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3 Bound on a voyage of fearful length,
Through dangers little known,
A stranger to superior strength,
Man vainly trusts his own.

4 But oars alone can ne'er prevail
To reach the distant coast;

The breath of heaven must swell the sail, Or all the toil is lost.

C. H. M.

619.

J. TAYLOR.

What is your Life?

1 O WHAT is life?'t is like a flower That blossoms and is gone;

It flourishes its little hour,

With all its beauty on:

Death comes, and, like a wintry day,
It cuts the lovely flower away.

2 O what is life? 't is like the bow

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That glistens in the sky:

We love to see its colors glow;

But while we look, they die:

Life fails as soon:

-to-day 't is here;

To-morrow it may disappear.

3 Lord, what is life? if spent with thee,
In humble praise and prayer,
How long or short its date may be,
We feel no anxious care:

Though life depart, our joys shall last
When time and all its joys are past.

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1 I TRAVEL all the irksome night,
By ways to me unknown;
I travel like a bird in flight,
Onward, and all alone.

MONTGOMERY.

2 Just such a pilgrimage is life;
Hurried from stage to stage,
Our wishes with our lot at strife,
Through childhood to old age.

3 The world is seldom what it seems,
To man, who dimly sees,

Realities appear as dreams,

And dreams realities.

4 The Christian's years, though slow their flight

Till he is called away,

Are but the watches of a night,

And death the dawn of day.

C. M.

621.

H. K. WHITE.

Journeying through Death to Life.

1 THROUGH Sorrow's night, and danger's path, Amid the deepening gloom,

We, soldiers of a heavenly King,
Are marching to the tomb.

2 There, when the turmoil is no more,
And all our powers decay,

Our cold remains in solitude
Shall sleep the years away.

3 Our labors done, securely laid In this our last retreat, Unheeded o'er our silent dust

4

The storms of life shall beat.

Yet not thus lifeless, thus inane,
The vital spark shall lie;

For o'er life's wreck that spark shall rise,
To seek its kindred sky.

L.M.

622.

MONTGOMERY.

1

The Journey of Life.

THUS far on life's perplexing path,
Thus far the Lord our steps hath led;
Safe from the world's pursuing wrath,
Unharmed though floods hung o'er our head:
Here then we pause, look back, adore,
Like ransomed Israel from the shore.

2 Strangers and pilgrims here below,
As all our fathers in their day,
We to a land of promise go,
Lord! by thine own appointed way;
Still guide, illumine, cheer our flight,
In cloud by day, in fire by night.

3 When we have numbered all our years,
And stand at length on Jordan's brink,
Though the flesh fail with human fears,
O let not then the spirit shrink;

But, strong in faith, and hope, and love,
Plunge through the stream, to rise above.

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C. P. M.

623.

GREEN.

Redeem the Time.

1 My days, and weeks, and months, and years
Fly, rapid as the whirling spheres
Around the steady pole;

Time, like the tide, its motion keeps,
Till I shall launch those boundless deeps,
Where endless ages roll.

2 Before thy throne, great God, I bow,
And humbly beg assistance now,
To know my real state:

While life, and health, and time endure,
Fain would I make my heaven secure,
Before it be too late.

3 If in destruction's road I stray,
Help me to choose that better way,
Which leads to joys on high;

My soul renew, my sins forgive;
Nor let me ever dare to live

Such as I dare not die!

4 With thee let every day be past; And when that comes, which proves my last, May glory dawn within!

Relieve me then from every doubt;

And, ere life's glimmering lamp goes out,
Let endless joys begin.

L. M.

624.

True Length of Life.

J. TAYLOR.

1 LIKE shadows gliding o'er the plain, Or clouds that roll successive on, Man's busy generations pass,

And while we gaze, their forms are gone.

2

"He lived,

he died"; behold the sum,

The abstract of the historian's page!
Alike, in God's all-seeing eye,
The infant's day, the patriarch's age.

3 O Father! in whose mighty hand
The boundless years and ages lie,
Teach us thy boon of life to prize,
And use the moments as they fly,-

4 To crowd the narrow span of life

With wise designs and virtuous deeds;
So shall we wake from death's dark night,
To share the glory that succeeds.

L. M.

625.

• Man's Mortality.

SHIRLEY.

1 THE glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against fate;

Death lays his icy hands on kings.

2 Princes and magistrates must fall,
And in the dust be equal made,
The high and mighty with the small,
Sceptre and crown with scythe and spade.

a The laurel withers on our brow;

Then boast no more your mighty deeds: Upon death's purple altar now

See where the victor victim bleeds!

4 All heads must come to the cold tomb;
Only the actions of the just
Preserve in death a rich perfume,

Smell sweet and blossom in the dust.

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