TO HIS WIFE:

If thou wert by my side, my love,
How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's palmy grove,
Listening the nightingale!

If thou, my love, wert by my side,
My babies at my knee,

How gayly would our pinnace glide
O'er Gunga's mimic sea!

I miss thee at the dawning gray,
When, on our deck reclined,
In careless case my limbs I lay,
And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream
My twilight steps I guide;

But most beneath the lamp's pale beam
I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,
The lingering noon to cheer,
But miss thy kind approving eye,
Thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn and eve the star
Beholds me on my knee,

I feel, though thou art distant far,
Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on! then on! where duty leads,
My course be onward still;

On broad Hindostan's sultry meads,
O'er bleak Almorah's hill.

That course nor Delhi's kingly gates
Nor mild Mulwah detain;

For sweet the bliss us both awaits
By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say,
Across the dark blue sea;

But ne'er were hearts so light and gay
As then shall meet in thee !!

1" Marriage is an institution calculated for a constant scene of as much delight as our being is capable of. Two persons who have chosen each other out of all the species, with design to be each other's mutual comfort and entertainment, have in that action bound themselves to be good-humored, affable, discreet, forgiving, patient, and joyful, with respect to each other's frailties and imperfections, to the end of their lives. The wiser of the two (and it always happens one of them is such) will, for her or his own sake, keep things from outrage with the utmost sanctity. When

this union is thus preserved (as I have often said), the most indifferent circumstance administers delight. Their condition is an endless source of new gratifications. The married man can say, 'If I am unacceptable to all the world beside, there is one whom I entirely love, that will receive me with joy and transport, and think herself obliged to double her kindness and caresses of me from the gloom with which she sees me overcast. I need not dissemble the sorrow of my heart to be agree‐ able there: that very sorrow quickens her affection.'"-STEELE: Spectator, No. 490.

ON THE DEATH OF HIS BROTHER.

Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,
Though sorrows and darkness encompass the tomb!

Thy Saviour has pass'd through its portal before thee,

And the lamp of his love is thy guide through the gloom!

Thou art gone to the grave! we no longer behold thee,
Nor tread the rough paths of the world by thy side;
But the wide arms of Mercy are spread to enfold thee,
And sinners may die, for the Sinless has died.

Thou art gone to the grave! and, its mansion forsaking,
Perchance thy weak spirit in fear linger'd long;

But the mild rays of Paradise beam'd on thy waking,
And the sound which thou heard'st was the Seraphim's song!

Thou art gone to the grave! but we will not deplore thee,
Whose God was thy ransom, thy guardian and guide;
He gave thee, he took thee, and he will restore thee,
And death has no sting, for the Saviour has died!1

EPIPHANY.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid!
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,

Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid!

Cold on his cradle the dew-drops are shining,
Low lies his head with the beasts of the stall!
Angels adore him in slumber reclining,

Maker, and Monarch, and Saviour of all!

Say, shall we yield him, in costly devotion,
Odors of Edom, and offerings divine?
Gems of the mountain, and pearls of the ocean,
Myrrh from the forest, or gold from the mine?

Vainly we offer each ample oblation;

Vainly with gifts would his favor secure;
Richer by far is the heart's adoration,

Dearer to God are the prayers of the poor.

Brightest and best of the sons of the morning,
Dawn on our darkness, and lend us thine aid!
Star of the East, the horizon adorning,

Guide where our infant Redeemer is laid!

The following stanzas were written as an addition to the above hymn, by an English clergy. tan, on hearing of the decease of the author:

"Thon art gone to the grave! and whole nations bemoan thee,
Who caught from thy lips the glad tidings of peace:
Yet, grateful, they still in their hearts shall enthrone thee,
And ne'er shall thy name from their memories cease.

"Thon art gone to the grave! but thy work shall not perish,-
That work which the Spirit of wisdom hath blest;
His strength shall sustain it, His comfort shall cherish,
And make it to prosper, though thou art at rest.”

The following are the first lines of other of his beautiful hymns:

"Bread of the world, in mercy broken;"
"Beneath our feet, and o'er our head;"
"6 By cool Siloam's shady rill;"
"From Greenland's icy mountains;"
"I praised the earth in beauty seen;"
"The God of glory walks his round."

ROBERT POLLOK, 1799-1827.

IN 1827 the world was startled by the appearance of a new epic,-a religion poem in blank verse, entitled The Course of Time, by Robert Pollok, a your clergyman of the Scottish Secession Church. Few works before ever becam so rapidly and extensively popular. It was read with eagerness by all classe and passed through numerous editions; and by many it was pronounced th finest poem that had appeared in our language since the Paradise Lost. Som even went so far as to claim for the author a genius and a power equal to Mi ton's. This, of course, was ridiculously extravagant. But, after the first excit ment passed away, the literary world settled down in the well-matured co viction that The Course of Time is a poem of extraordinary power, and destine to maintain its place among the best English classics.1

Robert Pollok, the son of a farmer in Renfrewshire,2 Scotland, was born i the year 1799. While a mere boy he was remarkably thoughtful, and from very early age displayed a taste for the beauties of nature and a capacity fo enjoying them by no means common. After going through the ordinary pre paratory studies, he was sent to the University of Glasgow, where for five year he studied theology, under Dr. Dick. He had hardly entered upon his pro fessional duties when his health, enfeebled by excessive application to his studie and in the composition of his great poem, became so much impaired that h friends urged him to try the climate of Southern Europe. He, therefore, short! after the publication of his poem, in 1827, in company with his sister, departe on his journey. But he was enabled to get no farther than to the south of En land. His disease (consumption) increased to such a degree as to preclude a hope of recovery; and his death took place at Shirley Common, Southampto on the 18th of September, 1827.3

Few youthful poets have excited so much interest as Robert Pollok. Lil Henry Kirke White, he died young. Like him, his muse was the handma

"The Course of Time is a very extraordinary poem,-vast in its conception, vast in its plan, vast in its materials, and vast, if very far from perfect, in its achievement. The wonderful thing is, indeed, that it is such as we find it, and not that its imperfections are numerous. It has nothing at all savoring of the little or conventional about it; for he passed at once from the merely elegant and graceful. With Young, Blair, and Cowper for his guides, his muse strove with unwearied wing to attain the high, severe, serene region of Milton; and he was at least successful in earnestness of purpose, in solemnity of tone, and in vigor and variety of illustration."-D. M. MOIR.

On the western coast of Scotland, due w from Edinburgh.

3" Poor Pollok gave his manuscript to press from a dying hand. Several of the be had been copied over for him by a fem hand, on account of his increasing debil On the 24th of March, 1827, The Course of was given to the world; and on the 18th September of the same year its author removed from it. But not only had he lived in vain the great object of his life been accomplished in the publication of poem; and it is pleasant to know that news of its success shed a sunshine aroun early death-bed."-MOIR.

of virtue and religion, to both of which his studies were consecrated. On him, as on White, consumption "laid her hand," and he as constantly "nursed the pinion that impelled the steel." Each fell a martyr to too severe application to study; and each will be remembered and loved as long as genius united to virtue and piety has friends among men.

The Course of Time is in ten books, the object of the poet being to describe the spiritual life and destiny of man; and he varies his religious speculations with episodical pictures and narratives, to illustrate the effects of virtue and vice. It has been said, "The whole story may be given in a sentence. Many ages after the end of our world, a spirit from one of the numerous worlds existing in space, on his flight toward heaven, discovers the abode of lost men in bell. Reaching heaven, he inquires of two spirits, who welcome his arrival there, what is the meaning of the wretchedness he had just witnessed. The two, unable fully to answer, conduct the inquirer to a bard who once lived on earth, and he, in answering their inquiries, relates the history of man, from the creation to the judgment." This plan, simple and limited as to plot, is boundless as to range; and the imagination, unfettered, soars far and wide. Though as a whole the poem is unequal, it abounds with passages that will always rank high and be read with interest; and if many may not agree with some of the author's religious speculations, all will unite in gratitude for what he has done, and in sincere regret that his life was not spared longer to do more to make mankind wiser and better.

HAPPINESS.

True Happiness had no localities,
No tones provincial, no peculiar garb.
Where Duty went, she went, with Justice went,
And went with Meekness, Charity, and Love.
Where'er a tear was dried, a wounded heart
Bound up, a bruiséd spirit with the dew
Of sympathy anointed, or a pang
Of honest suffering soothed, or injury
Repeated oft, as oft by love forgiven;
Where'er an evil passion was subdued,
Or Virtue's feeble embers fann'd; where'er
A sin was heartily abjured and left;
Where'er a pious act was done, or breathed
A pious prayer, or wish'd a pious wish;
There was a high and holy place, a spot
Of sacred light, a most religious fane,
Where Happiness, descending, sat and smiled.

THE MISER.

But there was one in folly further gone;
With eye awry, incurable, and wild,
The laughing-stock of devils and of men,
And by his guardian-angel quite given up,-
The Miser, who with dust inanimate

Held wedded intercourse. Ill-guided wretch
Thou might'st have seen him at the midnight hour,
When good men slept and in light-winged dreams

Ascended up to God,-in wasteful hall,
With vigilance and fasting worn to skin

And bone, and wrapp'd in most debasing rags,-
Thou might'st have seen him bending o'er his heaps,
And holding strange communion with his gold;
And as his thievish fancy seem'd to hear
The night-man's foot approach, starting alarm'd,
And in his old, decrepit, wither'd hand,
That palsy shook, grasping the yellow earth
To make it sure. Of all God made upright,
And in their nostrils breathed a living soul,
Most fallen, most prone, most earthy, most debased,
Of all that sold Eternity for Time,

None bargain'd on so easy terms with death.
Illustrious fool! Nay, most inhuman wretch!
He sat among his bags, and, with a look

Which Hell might be ashamed of, drove the poor
Away unalms'd; and midst abundance died,-
Sorest of evils,-died of utter want!

FRIENDS.

Some I remember, and will ne'er forget;
My early friends, friends of my evil day;
Friends in my mirth, friends in my misery too;
Friends given by God in mercy and in love;
My counsellors, my comforters, and guides,
My joy in grief, my second bliss in joy;
Companions of my young desires; in doubt
My oracles, my wings in high pursuit.
Oh, I remember, and will ne'er forget
Our meeting spots, our chosen sacred hours,
Our burning words that utter'd all the soul,
Our faces beaming with unearthly love;
Sorrow with sorrow sighing, hope with hope
Exulting, heart embracing heart entire.
As birds of social feather helping each
His fellow's flight, we soar'd into the skies,
And cast the clouds beneath our feet, and earth,
With all her tardy leaden-footed cares,

And talk'd the speech, and ate the food, of heaven!
These I remember, these selectest men,

And would their names record; but what avails
My mention of their names? Before the throne
They stand illustrious 'mong the loudest harps,
And will receive thee glad, my friend and theirs,-
For all are friends in heaven, all faithful friends;
And many friendships in the days of time
Begun, are lasting here, and growing still;
So grows ours ever more, both theirs and mine.

AN AUTUMN EVENING-A MAIDEN'S PRAYER.
It was an eve of autumn's holiest mood.
The corn-fields, bathed in Cynthia's silver light,
Stood ready for the reaper's gathering hand;