THE RESURRECTION.

The day of wintry wrath is o'er,

The whirlwind and the storm have pass'd,

The whiten'd ashes of the snow

Enwrap the ruined world no more;

Nor keenly from the orient blow

The venom'd hissings of the blast.

The frozen tear-drops of despair

Have melted from the trembling thorn;

Hope plumes unseen her radiant wing,

And lo! amid the expectant air,

The trumpet of the angel Spring

Proclaims the resurrection morn.

Oh! what a wave of gladsome sound

Runs rippling round the shores of space,

As the requicken'd earth upheaves

The swelling bosom of the ground,

And Death's cold pallor, startled, leaves

The deepening roses of her face.

Up from their graves the dead arise —

The dead and buried flowers of spring;—

Up from their graves in glad amaze,

Once more to view the long-lost skies,

Resplendent with the dazzling rays

Of their great coming Lord and King.

And lo! even like that mightiest one,

In the world's last and awful hour,

Surrounded by the starry seven,

So comes God's greatest work, the sun,

Upborne upon the clouds of heaven,

In pomp, and majesty, and power.

The virgin snowdrop bends its head

Above its grave in grateful prayer;

The daisy lifts its radiant brow,

With a saint's glory round it shed;

The violet's worth, unhidden now,

Is wafted wide by every air.

The parent stem reclasps once more

Its long-lost severed buds and leaves;

Once more the tender tendrils twine

Around the forms they clasped of yore

The very rain is now a sign

Great Nature's heart no longer grieves.

And now the judgment-hour arrives,

And now their final doom they know;

No dreadful doom is theirs whose birth

Was not more stainless than their lives;

‘ Tis Goodness calls them from the earth,

And Mercy tells them where to go.

Some of them fly with glad accord,

Obedient to the high behest,

To worship with their fragrant breath

Around the altars of the Lord;

And some, from nothingness and death,

Pass to the heaven of beauty's breast.

Oh, let the simple fancy be

Prophetic of our final doom;

Grant us, O Lord, when from the sod

Thou deign'st to call us too, that we

Pass to the bosom of our God

From the dark nothing of the tomb!