YOUNG PERSON WITH A WATCH
WHILE this gay toy attracts thy sight,
Thy reason let it warn;
And seize, my Dear, that rapid time
That never must return.
If idly lost, no art nor care
The blessing can restore;
And Heav'n requires a strict account
Of ev'ry mis-spent hour.
Short is our longest day of life,
And soon its prospect ends;
Yet on that day's uncertain date
Eternity depends.
Yet equal to our being's aim
The space to virtue giv❜n;
And ev'ry minute well improv❜d,
Secures an age in Heav'n.
THERE is a fountain fill'd with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel's veins!
And sinners, plung'd beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoic'd to see
That fountain in his day;
And there may I, as vile as he,
Wash all my sins away.
Dear dying Lamb! thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow'r,
"Till all the ransom'd church of God
Be sav'd, to sin no more.
E'er since, by faith, I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I'll sing thy power to save;
When this poor lisping stamm'ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave.
Lord, I believe thou hast prepar'd,
Unworthy though I be,
For me a blood-bought free reward,
A golden harp for me!
How short is the life of a man!
How soon his frail life must decay!
At best but the length of
And fades like a short winter's day.
In youth how forgetful he seems
age, that's still hurrying on;
At length he awakes from his dreams,
But ah! his best moments are gone!
Then, hurry'd away with his cares,
His life is but labour and pain;
age is the garment he wears; He wishes for youth, but in vain.
Now, crush'd with the load of his sin,
He trembles at death's cold alarms,
But just recollects where he's been,
And yields to the conqueror's arms
But reason no farther can go,-
He stands at the bar of his God:
Now sinks to the regions of woe,
Or heaven he makes his abode :
Let youth, then, no longer delay,
Since time makes so rapid a flight;
If you work while it's called to day,
You may
hail the approach of to-night.
what hourly dangers rise,
What snares beset my way
Of these, my soul, be still apprized,
And lonely watch and pray.
The world, the devil, and the flesh,
My feeble soul invade;
I find my own resistance vain
Without my Saviour's aid.
Whene'er temptations would allure,
Or fill my heart with dread,
My God, thy powerful grace impart,
To help in time of need.
May fear of Thee, and dread of sin,
My watchful soul possess;
And lively faith and joyful hope
My vigilance increase.
pray, and watch, and strive;
O bid the tempter flee!
And let me never, never stray
From happiness and Thee!
Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove :
'Twas then, by the cave of the mountain afar,
A hermit his song of the night thus began,
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, while he felt as a man.
Ah! why thus abandoned to darkness and woe,
Why thus, lonely Philomel, flows thy sad strain?
For spring shall return and a lover bestow,
And thy bosom no trace of misfortune retain.
Yet if pity inspire thee, ah, cease not thy lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn
O soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away-
Full quickly they pass, but they never return.
'Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon half extinguished, her crescent displays;
But lately I marked, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again,
But man's faded glory no change shall renew,
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!
"Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more:
I mourn, but woodlands I mourn not for you,
For morn is approaching your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn,
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save;
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!
"Twas thus by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind.
"O pity, great Father of Light," then I cried,
"Thy creature who fain would not wander from thee!
Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride,
From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."
And darkness and doubt are now flying away,
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn,
So breaks on the traveller faint and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn.
See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of death,smiles and roses are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.'
[MONTGOMERY.]
HIGHER, higher, will we climb
Up the mount of glory,
That our name may live through time,
In our country's story;
Happy when her welfare calis
He who conquers, he who falls.
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