or leave a wreck behind;
She o'er earth's ruins spreads her misty pall,
And time's unsparing ocean swallows all;
Hope for a moment gilds the spoiler's shroud,
As parting sunbeams tinge the lurid cloud;
The transient glory cheats the gazer's sight;
The storm rolls on--'tis universal night!

Say did not man inherit, at his birth,
A higher promise than the things of earth;
Views more exalted than this world can give,
And hopes that, deathless as the soul, outlive
The wreck of nature, and the common doom
That hourly sweeps her myriads to the tomb?
His mental powers, unfettered by the clod,
Soar o'er time's gulf, and reach the throne of God.
Oh what a privilege it is to know
That death chains not the immortal soul below!
Through the dark portals of the grave upborne,
Leaving the care-worn sons of earth to mourn,
On wings of light the new-born spirit flies
To seek a home and kindred in the skies.

Oh what are earthly crowns and earthly bliss,
And pride's delusive dreams, compared with this?
Ambition's laurel, purchased with a flood
Of human tears and stained with kindred blood,
Once gained, converted to a crown of thorns,
Pierces the aching temples it adorns--
Not Sappho's lyre, nor Raphael's deathless art
Can twine the olive round the bleeding heart;
In heaven alone the promised blessing lies,
And those who seek--must seek it in the skies!
Seek it through Him who, humbling human pride,
Wept o'er man's fall, and for his ransom died;
Poured out his blood on the accursed tree,
To break the chain and set the captive free.
Heaven bowed its glory on the cross to teach
That greatness man's lost nature could not reach,
The true humility, which stoops to rise,
And, leaving earth, claims kindred with the skies.

How many pages have been blotted o'er
With heartfelt tears, that now are read no more;
And, like the eyes that long have ceased to weep,
In dust and darkness quite forgotten sleep!
Dead to the world as if they ne'er had been
The favoured actors in one little scene.
The scene is changed--and, like their fleeting-fame,
The fickle world adores another name.
They knew the price at which its praise was bought;
The glittering bauble was not worth a thought;
Yet, Esau like, a better birthright sold,
And for base counterfeit exchanged the gold!

Ere man presumptuously his genius boasts,
Let him reflect upon the countless hosts,
The untold myriads, of each age and clime,
That sleep forgotten in the grave of