Alone I walk’d the ocean strand, A pearly shell was in my hand; I stoop’d and wrote upon the sand My _name_, the year, the day. As onward from the spot I pass’d, One lingering look I fondly cast; A wave came rolling high and fast, And wash’d my lines away. And so, methought, ’twill shortly be With every mark on earth from me; A wave of dark oblivion’s sea Will sweep across the place Where I have trod the sandy shore Of time, and been to be no more; Of me--my day--the _name_ I bore, To leave no track nor trace. And yet with Him, who counts the sands, And holds the waters in His hands, I know a lasting record stands Inscribed against my _name_, Of all this mortal part has wrought-- Of all this thinking soul has thought, And from these fleeting moments caught For glory or for shame. _Miss Gould._ The card-built house amused our infant age; The child was pleased; but is the man more sage? A breath could level childhood’s tottering toy: See manhood--effort, art, and time employ, To build that brittle _name_ a whisper can destroy! There is a Book where nought our _name_ can spot, If we ourselves refuse to fix the blot; ’Tis kept by One that sets alike at nought The tale with malice or with flatt’ry fraught,-- He reads the heart, and sees the whisper in the thought. _C. C. Colton._ Jesus, the spring of joys divine, Whence all our hopes and comforts flow: Jesus, no other _name_ but Thine Can save us from eternal woe. _Steele._ NATURE. O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, Thou stillest them. The heavens are Thine, the earth also is Thine: as for the world and the fulness thereof, Thou hast founded them.--Psalm lxxxix. 8, 9, 11. The Lord is a great God, and a Great King above all Gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the strength of the hills is His also. The sea is His, and he made it; and His hands formed the dry land.--Psalm xcv. 3, 4, 5. Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens; when I call unto them they stand up together.--Isaiah, xlviii. 13. From dearth to plenty, and from death to life, Is _Nature’s_ progress, when she lectures man In heavenly truth; evincing as she makes The grand transition, that there lives and works A soul in all things, and that soul is God. _Cowper._