THE SOUL.

Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail, Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay; Though darkened in this poor life by a veil Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way To heaven's high capitol our car shall roll; The temple of the power whom all obey, That is the mark we tend to, for the soul Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal.

I feel it—though the flesh is weak, I feel The spirit has its energies untamed By all its fatal wanderings; time may heal The wounds which it has suffered; folly claimed Too large a portion of its youth; ashamed Of those low pleasures, it would leap and fly, And soar on wings of lightning, like the famed Elijah, when the chariot rushing by, Bore him, with steeds of fire, triumphant to the sky.

We are as barks afloat upon the sea, Helmless and oarless, when the light has fled, The spirit, whose strong influence can free The drowsy soul, that slumbers in the dead, Cold night of moral darkness; from the bed Of sloth he rouses at her sacred call, And kindling in the blaze around him shed, Rends with strong effort sin's debasing thrall. And gives to God his strength, his heart, his mind, his all.

Our home is not on earth; although we sleep And sink in seeming death awhile, yet then The awakening voice speaks loudly, and we leap To life, and energy, and light, again; We cannot slumber always in the den Of sense and selfishness; the day will break, Ere we for ever leave the haunts of men; Even at the parting hour, the soul will wake, Nor, like a senseless brute, its unknown journey take.