MR. BRYANT was born in Cummington, Massachusetts, in 1794. He was educated for the bar, but after passing ten years in the courts he abandoned an uncongenial profession and removed to New York, where, in 1826, he assumed the editorship of the Evening Post, with which he has ever since been connected. He wrote the poem entitled "Thanatopsis" in his eighteenth year, and the annals of literary composition furnish nothing equal to it produced at the same age. Mr. Bryant is unquestionably the greatest poet who now writes in the English language. In 1832 a collection of all the poems Mr. Bryant had then written was published in New York; it was soon after reprinted in Boston, and a copy of it reaching Washington Irving, who was then in England, he caused it to be published in London, where it has since passed through several editions. In 1842 he published “The Fountain, and other Poems;" in 1844, " The White-footed Deer, and other Poems;" and in 1846, a splendid edition of his complete Poetical Works, illustrated with engravings from pictures by Leutze, was published in Philadelphia by Carey and Hart.
66 BLESSED ARE THEY THAT MOURN."
Он, deem not they are blest alone
Whose lives a peaceful tenor keep;
The Power who pities man, has shown
A blessing for the eyes that weep.
The light of smiles shall fill again
The lids that overflow with tears;
And weary hours of wo and pain
Are promises of happier years.
There is a day of sunny rest
For every dark and troubled night;
And grief may bide an evening guest,
But joy shall come with early light.
And thou, who, o'er thy friend's low bier,
Sheddest the bitter drops like rain,
Hope that a brighter, happier sphere
Will give him to thy arms again.
Nor let the good man's trust depart,
Though life its common gifts deny,—
Though with a pierced and broken heart,
And spurned of men, he goes to die.
For God has marked each sorrowing day
And numbered every secret tear,
And heaven's long age of bliss shall pay
For all his children suffer here.
NO MAN KNOWETH HIS SEPULCHRE."
WHEN he, who, from the scourge of wrong,
Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly,
Saw the fair region, promised long,
And bowed him on the hills to die;
God made his grave, to men unknown,
Where Moab's rocks a vale infold,
And laid the aged seer alone
To slumber while the world grows old.
Thus still, whene'er the good and just
Close the dim eye on life and pain,
Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust
Till the pure spirit comes again.
Though nameless, trampled, and forgot,
His servant's humble ashes lie,
Yet God has marked and sealed the spot,
To call its inmate to the sky.
How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps
The disembodied spirits of the dead,
When all of thee that time could wither sleeps
And perishes among the dust we tread ?
For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain
If there I meet thy gentle presence not;
Nor hear the voice I love, nor read again
In thy serenest eyes the tender thought.
Will not thy own meek heart demand me there?
That heart whose fondest throbs to me were given?
My name on earth was ever in thy prayer,
Shall it be banished from thy tongue in heaven?
In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breath.ng wind,
In the resplendence of that glorious sphere,
And larger movements of the unfettered mind,
Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here?
The love that lived through all the stormy past,
And meekly with my harsher nature bore,
And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last,
Shall it expire with life, and be no more?
A happier lot than mine, and larger light,
Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will
In cheerful homage to the rule of right,
And lovest all, and renderest good for ill.
For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell,
Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll;
And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell
Has left its frightful scar upon my soul.
Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky,
Wilt thou not keep the same beloved name,
The same fair thoughtful brow, and gentle eye,
Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?
Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home,
The wisdom that I learned so ill in this-
The wisdom which is love-till I become
Thy fit companion in that land of bliss?
THE REV. A. C. Coxe is a son of the Rev. Samuel H. Coxe, D.D., of Brooklyn, and was born at Mendham, in New Jersey, on the 10th of May, 1818. He was educated at a gymnasium in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, the University of New York, and the Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church at Chelsea. He was admitted to deacon's orders on the 28th of June, 1841, and has for several years been rector of St. Paul's Church in Hartford, Connecticut. His poetical works are included principally in volumes entitled " Athanasion, and other Poems," "Christian Ballads," "Saul, a Mystery," and "Halloween, a Romaunt, with Lays meditative and devotional."
HYMN TO THE Ꭱ Ꭼ Ꭰ Ꭼ Ꭼ Ꮇ Ꭼ Ꭱ.
WHEN o'er Judea's vales and hills,
Or by her olive-shaded rills,
Thy weary footsteps went of old,
Or walked the lulling waters bold,
How beauteous were the marks divine
That in thy meekness used to shine,
That lit thy lonely pathway, trod
In wondrous love, O Lamb of God!
Oh! who like thee, so calm, so bright,
Thou Holy child, Thou Light of Light,
Oh! who like thee, did ever go
So patient, through a world of wo!
Oh! who like thee, so humbly bore
The scorn, the scoffs of men before,
So meek, so lovely-yet so high,
So glorious in humility!
The morning saw thee, like the day,
Forth on thy light-bestowing way;
And evening in her holy hues,
Shed down her sweet baptismal dews,
Where bending angels stooped to see,
The lisping infant clasp thy knee,
And smile, as in a father's eye,
Upon thy mild Divinity!
The hours when princes sought their rest
Beheld thee, still, no chamber's guest;
But when the chilly night hung round,
And man from thee sweet slumber found,
Thy wearied footsteps sought, alone,
The mountain to thy sorrows known,
And darkness heard thy patient prayer,
Or hid thee, in the prowler's lair.
And all thy life's unchanging years,
A man of sorrows, and of tears,
The cross, where all our sins were laid,
Upon thy bending shoulders weighed ;
And death, that sets the prisoner free,
Was pang, and scoff, and scorn to thee;
Yet love through all thy torture glowed,
And mercy with thy life-blood flowed.
O wondrous Lord! my soul would be
Still more and more conformed to thee,
Would lose the pride, the taint of sin,
That burns these fevered veins within,
And learn of Thee, the lowly One,
And like thee, all my journey run,
Above the world, and all its mirth,
Yet weeping still with weeping earth.
Oh! in thy light, be mine to go,
Illuming all my way of wo;
And give me ever, on the road,
To trace thy footsteps, O my God!
My passions lull, my spirit calm,
And make this lion-heart a lamb;
And give me, all my life, to be
A sacrifice to love and thee!
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