THE FIRST SABBATH. SIX days the heavenly host, in circle vast, Like that untouching cincture which enzones The globe of Saturn, compassed wide this orb, And with the forming mass floated along, In rapid course, through yet untravelled space, Beholding God's stupendous power,-a world Bursting from Chaos at the omnific will, And perfect ere the sixth day's evening star On Paradise arose. Blessed that eve! The Sabbath's harbinger, when, all complete, In freshest beauty from Jehovah's hand, Creation bloomed; when Eden's twilight face Smiled like a sleeping babe: The voice divine A holy calm breathed o'er the goodly work: Mildly the sun, upon the loftiest trees, Shed mellowly a sloping beam. Peace reigned, And love, and gratitude: The human pair Silence was o'er the deep; the noiseless surge, In which the blissful garden sweet exhaled And soared, in semblance of a mighty rainbow: But soon as to the starry altitudes They reached, then what a storm of sound, tremendous, Shouted for joy! Loud was the peal; so loud, Like softest fall breathed from Æolian lute, Which must, ere long, consign the fallen race, THE FINDING OF MOSES. SLOW glides the Nile: amid the margin flags, As when along a little mountain lake, The summer south-wind breathes with gentle sigh, |