formance is not measured by ability, but by the proportion between ability and its result. The sway of mere genius, without reference to its benevolent exercise, is beginning to decline, as Christianity advances; and a life of beneficence is becoming a passport to fame. Wilberforce was blest with no genius; but he heard the cry of the oppressed, and devoted his life and fortune to the abolition of the curse of slavery. His name will be mentioned with honor, to say nothing of future recompenses, when the names of multitudes of greater men who gratified a selfish ambition, at the expense of tears and blood to their fellow creatures, are cited with contempt, or covered with oblivion. "The spirit of that great philanthropist is borne up to heaven upon the prayers of the human race. He was their friend. Let those who despair of distinction from the force of their abilities, adopt a course like his: they may be assured that there is a leaf in the Life-Book even of human memory and gratitude, for all those who dedicate their time, their talents and their substance, to increase the knowledge, the virtue and the happiness of mankind.

255

TIME.

BY THOMAS C. HARTSHORN.

TIME, though our friend, is often deemed a foe,
Against him many strive with idle zeal :

The lover and the sluggard think him slow,
And wish a rapid motion to his wheel :
While debtors, who have notes or drafts to pay,
Would gladly have him linger on his way.

The gay coquette, regardless how he flies,
Enjoys her conquests while her charms avail,
Nor knows the truth that Flattery denies,
Until her mirror tells the serious tale;

Then borrows she each artificial aid
To hide the ravages that Time hath made.

In vain she strives! proud monuments decay;

Shall frailer beauty such a wreck outlive? Alas! it is the creature of a day,

And passes with the cloud that shines at eve, When the bright sun in setting throws a fringe Of rays on it—an evanescent tinge !

Nor this alone; the fairest works of art
May fall unwept, but Genius weeps to see
The gentlest lines that ever touched the heart,
Fade like the colors on old tapestry.

Hath he not plundered Chaucer of his bays,
By making obsolete his finest lays?

And Shakspeare too, whom Nature took to nurse
Amid her mountain scenery, wild, sublime,
(Why did she not exempt him from the curse?)
Hath felt the woeful ravages of Time

So much, that some think all his commentators,
Compared to Time, are harmless depredators.

The words in which they breathed their glowing souls,
When the fine frenzy kindled up their ken,
Obscure in meaning, like the leafy scrolls
Which zephyr wafted from the Sybil's den,
Have lost the bold conceptions they conveyed,
And given critics quite a musty trade.

Even they who led the van, and kindled war

Along the breathing lines of clashing spears, Have missed the fame which they contended for, Obscured and buried in the lapse of years; Mentioned perhaps in some black-letter book Covered with cobwebs in its dusty nook.

Behold what mighty changes Time can make.
The fields that madmen fattened with their gore,
Are green and peaceful as a summer lake,

The victors and the vanquished known no more, Save when the sturdy ploughman, with his share, Turns up their bones and wonders whose they were.

He who hath read the records of the past,

Perchance may recollect the cause, the date, Wherefore and when the trumpet blew the blast Which called these mortal remnants to their fate: And while his soul is tuned to melancholy He drops a tear, and sighs for human folly.

O what a tale could Time to us reveal

Of by-gone ages, when the world was new!
Thou hoary sire! thine oracles unseal!
Display thy past experience to our view!
For thou hast seen proud empires rise and fall
Before the deluge overwhelmed them all.

Thy visionary form before me now
Appears as Neptune from the main arose,
The mists of ages hang upon thy brow,

Spectres of ruined things thy train compose,
The verdure shrinks and withers at thy tread
And crowds of mortals number with the dead!

Speak while I sit submissive to thy will,

Historic truth devoid of fabrication :

I wait, with eager mind and ready quill,
To give symbolic form to thy narration.

Infuse my ink with all thy gathered store,

And thus from darkness light shall spring once more.

Tell us the story of those eastern nations

To whom the arts and sciences were known,

Ere Philip's son commenced his operations,

Or his precursor, Cyrus, was o'erthrown;
Fable sits brooding over them, and mystery
Involves the scanty records of their history.

Who reared the mounds upon Ohio's shore
That mock research and triumph over thee!
The savage, skilled in legendary lore,
Hath no tradition from his ancestry.
Oblivion glooms upon the buried brave
Like Desolation, on a Druid's grave.

It is imagined by the antiquaries

That, ere Columbus found this hemisphere, (Thou hast reduced them to these strange vagaries) A nobler race of men existed here.

Pray, did this race, from earthly refuge driven,
Pass with the mammoth to the Indian's heaven?

When brilliant schemes the youthful fancy drew,
Did after years fulfil each fond desire?
Or did they, like the Hebrew leader, view
Afar the consummation, and expire
Before they reached it? Such the fate of all
Who grovel now on this terrestrial ball!

Deceitful Time! when grief and pain annoy
The mind and body, slow is thy career:

But when excited by some transient joy,
Rapid thy passage through the rolling year!