Year: 1868

WHILE Time speeds on in its impetuous race
And days, weeks, months and years move on apace,
Each circling hour brings some Joy or grief;
Some gift to sadden or to bring relief.
Some good departed never to return,
Some bliss too soon its certain loss to mourn,
Yet shall we find amid this vale of tears
All lifes replete with blessings as with fears.
Some good remains to cheer us on the way
And guide us upward to the light Of day;
To checker life with many gladdened scene
And soften all the ills that lie between.
Thus in the landscape deepened shades appear,
To make the sunny parts more bright and clear,
Fill the wide landscape on the vision CLEANS
Of forests glades and rocks and murmuring streams;
And all its parts far as the view extends,
In one commingled beauty glows and blends.


Oh yc who deem that all but merely live
To wrongs commit, to err, nor to forgive
To pass their days in turmoils and in strife
And end, las they began, troubled life.
Ye little know the joys you may impart
How to refine and purify the heart
How by kind Words and looks, and winning way
The erring be restored when led astray.
" little know the treasures of the mind,
That elevate, adorn, and bless mankind,
And know still less the means to elevate
Man from his lower to his high estate;
To soothe the sorrows poverty may bring
And show from whence true nobleness must spring
To show that all may equal good possess,
And reach an equal share OF happiness.


Hail blissful joys that crown the closing year
When most at least anticipate good cheer.
The heart rejoices when it still can find
A firmer link to bind it to its kind
To soothe some sorrow and some want remove,
To teach the truths of charity and love;
10 bring blessing round the family fire .:
And grateful thoughts in every heart inspire.


Oh could each one, Asmodeus-like but see
All others acts though yelled in secrecy,
TO hear their words their secret thoughts to know,
And the true motives whence their actions fow
How many scene indeibly impressed
Would glow to torture and subdue his breast
At times some old, morose and grabbed man,
"Whose heightened days were dwindled to span,"
His piles Of gold with trembling hand counts Ger,
While painting sighs bespeak his want for more.
No love for aught beside ignoble pef;
He lives, breathes, acts and thinks but for himself
AT other times where fashion holds its sway
And sensual pleasures rule by night and day,
Whose shoddy wealth wil} transient bliss bestow,
And all of happiness consist in show.
The gaudy dress, the dashing equipage,
The countless projects each in turn the rage
All, all at last leave no impress behind
Save to destroy or vtiate the mind.
The picture fades-yet on his vision glows
The common scene dire poverty we'll knows
In some rude garret or still ruder cell
Where the Lone widow and her offspring dwell,
Meek and submissive, to the world unknown
Enduring tolls and sorrows all their own,
Her children crying for their crumb Of bread,
A pile Of straw or rags their only bed.
No helping hand to aid them or to save,
Nor ward the sufferers from the untimely grave.
Poor friendless Outcasts by the world forgot,
Thou hast Friend who will forget thee not.
He whose right hand has balanced earth and sea,
Has suffered death to save all like to thee


Anon the blazing freside appears
And the aged sire, venerable in years,
Sits by the matron, she who toiled thro life,
A faithful counsellor in the frugal wife.