ON READING BRYANT'S THANATOPSIS.

OH! when thy hand is heavy on me, Death!
And I with farewell glance shall feebly gaze
Upon life's past and yet untrodden ways,
Would that 'neath heaven might flee my breath,
While played around my brow the western gale,
And wood bird sang its spirit-soothing song,
With their glad music swept the brooks along,
And the bright song lit up thy shadowy vale,
As the child pineth for its place of birth,

While memory's lingering spirits round it wait,
Although its hearth be cold and desolate,
Lest so I still cling to the beautiful earth,
Oh! then may fall this strain from one I love,
And its last accents chime with those I hear above.

SPRING.

THE Voice of spring! the voice of spring
Again comes on the gale;

Again its winds their life-breath pour

On russet hill and vale.

The whispers through the brown old trees, And o'er the meadows pass,

While swells the bud, and springs the flower, And nods the freshening grass.

The snow, the relic of the storms,
That in the hollows lay,

Melts, like a dream, before the glance
Of Spring's returning ray.

And in its place, and by the walls,

And in the black roots set,

Is looking out her earliest flower,
The purple violet.

And all the earth is joying in

Its broad and sunny beam;

More pleasant comes the herd's faint low, More lightly brawls the stream ;

And as its ripples glide away,

And greener valleys lave,

More swiftly glance the sunbeams on

Its hurrying mimic wave.

The wood has waked; and thro' its aisles

Are ringing, sweet and clear,

The birds' first notes, to welcome back

The childhood of the year.

And the brown boughs, that yesterday
Tossed 'neath the winter sky,
With that glad song are mingling
Their low note cheerfully.

O Spring! we bless thee; for thy breath Stirs up each sluggish sense;.

The heart grows warm, the pulses leap 'Neath thy blest influence.

SPRING.

Each spot thy footsteps haunt below,
Thy glorious skies above,

And e'en thy slightest tones but breathe
The effluence of love.

21

THE BIRTH OF A NATION.

"Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive de livered?-Isaiah xlix. 24.

On the first of August, 1834, Slavery was abolished in the British West Indies, by act of Parliament. In Antigua, "the Wesleyans kept 'watch-night' in all their chapels on the evening of the 31st of July. One of the Wesleyan Missionaries gave us an account of the watch meeting in the chapel at St. Johns. The spacious house was filled with candidates for liberty. All was animation and eagerness. A mighty chorus of voices swelled the song of expectation and joy. In such exercises the evening was spent, until the hour of twelve approached. The missionary then proposed that when the clock on the cathedral should begin to strike, the whole congregation should fall on their knees and receive the boon of freedom in silence. Accordingly, as the loud bell tolled its first note, the immense assembly fell prostrate on their knees. All was silence, save the quivering half-stifled breath of the struggling spirit. The slow notes of the clock fell upon the multitude; peal on peal rolled over the prostrate throng in tones of angels' voices, thrilling among the desolate chords and weary hearts' strings."-Thome and Kimball's Emancipation in the West Indies..

'Tis midnight-yet the place of prayer
Fills with the gathering throng:

At such an hour, why come they there
To pour the choral song?