Then broughtest me home in safety, that this earth
Might bury me, which fed me from my birth.
Blest with a healthful age, a quiet mind,
Content with little, to this work designed,
Which I at length have finished by thy aid,
And now my vows have at thy altar paid.
(WRITTEN AT THE HOLY SEPULCHRE IN JERUSALEM.)
SAVIOUR of mankind, Man, Emmanuel!
Who sinless died for sin; who vanquished hell;
The first-fruits of the grave; whose life did give
Light to our darkness; in whose death we live :-
Oh! strengthen Thou my faith, convert my will,
That mine may thine obey; protect me still,
So that the latter death may not devour
My soul, sealed with thy seal. So in the hour
When Thou (whose body sanctified this tomb,
Unjustly judged,) a glorious judge shalt come
To judge the world with justice, by that sign
I may be known and entertained for thine.
GOD is our refuge, our strong tower,
Securing by his mighty power,
When dangers threatened to devour.
Thus armed, no fears shall chill our blood,
Though earth no longer stedfast stood,
And shook our hills into the flood.
Although the troubled ocean rise,
In foaming billows to the skies,
And mountains shake with horrid noise;
Clear streams purl from a crystal spring,
Which gladness to God's city bring,
The mansion of th' Eternal King.
He in her centre takes his place:
What foe can her fair towers deface,
Protected by his early grace?
Tumultuary nations rose,
And armed troops our walls inclose,
And his feared voice unnerved our foes.
The Lord of hosts is on our side;
The God by Jacob magnified;
Our strength on whom we have relied.
Come, see the wonders He hath wrought,
Who hath to desolation brought
Those kingdoms which our ruin sought.
He makes destructive war surcease;
The earth, deflowered of her increase,
Restores with universal peace.
He breaks their bows, unarms their quivers,
The bloody spear in pieces shivers,
Their chariots to the flame delivers.
Forbear; and know that I the Lord
Will by all nations be adored-
Praised with unanimous accord.
The Lord of Hosts is on our side;
The God by Jacob magnified;
Our strength on whom we have relied.
My ravished soul, great God, thy praises sings, Whom glory circles with her radiant wings, And majesty invests; than day more bright, Clothed with the beams of new-created light,
He, like an all-enfolding canopy,
Framed the vast concave of the spangled sky,
And in the air-embraced waters set,
The basis of his hanging cabinet:
Who on the clouds as on a chariot rides,
And with a rein the flying tempest guides.
Bright angels his attending made,
By flame-dispensing seraphims obeyed;
The ever-fixed earth clothed with the flood;
In whose calm bosom unseen mountains stood;
At his rebuke it shrunk with sudden dread,
And from his voice's thunder quickly fled.
Then hills their late concealed heads extend,
And sinking valleys to their feet descend.
The trembling waters through their hollows wind,
Till they the sea, their nurse and mother, find.
He to the swelling waves prescribes a bound,
Lest earth again should by their rage be drowned;
Springs through the pleasant meadows pour their rills,
Which, snake-like, glide between the bordering hills;
Till they to rivers grow, where beasts of prey
Their thirst assuage, and such as man obey.
IN neighbouring groves the air's musicians sing,
And with their music entertain the spring.
He from celestial casement showers distils,
And with renewed increase his creatures fills.
He makes the food full earth her fruit produce,
For cattle grass, and herbs for human use;
The spreading vine long purple clusters bears,
Whose juice the hearts of pensive mortals cheers;
Fat olives smooth our brows with suppling oil,
And strengthening corn rewards the reaper's toil.
His fruit-affording trees with sap abound,
The Lord hath Lebanon with cedars crowned;
They to the warbling birds a shelter yield,
And wandering storks in lofty fir-trees build.
Wild goats to craggy cliffs for refuge fly,
And conies in the rocks' dark entrails lie.
He guides the changing moon's alternate face;
The sun's diurnal and his annual race.
'Twas He that made the all-informing light,
And with dark shadows clothes the aged night;
Then beasts of prey break from their mountain-caves;
The roaring lion, pinched with hunger, craves
Food from his hand. But when heaven's greatest fire
Obscures the stars, they to their dens retire.
Men with the morning rise, to labour pressed,
Toil all the day, at night return to rest.
GREAT God! how manifold, how infinite
Are all thy works! with what a clear foresight
Didst Thou create and multiply their birth!
Thy riches fill the far extended earth.
The ample sea, in whose unfathomed deep
Innumerable sorts of creatures creep;
Bright-scaled fishes in her entrails glide,
And high-built ships upon her bosom ride;
About whose sides the crooked dolphin plays,
And monstrous whales huge spouts of water raise.
All on the land, or in the ocean bred,
On Thee depend, in their due season fed.
They gather what thy bounteous hands bestow,
And in the summer of thy favour grow.
When Thou contract'st thy clouded brows, they mourn,
And dying, to their former dust return.
Again created by thy quickening breath,
To re-supply the massacres of death.
No track of time his glory shall destroy;
He in th' obedience of his works shall joy;
But when their wild revolts his wrath provoke,
Earth trembles, and the airy mountains smoke.
I all my life will my Creator praise,
And to his service dedicate my days.
May He accept the music of my voice,
While I with sacred harmony rejoice!
Hence, you profane, who in your sins delight;
God shall extirp, and cast you from his sight.
My soul, bless thou this all-commanding King-
You saints and angels, Hallelujah sing!
As on Euphrates' shady banks we lay,
And there, O Sion, to thy ashes pay
Our funeral tears, our silent harps unstrung,
And unregarded on thy willows hung,
Lo! they who had thy desolation wrought,
And captive Judah unto Babel brought,
Deride the tears which from our sorrows spring;
And say, in scorn, A song of Sion sing.
Shall we profane our harps at their command,
Or holy hymns sing in a foreign land?
O Solyma! thou that art now become
A heap of stones, and to thyself a tomb,
When I forget thee, my dear mother, let
My fingers their melodious skill forget;
When I a joy disjoined from thine receive,
Then may my tongue unto my palate cleave.
Remember Edom, Lord, their cruel pride,
Who in the sack of wretched Salem cried,
Down with their buildings, rase them to the ground,
Nor let one stone be on another found.
Thou, Babylon, whose towers now touch the sky,
That shortly shalt as low in ruins lie,
Oh! happy! Oh! thrice happy they who shall
With equal cruelty revenge our fall!
That dash thy children's brains against the stones,
And without pity hear their dying groans.
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