LAST RITES.

By the mighty minster's bell,
Tolling with a sudden swell;

By the colours half-mast high,
O'er the sea hung mournfully;

Know, a prince hath died!

By the drum's dull muffl'd sound, By the arms that sweep the ground,

By the volleying muskets' tone,

Speak ye of a soldier gone

In his manhood's pride.

By the chanted psalm that fills

Reverently the ancient hills,*

Learn, that from his harvests done,

Peasants bear a brother on

To his last repose.

By the pall of snowy white

Through the yew-trees gleaming bright;

By the garland on the bier,

Weep! a maiden claims thy tear—

Broken is the rose!

Which is the tenderest rite of all?

Buried virgin's coronal,

Requiem o'er the monarch's head,

Farewell gun for warrior dead,

Herdsman's funeral hymn?

A custom still retained at rural funerals, in some parts of Eng

land and Wales.

Tells not each of human wo!

Each of hope and strength brought low?

Number each with holy things,

If one chastening thought it brings,

Ere life's day grow dim!

THE HEBREW MOTHER.

THE rose was in rich bloom on Sharon's plain, When a young mother, with her first-born, thence Went up to Zion; for the boy was vow'd

Unto the Temple service :-by the hand

She led him, and her silent soul, the while,
Oft as the dewy laughter of his eye

Met her sweet serious glance, rejoic'd to think
That aught so pure, so beautiful, was hers,
To bring before her God. So pass'd they on,
O'er Judah's hills; and wheresoe'er the leaves
Of the broad sycamore made sounds at noon,
Like lulling rain-drops, or the olive boughs,
With their cool dimness, cross'd the sultry blue
Of Syria's heaven, she paus'd, that he might rest;

Yet from her own meek eyelids chas'd the sleep

That weigh'd their dark fringe down, to sit and watch
The crimson deepening o'er his cheek's repose,

As at a red flower's heart. And where a fount
Lay like a twilight star 'midst palmy shades,
Making its bank green gems along the wild,
There, too, she linger'd, from the diamond wave
Drawing bright water for his rosy lips,

And softly parting clusters of jet curls

To bathe his brow. At last the Fane was reach'd,
The Earth's One Sanctuary-and rapture hush'd

Her bosom, as before her, through the day,
It rose, a mountain of white marble, steep'd
In light, like floating gold. But when that hour
Wan'd to the farewell moment, when the boy
Lifted, through rainbow-gleaming tears, his eye
Beseechingly to hers, and half in fear

Turn'd from the white-rob'd priest, and round her arm
Clung ev'n as joy clings-the deep spring-tide

Of nature then swell'd high, and o'er her child