stars, that were now out in thousands, clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain down for an hour or two in bed, could scarcely be said to have slept; and when, about morning, little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale, languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all her veins, a happy group were watching the first faint smile that broke over her features; and never did one who stood there forget that Sabbath morning, on which she seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of fair and sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of having been rescued from the power of the grave.

LESSON LXXIV.

The Grave Stones,-A Fragment.-JAMES GRAY.

THE grass is green and the spring floweret blooms,
And the tree blossoms all as fresh and fair
As death had never visited the earth;
Yet every blade of grass, and every flower,
And every bud and blossom of the spring,
Is the memorial that nature rears

Over a kindred grave. Ay-and the song
Of woodland wooer, or his nuptial lay,
As blithe as if the year no winter knew,
Is the lament of universal death.

The merry singer is the living link

Of many a thousand years of death gone by,
And many a thousand in futurity,-

The remnant of a moment, spared by him
But for another meal to gorge upon.

This globe is but our fathers' cemetery

The sun, and moon, and stars that shine on high,
The lamps that burn to light their sepulchre,
The bright escutcheons of their funeral vault.
Yet does man move as gayly as the barge,
Whose keel sings through the waters, and her sails

Thus spurned, degraded, trampled, and oppress'd,
The negro-exile languished in the west,
With nothing left of life but hated breath,
And not a hope except the hope in death,
To fly for ever from the Creole-strand,
And dwell a freeman in his father's land.
Lives there a savage ruder than the slave?
-Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave,
False as the winds that round his vessel blow,
W Remorseless as the gulf that
yawns below,
Tha he who toils upon the wafting flood,
Pavili hristian broker in the trade of blood:

The su erous in speech, in action prompt and bold,
With blo.'s, he sells, he steals, he kills, for gold.
Bidding the when sky and ocean, calm and clear,
As fancy mid his bark, one blue unbroken sphere;
My heart was g dolphins sparkle through the brine,
Save in a half-biircles o'er the waters shine;

I wandered on, scay in the heaven serene,

Till I was seated on

Alas! I knew the sweetness in the scene,

little at the glorious day,
ter on their way.

She was one of a lovely

That oft had clung around mes the billows rise,

Of flowers, the fairest of them the skies;

It was a new-made grave, and the gre king slaves
Lay loosely on it; yet affection there

Had reared the stone, her monument of fame.
I read the name-I loved to hear her lisp-
'Twas not alone, but every name was there
That lately echoed through that happy dome.
I had been three weeks absent; in that time
The merciless destroyer was at work,
And spared not one of all the infant group.
The last of all I read the grandsire's name,
On whose white locks I oft had seen her cheek
Like a bright sunbeam on a fleecy cloud,
Rekindling in his eye the fading lustre,
Breathing into his heart the glow of youth.
He died at eighty of a broken heart,

Bereft of all for whom he wished to live.

*Kythe or kithe; Show, used here as a neuter verb: The oldest English poets use it actively. "Ne kithe hire jalousie."-Chaucer.

stars, that were now out in thousands, clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain down for an hour or two in bed, could scarcely be said to have slept; and when, about morning, little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale, languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all her veins, a happy group were watching the first fair smile that broke over her features; and never did one stood there forget that Sabbath morning, on which seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of ƒ sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of hav rescued from the power of the grave.

vest;

ast.
e forest!
owly steals:

t sorest

LESSON LXXIVfeels!

om was my trust,

The Grave Stones,-A Fragffection did burn?

homes in the dust,

THE grass is green any over their urn:
solitude, languish,

And the tree blo
As death Deset me, and friends that are cold;
The pilgrim of earth oft has felt in his anguish,
That the heart may be widowed before it is old!

Affection can sooth but its votaries an hour,

Doomed soon in the flames that it raised to depart;
And ah! disappointment has poison and power
To ruffle and sour the most patient of heart.
Too oft, 'neath the barb-pointed arrows of malice,
Has merit been destined to bear and to bleed;
And they, who of pleasure have emptied the chalice,
Have found that the dregs were full bitter indeed.

Let the storms of adversity lower; 'tis in vain—

Tho' friends should forsake me, and foes should combine--
Such may kindle the breasts of the weak to complain,
They only can teach resignation to mine:

For far o'er the regions of doubt and of dreaming,
The spirit beholds a less perishing span ;

And bright through the tempest the rainbow is streaming,
The sign of forgiveness from Heaven to man!

Thus spurned, degraded, trampled, and oppress'd, The negro-exile languished in the west, With nothing left of life but hated breath, And not a hope except the hope in death, To fly for ever from the Creole-strand, And dwell a freeman in his father's land. Lives there a savage ruder than the slave? -Cruel as death, insatiate as the grave, False as the winds that round his vessel blow, Remorseless as the gulf that yawns below, is he who toils upon the wafting flood, It Christian broker in the trade of blood: Ofisterous in speech, in action prompt and bold, Tha uys, he sells, he steals, he kills, for gold. He fiion, when sky and ocean, calm and clear, Not colund his bark, one blue unbroken sphere; To enforcing dolphins sparkle through the brine, Dooms and m circles o'er the waters shine; Lands interseauty in the heaven serene, Abhor each othing sweetness in the scene, Make enemies of g at the glorious day,

Like kindred drops

Thus man devotes his

loiter on their way.
canes the billows rise,

And, worse than all, and most

the skies;

As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,

king slaves

Chains him, and tasks him, and exacts his sweat
With stripes, that Mercy, with a bleeding heart,
Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast.
Then what is man? And what man, seeing this,
And having human feelings, does not blush,
And hang his head, to think himself a man?
I would not have a slave to till my ground,
Το
carry me, to fan me while I sleep,
And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth
That sinews, bought and sold, have ever earn'd.
No: dear as freedom is, and in my
heart's
Just estimation prized above all price,

I had much rather be myself the slave,
And wear the bonds, than fasten them on him.
We have no slaves at home-then why abroad?
And they themselves once ferried o'er the wave
That parts us, are emancipate and loosed.
Slaves cannot breathe in England; if their lungs
Receive our air, that moment they are free;

stars, that were now out in thousands, clear, bright, and sparkling over the unclouded sky. Those who had lain down for an hour or two in bed, could scarcely be said to have slept; and when, about morning, little Margaret awoke, an altered creature, pale, languid, and unable to turn herself on her lowly bed, but with meaning in her eyes, memory in her mind, affection in her heart, and coolness in all her veins, a happy group were watching the first fain' smile that broke over her features; and never did one w stood there forget that Sabbath morning, on which seemed to look round upon them all with a gaze of f sweet bewilderment, like one half conscious of havi rescued from the of the grave. power

avels,

op

The Grave Stones,-A Fragffecund him lay at rest,

hoheir father's breast; ound their bed;

THE grass is grefer cottage blazed; the victims fled;
And the fang the ambush'd ruffians on their prey,
Ahey caught, they bound, they drove them far away;
The white man bought them at the mart of blood;
In pestilential barks they cross'd the flood;
Then were the wretched ones asunder torn,
To distant isles, to separate bondage borne,
Denied, though sought with tears, the sad relief
That misery loves,-the fellowship of grief.

The negro, spoiled of all that nature gave—
The freeborn man, thus shrunk into a slave;
His passive limbs to measured tasks confined,
Obeyed the impulse of another mind;
A silent, secret, terrible control,

That ruled his sinews, and repress'd his soul.
Not for himself he waked at morning light,
Toil'd the long day, and sought repose at night;
His rest, his labor, pastime, strength, and health,
Were only portions of a master's wealth;
His love-O, name not love, where Britons doom
The fruit of love to slavery from the womb.-