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He died but two years afterwards, enjoying in his last moments the strong consolations of that religion by which his life had been regulated.

Much of Grahame's finest poetry is devotional and religious in its character, and it is all delightful for its excellent moral tendency. The Sabbath is one of the most pleasing poems in the English language. The subject itself, in its very nature, is all poetry, and Grahame has displayed a soft and sweet fancy, a mild enthusiasm for its rural and domestic attractions, and a refined, discriminating taste generally, in the selection and exhibition of its most interesting scenes. The morning of the Sabbath, its progress, its various services and some of its beautiful rites, the feelings with which it is hailed by different classes of men and in various circumstances, its romantic solemnity and sacred power amidst the persecuted covenanters, the Sabbath jubilee of the Jews, the Sabbath evening in Scotland, and many other scenes are pourtrayed with deep feeling and appropriate colouring and imagery.

Many of his minor pieces are excellent. He is simple and unaffected both in thought and language, and his descriptions are natural and just. He exhibits great tenderness of sentiment, which runs through all his writings, and sometimes deepens into a very affecting pathos.

SABBATH MORNING.

How still the morning of the hallow'd day!
Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush'd

The ploughboy's whistle, and the milk-maid's song.
The scythe lies glittering in the dewy wreath
Of tedded grass, mingled with fading flowers,
That yester-morn bloom'd waving in the breeze.
Sounds the most faint attract the ear-
-the hum
Of early bee, the trickling of the dew,
The distant bleating midway up the hill.
Calmness sits throned on yon unmoving cloud.
To him who wanders o'er the upland leas,

The blackbird's note comes mellower from the dale;
And sweeter from the sky the gladsome lark
Warbles his heaven-tuned song; the lulling brook
Murmurs more gently down the deep-worn glen;
While from yon lowly roof, whose curling smoke
O'ermounts the mist, is heard at intervals,

The voice of psalms-the simple song of praise.

With dove-like wings, Peace o'er yon village broods;
The dizzying mill-wheel rests; the anvil's din
Hath ceased; all, all around is quietness.
Less fearful on this day, the limping hare

Stops, and looks back, and stops, and looks on man,

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STUDIES IN POETRY.

Her deadliest foe. The toil-worn horse, set free,
Unheedful of the pasture, roams at large;
And, as his stiff unwieldy bulk he rolls,
His iron-armed hoofs gleam in the morning ray

But chiefly man the day of rest enjoys.
Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
On other days the man of toil is doom'd

To eat his joyless bread, lonely; the ground
Both seat and board; screen'd from the winter's cold
And summer's heat, by neighbouring hedge or tree;
But on this day, embosom'd in his home,

He shares the frugal meal with those he loves;
With those he loves he shares the heart-felt joy
Of giving thanks to God—not thanks of from,
A word and a grimace, but reverently,
With cover'd face and upward earnest eye.

Hail, Sabbath! thee I hail, the poor man's day.
The pale mechanic now has leave to breathe
The morning air, pure from the city's smoke;
While, wandering slowly up the river side,
He meditates on Him, whose power he marks
In each green tree that proudly spreads the bough,
As in the tiny dew-bent flowers that bloom
Around its roots; and while he thus surveys,
With elevated joy, each rural charm,

He hopes, yet fears presumption in the hope,
That heaven may be one Sabbath without end.

THE SCOTTISH SERVICE AT CHURCH.

BUT now his steps a welcome sound recalls: Solemn the knell, from yonder ancient pile, Fills all the air, inspiring joyful awe:

Slowly the throng moves o'er the tomb-paved ground,
The aged man, the bowed down, the blind

Led by the thoughtless boy, and he who breathes
With pain, and eyes the new-made grave well pleased;
These mingled with the young, the gay, approach
The house of God; these, spite of all their ills,
A glow of gladness feel; with silent praise
They enter in. A placid stillness reigns,
Until the man of God, worthy the name,
Arise and read the annointed shepherd's lays.
His locks of snow, his brow serene, his look

Pursues the swallow flitting thwart the dome."
Loud swells the song: O how that simple song,
Though rudely chanted, how it melts the heart,
Commingling soul with soul in one full tide
Of praise, of thankfulness, of humble trust!
Next comes the unpremeditated prayer,
Breathed from the inmost heart, in accents low,
But earnest.-Alter'd is the tone; to man
Are now address'd the sacred speaker's words.
Instruction, admonition, comfort, peace,

Flow from his tongue: O chief let comfort flow!
It is most needed in this vale of tears:

Yes, make the widow's heart to sing for joy;
The stranger to discern the Almighty's shield
Help o'er his friendless head; the orphan child
Feel, 'mid his tears, I have a father still!
'Tis done. But hark that infant querulous voice
Plaint not discordant to a parent's ear;

And see the father raise the white-robed babe
In solemn dedication to the Lord:

The holy man sprinkles with forth-stretch'd hand
The face of innocence; then earnest turns,
And prays a blessing in the name of Him
Who said, Let little children come to me;
Forbid them not: The infant is replaced
Among the happy band: they, smilingly,
In gay attire, hie to the house of mirth,
The poor man's festival, a jubilee day,
Remember'd long.

THE WORSHIP OF GOD, IN THE SOLITUDE OF THE WOODS.

It is not only in the sacred fane

That homage should be paid to the Most High;
There is a temple, one not made with hands-
The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city chime,
At intervals heard through the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
When not a floweret bends its little stalk,
Save where the bee alights upon the bloom;—
There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,
The man of God will pass the Sabbath noon;
Silence his praise; his disembodied thoughts,
Loosed from the load of words, will high ascend
Beyond the empyrean-

Nor yet less pleasing at the heavenly throne,
The Sabbath-service of the shepherd-boy,

In some lone glen, where every sound is lull'd
To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill,
Or bleat of lamb, or hovering falcon's cry,
Stretch'd on the sward, he reads of Jesse's son ;
Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold,

And wonders why he weeps; the volume closed,
With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings
The sacred lays, his weekly lesson, conn'd
With meikle care beneath the lowly roof,
Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth
Pines unrewarded by a thankless state.
Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen,
The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps,
Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands
Returning homeward from the house of prayer.

PERSECUTION AND SABBATH OF THE COVENANTERS.

WITH them each day was holy, every hour
They stood prepared to die, a people doom'd
To death;-old men, and youths, and simple maids.
With them each day was holy; but that morn
On which the angel said, See where the Lord
Was laid, joyous arose; to die that day

Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways,

O'er hills, through woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought The upland muirs, where rivers, there but brooks, Dispart to different seas: Fast by such brooks

A little glen is sometimes scoop'd, a plat

With green sward gay, and flowers that strangers seem
Amid the heathery wild, that all around
Fatigues the eye; in solitudes like these,
Thy persecuted children, Scotia, foil'd
A tyrant's and a bigot's bloody laws:

There, leaning on his spear, (one of the array,
Whose gleam, in former days, had scathed the rose
On England's banner, and had powerless struck
The infatuate monarch and his wavering host,)
The lyart veteran heard the word of God
By Cameron thunder'd, or by Renwick pour'd
In gentle stream; then rose the song, the loud
Acclaim of praise. The wheeling plover ceased
Her plaint; The solitary place was glad,
And on the distant cairns the watcher's ear
Caught doubtfully at times the breeze-borne note.
But years more gloomy follow'd; and no more
The assembled people dared, in face of day,
To worship God, or even at the dead

Of night, save when the wintry storm raved fierce,
And thunder-peals compell'd the men of blood

To couch within their dens; then dauntlessly
The scatter'd few would meet, in some deep dell
By rocks o'er-canopied, to hear the voice,
Their faithful pastor's voice: He by the gleam
Of sheeted lightning oped the sacred book,
And words of comfort spake: Over their souls
His accents soothing came,-as to her young
The heathfowl's plumes, when at the close of eve,
She gathers in, mournful, her brood dispersed
By murderous sport, and o'er the remnant spreads
Fondly her wings; close nestling 'neath her breast,
They, cherish'd, cower amid the purple blooms.

THE FUNERAL SERVICE.

1

BUT wood and wild, the mountain and the dale,
The house of prayer itself,-no place inspires
Emotions more accordant with the day,
Than does the field of graves, the land of rest :-
Oft at the close of evening-prayer, the toll,
The solemn funeral-toll, pausing, proclaims
The service of the tomb: the homeward crowds
Divide on either hand; the pomp draws near;
The choir to meet the dead go forth, and sing,
I am the resurrection and the life.

Ah me! these youthful bearers robed in white,
They tell a mournful tale; some blooming friend
Is gone, dead in her prime of years:-'T was she,
The poor man's friend, who, when she could not give,
With angel tongue pleaded to those who could:
With angel tongue and mild beseeching eye,
That ne'er besought in vain, save when she pray'd
For longer life, with heart resign'd to die,—
Rejoiced to die; for happy visions bless'd
Her voyage's last days, and hovering round
Alighted on her soul, giving presage
That heaven was nigh:-O what a burst
Of rapture from her lips! what tears of joy

Her heaven-ward eyes suffused! Those eyes are closed;

But all her loveliness is not yet flown:

She smiled in death, and still her cold pale face
Retains that smile; as when a waveless lake,
In which the wintry stars all bright appear,
Is sheeted by a nightly frost with ice,
Still it reflects the face of heaven unchanged,
Unruffled by the breeze or sweeping blast.
Again that knell! The slow procession stops:
The pall withdrawn, Death's altar, thick emboss'd
With melancholy ornaments-(the name,

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