I stood not by thy feverish bed,

I looked not on thy glazing eye, Nor gently lulled thy aching head,

Nor viewed thy dying agony ; I felt not what my parents felt,

The doubt-the terror-the distress ;-
Nor vaiply for my brother knelt ;-

My soul was spared 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 crushed affection cease to smart.
Again I joined 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 every deeper shade of pain
Had vanished 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 every eye but mine were gleaming; But I, amidst that youthful band

Of bounding hearts and beaming eyes,
Nor smiled nor spoke at joy's command,

Nor felt those wonted ecstacies!
I loved my home, but trembled now
To view my father's altered brow;
I feared to meet my mother's eye,
And hear her voice of agony;
I feared to view my native spot,
Where he who loved it now was not.

"The pleasures of my home were fled ;-
My brother slumbered with the dead.
I drew near to my father's gate;

No smiling faces met me now,
I entered, -all was desolate,

Grief sat upon my mother's brow; I heard her, as she kissed me, sigh; A tear stood in my father's eye; My little brothers round me pressed, In gay, unthinking childhood blessed Long, long, that hour has passed; but when Shall I forget its gloomy scene ! The Sabbath came. With mournful face I sought my brother's burial-place; That shrine, which when I last had viewed, In vigour by my side he stood. I gazed around with fearful eye: All things reposed in sanctity. I reached the chancel,-nought was changed :: The altar decently arranged, The pure white cloth above the shrine, The consecrated bread and wine, All was the same. I found no trace Of sorrow in that holy place. One hurried glance I downward gave, My foot was on my brother's grave!

And years have passed—and thou art now

Forgotten in thy silent tomb;
And cheerful is my mother's brow;

My father's eye has lost its gloom ;
And years have passed--and death has laid

Another victim by thy side;
With thee he roams, an infant shade,
But not more pure than thee he died.

Blest are ye both! your ashes rest
Beside the spot ye loved the best ;
And that dear home, which saw your birth,
O'erlooks you in your bed of earth.
But who can tell what blissful shore
Your angel-spirits wander o'er!
And who can tell what raptures high
Now bless your immortality!
My boyish days are nearly gone;

My breast is not unsullied now;
And worldly, cares and woes will soon

Cut their deep furrows on my brow,-
And life will take a darker hue
From ills my brother never knew;
And I have made me bosom friends,

And loved, and linked my heart with others.;
But who with mine his spirit blends,

As mine was blended with my brother's !
When years of rapture glided by,

The spring of life's unclouded weather,
Our souls were knit, and thou and I,

My brother, grew in love together.
The chain is broke that bound us then;
When shall I find its like again!

ON THE WONDERS OF REDEMPTION.

Thou most indulgent, most tremendous Power! Still more tremendous, for thy wondrous love! That arms, with awe more awful, thy commands ; And foul transgression dips in sevenfold night; How our hearts tremble at thy love immense! In love immense, inviolably just! Thou, rather than thy justice should be stained, Did'st stain the cross; and work of wonders far

The greatest, that thy dearest far might bleed.

Bold thought! shall I dare speak it, or repress? Should man more execrate, or boast, the guilt Which roused such vengeance? which such love in

flamed ?
O'er guilt (how mountainous !) with out-stretched arms,
Stern justice, and soft-smiling love embrace,
Supporting, in full majesty, thy throne,
When seemed its majesty to need support,
Or that, or man, inevitably lost :
What, but the fathomless of thought divine,
Could labour such expedient from despair,
And rescue both ? Both rescue! both exalt!
O how are both exalted by the deed !
The wondrous deed! or shall I call it more?
A wonder in Omnipotence itself
A mystery no less to gods than men!

Not thus, our infidels the eternal draw,
A God all o'er, consummate, absolute,
Full-orbed, in his whole round of rays complete :
They set at odds heaven's jarring attributes ;
And, with one excellence, another wound;
Maim heaven's perfection, break its equal beams,
Bid mercy triumph over-God himself,
Undeified by their opprobrious praise :
A God all mercy, is a God unjust.

Ye brainless wits ! ye baptized infidels !
Ye worse for mending! washed to fouler stains !
The ransom was paid down; the fund of heaven,
Heaven's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,
Amazing, and amazed, poured forth the price,
All price beyond : though curious to compute,
Archangels failed to cast the mighty sum :
Its value vast, ungrasped by minds create,
For ever hides, and glows, in the Supreme.
. And was the ransom paid ? It was : and paid
(What can exalt the bounty more?) for you.

T'he sun beheld it—no, the shocking scene
Drove back his chariot : midnight veiled his face ;
Not such as this; not such as nature makes ;
A midnight nature shuddered to behold;
A midnight new ; a dread eclipse (without
Opposing spheres) from her Creator's frown !
Sun ! didst thou fly thy Maker's pain ? or start
At that enormous load of human guilt,
Which bowed his blessed head ; o'erwhelmed his cross;
Made groan the centre; burst earth's marble womb,
With pangs, strange pangs ! delivered of her dead ?
Hell howled ; and Heaven that hour let fall a tear;
Heaven wept, that man might smile! Heaven bled, that

man
Might never die !--

And is devotion virtue ? 'Tis compelled : What heart of stone but glows at thoughts like these ? Such contemplations mount us; and should mount The mind still higher; nor ever glance on man, Unraptured, uninflamed. - Where roll my thoughts To rest from wonders ? Other wonders rise; And strike where'er they roll: my soul is caught : Heaven's sovereign blessings, clustering from the cross, Rush on her, in a throng, and close her round, The prisoner of amaze !-In his blest life, I see the path, and, in his death, the price, And in his great ascent, the proof supreme Of immortality.--And did he rise ? Hear, O ye nations ! hear it, o ye dead ! He rose ! he rose ! He burst the bars of death. Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates ! And give the king of glory to come in. Who is the king of glory? He who left His ihrone of glory, for the pang of death : Lift up your heads, ye everlasting gates ! And give the king of glory to come in. Who is the king of glory? He who slew