, with voices low, a sweet and sighing strain,
That moans, as on a rocky shore, the solemn sounding main:
It breathes alike when summer fades and when the violets spring;
It mingles with the morning light and evening twilight dim.
This is the burden of that faint and melancholy lay:
"The cloud of wo hath hid the smiles and beauty of the day;
The glow of earth, the radiant gleam, the bliss of life is o'er;
The rose of human love may bloom for us no more--_no more_."

Arise, be strong, O, mournful ones! The Future is your own;
There Love may weave her rosy nest, there Joy erect a throne.
Though youth's pale buds in early Spring were blighted and laid low,
Thine yet may be the peerless bloom of life's rich summer glow.
The blissful ones, the glorified, build up their own bright state.
Let but the slumbering spirit learn "to labor and to wait,"
Then, like a bird of tireless wing, 'twill rise above the storm,
And bathe its flashing pinions in the glory of the morn!

REV. T. L. HARRIS.

REFLECTIONS

ON SOME OF THE EVENTS OF THE YEAR 1848.

BY JOSEPH R. CHANDLER.

_Annus Mirabilis._

We are approaching the close of the year--a year marked by greater
vicissitudes in the affairs of