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"It avails not," Frithiof answered; "in the North are other swords;

Sharp, O monarch, is the sword's tongue, and it speaks not peace

ful words,

Murky spirits dwell in steel-blades, spirits from the Niffelhem, Slumber is not safe before them, silver locks but anger them."

Spanish.

COPLAS DE MANRIQUE.

OH, let the soul her slumbers break,
Let thought be quickened and awake:
Awake to see

How soon this life is past and gone,
And death comes softly stealing on,
How silently!

Swiftly our pleasures glide away,
Our hearts recall the distant day

With many sighs;

The moments that are speeding fast

We heed not, but the past,-the past,

More highly prize.

Onward its course the present keeps,

Onward the constant current sweeps,

Till life is done;

And, did we judge of time aright,
The past and future in their flight
Would be as one.

Let no one fondly dream again,

That Hope and all her shadowy train
Will not decay;

N

Fleeting as were the dreams of old,
Remembered like a tale that's told,
They pass away.

Our lives are rivers, gliding free
To that unfathomed boundless sea,
The silent grave!

Thither, all earthly pomp and boast
Roll, to be swallowed up and lost
In one dark wave.

Thither the mighty torrents stray,
Thither the brook pursues its way,
And tinkling rill.

There all are equal. Side by side
The poor man and the son of pride
Lie calm and still.

I will not here invoke the throng
Of orators and sons of song,

The deathless few;

Fiction entices and deceives,

And sprinkled o'er her fragrant leaves
Lies poisonous dew.

To One alone my thoughts arise,

The Eternal Truth,-the Good and Wise,

To Him I cry,

Who shared on earth our common lot,

But the world comprehended not
His deity.

This world is but the rugged road
Which leads us to the bright abode
Of peace above;

So let us choose that narrow way
Which leads no traveller's foot astray
From realms of love.

Our cradle is the starting-place,

In life we run the onward race,

And reach the goal;

When, in the mansions of the blest,

Death leaves to its eternal rest

The weary soul.

Did we but use it as we ought,

This world would school each wandering thought

To its high state.

Faith wings the soul beyond the sky,

Up to that better world on high,

For which we wait.

Yes, the glad messenger of love,
To guide us to our home above,
The Saviour came;

Born amid mortal cares and fears,
He suffered in this vale of tears
A death of shame..

Behold of what delusive worth

The bubbles we pursue on earth,

The shapes we chase,

Amid a world of treachery!

They vanish ere death shuts the eye,

And leave no trace.

Time steals them from us,-chances strange,

Disastrous accidents, and change,

That come to all;

Even in the most exalted state,

Relentless sweeps the stroke of fate;

The strongest fall.

Tell me, the charms that lovers seek
In the clear eye and blushing cheek,

The hues that play

O'er rosy lip and brow of snow,

When hoary age approaches slow,

Ah, where are they?

The cunning skill, the curious arts,

The glorious strength that youth imparts

In life's first stage;

These shall become a heavy weight,

When Time swings wide his outward gate

To weary age.

The noble blood of Gothic name,
Heroes emblazoned high to fame,
In long array;

Fears not the wingèd crowd, in the midst of them all is her homestead.

Therefore love and believe; for works will follow spontaneous, Even as day does the sun; the right from the good is an offspring, Love in a bodily shape; and Christian works are no more than Animate love and faith, as flowers are the animate spring-tide. Works do follow us all unto God; there stand and bear witness Not what they seemed, but what they were only. Blessed is he who

Hears their confession secure; they are mute upon earth until death's hand

Opens the mouth of the silent. Ye children, does death e'er alarm you?

Death is the brother of love, twin-brother is he, and is only

More austere to behold. With a kiss upon lips that are fading
Takes he the soul and departs, and rocked in the arms of affection,
Places the ransomed child, new born, 'fore the face of its Father.
Sounds of his coming already I hear,-see dimly his pinions,
Swart as the night, but with stars strewn upon them! I fear not
before him.

Death is only release, and in mercy is mute. On his bosom
Freer breathes, in its coolness, my breast; and face to face standing
Look I on God as he is, a sun unpolluted by vapours;
Look on the light of the ages I loved, the spirits majestic,
Nobler, better than I; they stand by the throne all transfigured,
Vested in white, and with harps of gold, and are singing an anthem,
Writ in the climate of heaven, in the language spoken by angels.
You, in like manner, ye children beloved, he one day shall gather,
Never forgets he the weary;-then welcome, ye loved ones, here-
after !

Meanwhile forget not the keeping of vows, forget not the promise,
Wander from holiness onward to holiness; earth shall ye heed not;
Earth is but dust, and heaven is light; I have pledged you to
heaven.

God of the Universe, hear me ! thou fountain of love everlasting, Hark to the voice of thy servant! I send up my prayer to thy heaven!

Let me hereafter not miss at thy throne one spirit of all these, Whom thou hast given me here! I have loved them all like a

father.

May they bear witness for me, that I taught them the way of salvation,

Faithful so far as I knew of thy word; again may they know me, Fall on their Teacher's breast, and before thy face may I place

them,

Pure as they now are, but only more tried, and exclaiming with

gladness,

Father, lo! I am here, and the children whom thou hast given me!"

Weeping he spake in these words; and now at the beck of the old man

Knee against knee they knitted a wreath round the altar's enclo

sure.

Kneeling he read then the prayers of the consecration, and softly With him the children read; at the close with tremulous accents, Asked he the peace of heaven, a benediction upon them.

Now should have ended his task for the day; the following Sun

day

Was for the young appointed to eat of the Lord's holy Supper. Sudden, as struck from the clouds, stood the Teacher silent, and

laid his

Hand on his forehead, and cast his looks upward; while thoughts high and holy

Flew through the midst of his soul, and his eyes glanced with wonderful brightness.

"On the next Sunday, who knows! perhaps I shall rest in the

grave-yard!

Some one perhaps of yourselves, a lily broken untimely,

Bow down his head to the earth; why delay I? the hour is accom

plished.

Warm is the heart;-I will so! for to-day grows the harvest of heaven.

What I began accomplish I now; for what failing therein is
I, the old man, will answer to God and the reverend father.
Say to me only, ye children, ye denizens new-come in heaven,
Are ye ready this day to eat of the Bread of Atonement?
What it denoteth that know ye full well, I have told it you often.
Of the new covenant a symbol it is, of atonement a token,
'Stablished between earth and heaven. Man by his sins and
transgressions

Far has wandered from God, from his essence. "Twas in the be

ginning

Fast by the tree of knowledge he fell, and it hangs its crown o'er

the

Fall to this day; in the thought is the fall; in the heart the atonement.

Infinite is the fall, the atonement infinite likewise.

See! behind me, as far as the old man remembers, and forward, Far as Hope in her flight can reach with her wearied pinions,

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