and soft vibration. They had issued from within the chapel: the parish girls and boys had been singing the evening hymn of praise to their great Creator; their juvenile voices, naturally clear and touching, joined in chorus, when heard without the walls, had communicated an awful sublimity, as if proceeding from celestial beings; diffusing over the soul a serene and exalted composure. It is at such a time the delusive charms of the world fade from the view; that the contemplative and fervent mind dwells upon immortality—the promised happiness of an hereafter.
When in the church-yard's lonely shade,
The hallow'd ground I pace,
The world, and all its phantoms fade,
Its joys no more I trace.
Nor do I heed the angry storm,
That blights my early day;
This present animated form
Must pass in dust away.
'Tis then my thoughts in raptures rise,
In prayer exhales my breath;
My soul, aspiring to the skies,
Exults, nor shrinks at death!
Such was the effusion of Rosilia's infant muse. She had viewed beneath her feet the green sod, covering the remains of the departed:—they were at
