time.
What were their names! Go ask the silent sod
Their deeds--their record lives but with their God!
At every step we tread on kindred earth,
Nor know the spot that gave our fathers birth.
Oh! could we call before our wondering eyes
All that have lived--and bid the dead arise,
From the first moment the Creator spoke
The word of power, and light through darkness broke,
And see earth covered with the mighty tide
Of all who on her bosom lived and died,
What a stupendous thought would fill the soul
Could we behold life's breathing ocean roll
Its human billows onward--and the mass
The grave has swallowed, down from Adam, pass
In one unbroken stream--the brain would reel--
Lost in immensity, would cease to feel!
Whilst living, ah, how few were known to fame!
One in a million has not left a name,--
A single token, on life's shifting scene,
To tell to other years that such has been.
Yet man, unaided by a hope sublime,
Thinks that his puny arm can cope with time;
That his vast genius can reverse the doom,
And shed a deathless light upon his tomb;
That distant ages shall his worth admire,
And young hearts kindle at the sacred fire
Of him whose fame no envious clouds o'ercast,
Yet died forgotten and unknown at last.

Oh think not genius, with its hallowed light,
Can break the gloom of an eternal night;
For splendid talents often lead astray
The unguarded heart, and hide the narrow way,
While the unlearned and those of low estate,
With faith's clear eye behold the living gate,
Whose portals open on the shoreless sea
Where time's strong ocean meets eternity.
Across the gulf that stretches far beneath
Lies the dark valley of the shade of death--
A land of deep forgetfulness,--a shore
Which all must traverse, but return no more
To this sad earth, to dissipate our dread,
And tell the mighty secrets of the dead.
Enough for us that those drear realms were trod
By heavenly footsteps, that the Son of God
Passed the dark bourne and vanquished Death, to save
The weary wanderers of life's stormy wave.

Why then should man thus cleave to things of earth?
Daily experience proves their little worth--
Or waste those noble qualities of mind,
For wise and better purposes designed,
In the pursuit of trifles, which confer
No solid pleasure on their worshipper;
Or in the search of causes that are known
And guided by Omnipotence alone?
A height his finite reason cannot reach,
And all his boasted learning fails to teach?
While