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Dreams cannot picture a world so fair,-
Sorrow and death may not enter there;
Time doth not breathe on its fadeless bloom;
Far beyond the clouds, and beyond the tomb-
It is there, it is there, my child!"

THE HOUR OF DEATH.

LEAVES have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,

And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Day is for mortal care,

Eve for glad meetings round the joyous hearth,

Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer: But all for thee, thou mightiest of the earth.

The banquet hath its hour,

Its feverish hour of mirth, and song, and wine;
There comes a day for grief's o'erwhelming power,
A time for softer tears,-but all are thine.

Youth and the opening rose

May look like things too glorious for decay,

And smile at thee-but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

We know when moons shall wane,

When summer-birds from far shall cross the sea,

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grain : But who shall teach us when to look for thee?

Is it when spring's first gale

Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie?

Is it when roses in our paths grow pale ?— They have one season-all are ours to die!

Thou art where billows foam,

Thou art where music melts upon the air;

Thou art around us in our peaceful home, And the world calls us forth-and thou art there.

Thou art where friend meets friend, Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest,

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north-wind's breath,

And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

HYMN OF THE MOUNTAIN CHRISTIAN.

FOR the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!
Thou hast made thy children mighty

By the touch of the mountain sod.

Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge

Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod;
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

We are watchers of a beacon

Whose lights must never die;

We are guardians of an altar

Midst the silence of the sky;

The rocks yield founts of courage,
Struck forth as by thy rod,-

For the strength of the hills we bless thee.
Our God, our fathers' God!

For the dark, resounding heavens,

Where thy still small voice is heard, For the strong pines of the forests,

That by thy breath are stirred; For the storms on whose free pinions Thy spirit walks abroad,—

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

The royal eagle darteth

On his quarry from the heights, And the stag that knows no master Seeks there his wild delights;

But we for thy communion

Have sought the mountain sod,

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

The banner of the chieftain

Far, far below us waves;

The war-horse of the spearman

Cannot reach our lofty caves;

Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold
Of freedom's last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

For the shadow of thy presence

Round our camp of rock outspread;

For the stern defiles of battle,

Bearing record of our dead;

For the snows, and for the torrents,
For the free heart's burial sod,

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

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MRS. SIGOURNEY, formerly Miss Lydia Huntley, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, about the year 1794, and in 1819 was married to Mr. Charles Sigourney, an opulent merchant of Hartford, in which city she now resides. She began to write verses at a very early age, and in 1815 gave to the press her first book, under the title of "Moral Pieces." She has since published six or seven volumes in verse, and about as many in prose. "The Aborigines," her longest poem, appeared anonymously, at Cambridge, and attracted but little attention. During a visit which she made to Europe in 1840--41, a selection from her poetical writings was printed in London, and soon after her return, in 1842, the most finished and sustained of her longer poems, "Pocahontas," was published in a volume with some minor pieces, in New York. Among her prose works are "Connecticut Forty Years Since," "Letters to Young Ladies,' Letters to Mothers," "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands,' Scenes in My Native Land," and "Myrtis, and other Sketchings," the last of which appeared in the fall of 1846. In a reviewal of the poems of Mrs. Sigourney, published by the late Hon. Alexander H. Everett, this accomplished critic remarks that "they commonly express, with great purity, and evident sincerity, the tender affections which are so natural to the female heart, and the lofty aspirations after a higher and better state of being, which constitute the truly ennobling and elevating principle in art, as well as in nature. Love and religion are the unvarying elements of her song. This is saying, in other words, that the substance of her poetry is of the very highest order. If her powers of expression were equal to the purity and elevation of her habits of thought and feeling, she would be a female Milton, or a Christian Pindar." A full and splendidly illustrated edition of the Poetical Works of Mrs. Sigourney, has just been published by Carey & Hart, of Philadelphia.

BARZILLAI THE GILEADITE.

"Let me be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother."-2 Sam. xix. 37. SON of Jesse!-let me go,

Why should princely honors stay me?—

Where the streams of Gilead flow,

Where the light first met mine eye,

Thither would I turn and die ;

Where my parents' ashes lie,

King of Israel!-bid them lay me.

Bury me near my sire revered,

Whose feet in righteous paths so firmly trod,
Who early taught my soul with awe
To heed the prophets and the law,
And to my infant heart appeared
Majestic as a God :—

O! when his sacred dust

The cerements of the tomb shall burst,
Might I be worthy at his feet to rise
To yonder blissful skies,

Where angel-hosts resplendent shine, Jehovah !—Lord of hosts, the glory shall be thine.

Cold age upon my breast
Hath shed a frostlike death;

The wine-cup hath no zest,

The rose no fragrant breath;

Music from my ear hath fled,

Yet still the sweet tone lingereth there.

The blessing that my mother shed

Upon my evening prayer.

Dim is my wasted eye

To all that beauty brings,

The brow of grace-the form of symmetry

Are half-forgotten things;—

Yet one bright hue is vivid still,

A mother's holy smile, that soothed my sharpest ill.

Memory, with traitor-tread

Methinks, doth steal away

Treasures that the mind hath laid
Up for a wintry day.

Images of sacred power,

Cherished deep in passion's hour,

Faintly now my bosom stir:

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