Night is the time to watch; On Ocean's dark expanse, The full moon's earliest glance, Night is the time for care: Brooding on hours misspent, Like Brutus, midst his slumb'ring host, Night is the time to muse: Then, from the eye the soul Takes flight, and, with expanding views, Beyond the starry pole, Descries athwart the abyss of night, The dawn of uncreated light. Night is the time to pray : Our Saviour oft withdrew Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, Night is the time for death; When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath, From sin and suffering cease: Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends :-such death be mine! * * I have omitted the stanza beginning "Night is the time for toil,"—because, however beautiful in expression, it inculcates a false principle, inconsistent with a just economy of life. MODERN GREECE.-BYRON. He who hath bent him o'er the dead, The last of danger and distress- Have swept the lines where beauty lingers- The rapture of repose that's there, The fix'd yet tender traits that streak The languor of the placid cheek, That fires not, wins not, weeps not, now,― And but for that chill, changeless brow, Where cold Obstruction's apathy Appals the gazing mourner's heart, As if to him it could impart The doom he dreads, yet dwells upon; Some moments, aye, one treacherous hour, So fair, so calm, so softly seal'd, The first, last look by death reveal'd! 'Tis Greece, but living Greece no more! So coldly sweet, so deadly fair, We start, for soul is wanting there. That parts not quite, with parting breath; Expression's last receding ray, A gilded halo hovering round decay, Spark of that flame, perchance of heavenly birth, Which gleams, but warms no more its cherish'd earth! Clime of the unforgotten brave! Whose land, from plain to mountain cave, These waters blue that round you lave,- These scenes, their story not unknown, THE LEPER.-WILLIS. "ROOM for the leper! room!"-And, as he came The cry pass'd on-" Room for the leper! room !"— Sunrise was slanting on the city's gates, Rosy and beautiful: and from the hills The early risen poor were coming in, Duly and cheerfully to their toil; and up Rose the sharp hammer's clink, and the far hum Of moving wheels, and multitudes astir, And all that in a city murmur swells,Unheard but by the watcher's weary ear, Aching with night's dull silence,—or the sick, Hailing the welcome light and sounds, that chase The death-like images of the dark away. "Room for the leper!" And aside they stoodMatron, and child, and pitiless manhood,—all Who met him on his way,-and let him pass. And onward through the open gate he came, A leper with the ashes on his brow, Sackcloth about his loins, and on his lip A covering,-stepping painfully and slow, And with a difficult utterance, like one Whose heart is with an iron nerve put down, Crying "Unclean! Unclean!" 'Twas now the first Of the Judean autumn, and the leaves, And eminently beautiful; Mantled in elegant fulness on his lip. And he went forth-alone! Not one of all Breaking within him now, to come and speak It was noon, And Helon knelt beside a stagnant pool Crying, "Unclean! Unclean!" and in the folds Love and awe Mingled in the regard of Helon's eye, Buckler, or sword, or spear;-yet if He smiled, |