My Brother's Erabe.

(FROM THE POETRY OF THE COLLEGE MAGAZINE.)

BENEATH the chancel's hallow'd stone,

Expos’d to every rustic tread,
To few, save rustic mourners, known,

My brother, is thy lowly bed.
Few words, upon the rough stone graven,

Thy name—thy birth—thy youth declareThy innocence—thy hopes of Heaven

In simplest phrase recorded there. No 'scutcheons shine, no banners wave, In mockery o'er my brother's grave.

The place is silent-rarely sound
Is heard those ancient walls around;
Nor mirthful voice of friends that meet
Discoursing in the public street,
Nor hum of business dull and loud,
Nor murmur of the passing crowd,
Nor soldier's drum, nor trumpet's swell,
From neighb'ring fort or citadel ;
No sound of human toil or strife
To death's lone dwelling speaks of life,
Nor breaks the silence still and deep

Where thou, beneath thy burial stone,

Art laid in that unstartled sleep

The living eye hath never known.
The lonely sexton's footstep falls
In dismal echoes on the walls,
As, slowly pacing through the aisle,

He sweeps th' unholy dust away,
And cobwebs, which must not defile

Those windows on the Sabbath-day; And, passing through the central nave, Treads lightly on my brother's grave.

But when the sweet-ton'd Sabbath-chime,

Pouring its music on the breeze, Proclaims the well-known holy time

Of prayer, and thanks, and bended knees; When rustic crowds devoutly meet,

And lips and hearts to God are given, And souls enjoy oblivion sweet

Of earthly ills, in thoughts of Heaven;
What voice of calm and solemn tone

Is heard above thy burial stone ?
What form in priestly meek array
Beside the altar kneels to pray ?
What holy hands are lifted up
To bless the sacramental cup?
Full well I know that rev'rend form,

And if a voice could reach the dead,
Those tones would reach thee, tho' the worm,

My brother, makes thy heart bis bed That Sire, who thy existence gave, Now stands beside thy lowly grave.

It is not long since thou wert wont
Within these sacred walls to kneel;

This altar, that baptismal font,

These stones which now thy dust conceal, The sweet tones of the Sabbath-bell,

Were holiest objects to thy soul; On these thy spirit lov'd to dwell,

Untainted by the world's control, My brother, those were happy days,

When thou and I were children yet; How fondly memory still surveys

Those scenes, the heart can ne'er forget! My soul was then, as thine is now,

Unstain’d by sin, unstung by pain ;
Peace smil'd on each unclouded brow-

Mine ne'er will be so calm again.
How blithely then we hail'd the ray
Which usher'd in the Sabbath-day !
How lightly then our footsteps trod
Yon pathway to the house of God!
For souls, in which no dark offence
Hath sullied childhood's innocence,
Best meet the pure and hallow'd shrine,
Which guiltier, bosoms own divine.

I feel not now as then I felt,

The sunshine of my heart is o'er; The spirit now is chang'd which dwelt

Within me, in the days before. But thou wert snatch'd, my brother, hence, In all thy guileless innocence; One Sabbath saw thee bend the knee, In reverential pietyFor childish faults forgiveness craveThe next beam'd brightly on thy grave. : si

The crowd, of which thou late wert one,
Now throng'd across thy burial-stone ;
Rude footsteps trampled on the spot,
Where thou lay'st mould'ring and forgot;
And some few gentler bosoms wept,
In silence, where my brother slept.

I stood not by thy fev'rish bed,

I look'd not on thy glazing eye, Nor gently lull’d thy aching head,

Nor view'd thy dying agony: I felt not what my parents felt,

The doubt the terror-the distress
Nor vainly for my brother knelt -

My soul was spar'd that wretchedness.
One sentence told me, in a breath,
My brother's illness and his death!

And days of mourning glided by,
And brought me back my gaiety;
For soon in childhood's wayward heart
Doth crush'd affection cease to smart.
Again I join'd the sportive crowd
Of boyish playmates, wild and loud;
I learnt to view with careless eye
My sable garb of misery ;
No more I wept my brother's lot,
His image was almost forgot;
And ev'ry deeper shade of pain
Had vanish'd from my soul again.

The well-known morn, I used to greet
With boyhood's joy, at length was beaming,

And thoughts of home and raptures sweet

In ev'ry eye, but mine, were gleaming; But I, amidst that youthful band

Of beating hearts and beaming eyes,
Nor smild nor spoke at joy's command,

Nor felt those wonted ecstasies :
I lov'd my home-but trembled now
To view my father's alter'd brow;
I fear'd to meet my mother's eye,
And hear her voice of agony;
I fear'd to view

my

native spot,
Where he who lov'd it-now was not.
The pleasures of my home were fled-
My brother slumber'd with the dead.

my

I drew near to

father's gate No smiling faces met me now I enter'dall was desolate

Grief sat upon my mother's brow:
I heard her, as she kiss'd me, sigh ;
A tear stood in my father's eye ;
My little brothers round me prest,
In gay unthinking childhood blest.
Long, long that hour has past, but when
Shall I forget its mournful scene?

The Sabbath came with mournful pace
I sought my brother's burial place-
That shrine, which when I last had view'd,
In vigour by my side he stood.
I gaz'd around with fearful eye-
All things reposed in sanctity.
I reach'd the chancel--nought was chang'da
The altar decently arrang'd-