It floated by on the gliding breeze,
And died away o'er the southern seas;—
And I listened to catch the parting lay
Of that sweet but dying melody.

The music of earth I have ever loved,
And have felt the spirit within me moved
By the silvery sound of the soft lute's tone,
With the voice of a loved and gentle one;
I have heard the pealing organ raise
Its thrilling notes of lofty praise;
I have heard the mourner's plaintive lay,
And have wept in childish sympathy;
Yet I never listened to sounds so blest
As those which rose in the distant west,-
To anthem thrilling the soul so high,

As that which pealed from the northern sky;—
Never did earthly music greet

My raptured ear with notes so sweet

As that same soft and parting lay,
In its distant, dying melody.

I heard no more ;-for a fringe of light
Bordered the eastern veil of night;
The morning breeze came roaring by,
Bowing the forest heads on high,

And the tuneful march of the stars gave way
To the busy hum of the rising day.

I know that the faithless world may deem
This but a wandering fancy's dream,—
For seldom to mortal ear is given,

To hear the harmony of Heaven.

And grant that the carping world is right;—
Be it a dream of the shadowy night;—
Yet its impress upon my soul hath grown
Deeper and deeper as years roll on,—
And in memory's trust shall it ever lie,
As a cherished and loved reality.

I ne'er shall see that bright rayed star,
Or that which meekly beamed afar,
Or gaze on the glorious northern sky,
Whence rolled those sounds of majesty,

But my heart shall swell with this thought alone

"Glory and praise to the Holy One."

And when God shall grant me to soar away,

Dropping this veil of mortal clay;

When backward roll the clouds that stay

The day-spring of eternity,

Then, then will I mount on triumph's wing,
To join with the glittering throng and sing-
With the myriads round the Eternal Throne-
Glory and praise to the Holy One."

THE POETRY OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURES.

IN that age of the world when tyranny had moulded man's independent spirit to the most abject servility-when the primitive religion was lost in unholy rites and senseless superstition, and when all the avenues to the sources of knowledge were closed by the jargon of a mystical philosophy; in this period of darkness, appeared the first of that series of Divine communications, in which are contained our religion and the higher portion of our knowledge. They have descended to us through a troubled ocean, but the Controller of storms has conducted them in safety. The arts and malice of enemies could not destroy them; the deep, sluggish shade of ignorance could not obscure them. It may not, then, be uninteresting, it cannot be impertinent, to inquire by what means the Creator has secured for his volume the reverence and attention of man, so degraded in taste and so bewildered in understanding; and by what arts he has thrown around it all the interest of romance, while he has filled it with the perfection of wisdom?

The sway of philosophy is limited and imperfect; mankind must be governed not by speculation, but by fact, by influences which affect the senses, which flash upon the understanding in palpable forms, and suit themselves to life without the labor of reasoning and deduction. Hence, in every age and every advance of society, men have been disposed to throw off the restrictions of logical and philosophical rules, and to express their ideas in the freer and more majestic language of poetry. Among other nations, this impulse has suggested the most absurd fictions and led away the imagination into the wildest vagaries. Among the Jews it was the friend, the guardian of truth, the faculty of expressing ideas too sublime for the comprehension of definite language, and too closely interwoven with human life to be conveyed in the abstract terms of philosophy. The history of the Jews was a succession of wonders, and supplied an inexhaustible fund for the most grasping imagination. Within the boundaries of truth, the poet found the widest, highest range for thought, and by that very means was happily excluded from the arts of falsehood and exaggeration, which have often degraded and polluted the poetry of other nations. He wandered among the stately monuments and crumbling ruins of the past, or plunged into the future and watched its unborn changes. No pensioner upon royal bounty, no dependent upon the favor of men, the Jewish poet never for a moment sunk to the panegyrist or the flatterer. He looked not into the countenance but into the hearts of men. Such is the character whom we are to introduce before you, and such is the medium through which the Creator chose to instruct the human race.

By those who have studied the sacred writings, I shall be understood when I say that the greater part produce the effect of the most exquisite poetry. I therefore pass by the language, and shall confine myself to the variety and grandeur of the subjects, which are here combined into a harmonious image of heavenly virtue.

The Jewish poets stood on a lofty elevation. Their view was the most cloudless, most unlimited, that was ever permitted to human sight. Before them lay Palestine, rich in every beauty with which nature has adorned the world, presenting a surface now sinking into valleys of the most exuberant fertility, and thence rising through the gradations of plain, hill and dusky mountain, each seeming to be a paradise for its peculiar tenants. Scattered over it, too, were a people whose character and history accorded well with the romantic spot in which the Creator had placed them. With a mind passionate, ardent in pursuit, soaring high when virtuous and plunging deep when vicious, the whole existence of the Jew was a struggle between enthusiastic piety and grovelling passion. Now he contended with ardent zeal for his religion, and now he abandoned it for the wooden deities of his pagan neighbors. Yesterday he breathed the spirit of freedom, to-day he kisses the fetters of slavery. Such was the wayward character which the Jewish poets depict with such liveliness of feeling and such depth of knowledge. Such was the nation whom they were sent to instruct; and not a circumstance do they pass by which might give interest or grandeur to their communications. They pointed out the monuments of the past, they set in order the miracles which had distinguished every part of their national existence, and these allusions and instructions they clothe in language so dignified by simplicity, so animate with metaphors, that they seem to be the objects of nature endued with mind and rising up to admonish men.

But the Jewish poets had still another resource of higher and purer poesy than these. With that divine flame which purified the soul and loosed its imprisoned faculties, came also the vision of futurity and mingled with their meditations on the past and present. Where to all other eyes appeared nothing but uncertain. conjecture, or deep darkness and folded mystery, they saw cities and empires rise, flourish and decay. They watched the progress and completion of revolutions yet to be, and heard the fierce breathings of ambition and the hollow moanings of wretchedness yet unborn. The Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, the Roman, each in his turn erected his giant image, and each in succession faded away into unsubstantial shadows. The future world unfolded its history, and society with all its mighty changes passed in grand procession before them. With their superhuman

energy Time was unable to contend. He seemed to have lost his dominion over the human mind, and his power and scepter crumbled to the dust like worthless things.

Thus elevated by superior knowledge, the Jewish poet was not a toy for man's fancy to sport with; he appeared with every attribute that can dignify human character, and all these he communicated with undiminished lustre to his writings. His voice was not a gentle silver sound, distracted and lost in the hum and tumult of business; it was a note that penetrated entire and full into every ear; that pierced through the defenses of passion, and was stayed not even by the thick prison walls of ignorance and stupidity. The lowest peasant felt its keen thrill, and the monarch dared not slight the warning words. This unbounded influence over the minds of men was not idly lost, or exercised for trivial ends. Had the object of the poet terminated with lively pictures of nature, or skillful delineations of the human character, the breath of inspiration might have been spared, and genius left to execute his proper task. But with the inspired writers these are but the shadows, the spots which they scatter over a subject of itself too bright for our weak faculties. These are but as the baubles on the water, when the mountains and the blue heavens appear behind the pure wave. These are the means by which they seize our attention and insensibly raise our souls to their sublimer theme. If the valleys laugh with peace and plenteousness, it is in gratitude to their beneficent Protector; if the hills stretch forth their arms and shake back their shaggy locks, it is to welcome the presence of their Creator. Through every variety of description, in every stroke aimed at vice and apostacy, the same mighty object-the indistinct yet visible form of the Deity -moves behind the poet's touch and consecrates his words. He converses with nature only to teach her adoration to the God of nature; he strikes the chords of human passion only to show their dissonance with harmony of Heaven. He makes all things subservient to his enthusiastic devotion. The past revives her mouldering forms of existence, the present opens her most secret chambers and uncovers her hidden vices and follies, and the future unrolls her mysteries and her successive periods as they rise to being and pass away-only, only, to dignify the wisdom and power that plans and governs all things. For this purpose earth and heaven existed; for this purpose they shall melt away in the last convulsion of nature.

In fine, when we close the sacred volume, and with a rapid glance embrace its characteristic features, we cannot but be astonished at the sublimity of the objects which it discloses. It makes known our origin and our twofold destiny. Not only

does it describe man as he is, and thread all the mazes of his

crooked inclinations, but it also shows us what he was and what he again shall be when purified and fitted for the society of angels. It is the connecting link between two states of existence; in the language of Homer, it raises its head to heaven and moves upon the earth. It seeks to dignify our character by painting the happiness, the perfection, to which we may arrive. It says to man, if eloquence, even when degraded by the feebleness of our nature, can raise the humble, debase the mighty, shake the stability of empires, and sway the movements of a nation's mind, what will be its power when it proceeds from the lips of seraphs and breathes the pure energies of hallowed love? If music, with all its earthly imperfections, has charms that can bind the wandering thoughts, still the ravings of passion, and lull into oblivious happiness even the wretched and the guilty, what will be its ecstatic effect when it floats on the breath of Heaven from the sweet-toned lyres of angels? This is the poetry of Heaven. This is the poetry of the Holy Scriptures.