Come golden Evening! In the west O'er all the mountain-tops ;-'tis done; There take thy stand, my spirit ; spread Methinks I muse on nature's tomb, All in a moment, crash on crash, Echo to echo, groan for groan, From deep to deep, replies. Silence again the darkness seals, Darkness that may be felt ;-but soon The silver-clouded east reveals The midnight spectre of the moon; Ha! at her touch, these Alpine heights With blacker shadows, ghastlier lights, Lest they should vanish hence. I breathe again, I freely breathe; And beautiful as Dian's face: Pride of the land that gave me birth! All that thy waves reflect I love, When heaven itself, brought down to earth, Looks fairer than above. Safe on thy banks again I stray: The trance of poesy is o'er, And I am here, at dawn of day, Gazing on mountains as before, Where all the strange mutations wrought For, in that fairy land of thought, Yet, O ye everlasting hills! Temples of God, not made with hands, By me, when I behold Him not, My pulse stand still, my heart grow cold Here, in her sweet retirement, had she felt, even at a tender age, some secret spring touched within her. In the scene of enchantment around her, she had been occasionally impelled to contemplate a higher power, and had sometimes been sensible that her heart was softened, as if it looked through nature up to nature's God.' Once in particular, and the circumstances were now brought to her recollection with peculiar pleasure, she had tarried in her retreat later than usual; and when her mother, who had come with considerable uneasiness in search of her, entered the arbour, she was on her knees, Ashamed to be seen, even by a parent, whose eyes overflowed while they beheld her, in a posture of supplication, she rose hastily, as a deep blush overspead her cheek. Her mother, anxious to elicit the nascent spark of piety, asking her if she had been praying; hesitating for an instant, she threw her arms about her neck, and, bursting into tears, replied: "Yes, mamma, I was trying to pray. When I was alone here this evening, looking at the sun setting behind the hill, I thought how quickly the time went. I thought how often I had seen it set before, and then how soon it would set to-morrow again, and again, and again, until I was dead, and could see it no more. And I was afraid, mamma; for I did not know where I should go to when I died. And then I remembered that papa had read one night about him who was crucified for us. And the good old pastor, too, had told me of Jesus Christ, one evening, when he took me on his knee; and said, if I believed on him, he would take me to heaven when I died. And I thought I should like to believe on him, and go to heaven. And I knelt down to ask him to make me a child of God. O mamma, mamma"-then breaking again into an agony of crying, and hiding her face in her mother's breast, she wept and sobbed, as if deeply agitated. Though the incident in itself was trivial, and the disquietude, which appeared to be awakened relative to her well-being beyond the tomb, had been evanescent as a morning cloud, or as the early dew which passeth away,' still it had a tendency to encourage her in pursuing the path she was now endeavouring, through Divine assistance, to walk in; as it seemed to indicate that her Redeemer, even at that remote period, had had his eye over her for good.' It was in this same lonely and lovely spot, that Emily was now often conscious of a soul attracted towards high and heavenly things.' Thither would she retire, like the pious patriarch of old, to meditate at the eventide.' Here would she pore over the pages of the sacred legacy of her venerable friend, as her best guide through the rugged ways of a troublesome and sinful world, to the confines of eternal glory. Here, occasionally, did she feel it sweet to draw near to God;' 6 and here, at intervals, was she favoured with |