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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
Their orisons poured forth: love, concord, reigned:
The falcon, perched upon the blooming bough
With Philomela, listened to her lay;
Among the antlered herd the tiger couched,
Harmless; the lion's mane no terror spread
Among the careless ruminating flock.

Silence was o'er the deep; the noiseless surge,
The last subsiding wave,—of that dread tumult
Which raged, when Ocean, at the mute command,
Rushed furiously into his new-cleft bed,—
Was gently rippling on the pebbled shore;
While, on the swell, the sea-bird, with her head
Wing-veiled, slept tranquilly. The host of heaven,
Entranced in new delight, speechless adored;
Nor stopped their fleet career, nor changed their form
Encircular, till on that hemisphere,-

In which the blissful garden sweet exhaled
Its incense, odorous clouds,-the Sabbath dawn
Arose; then wide the flying circle oped,

And soared, in semblance of a mighty rainbow:
Silent ascend the choirs of Seraphim;
No harp resounds, mute is each voice; the burst
Of joy, and praise, reluctant they repress,-
For love and concord all things so attuned
To harmony, that Earth must have received
The grand vibration, and to the centre shook:

But soon as to the starry altitudes

They reached, then what a storm of sound, tremendous,
Swelled through the realms of space! The morning stars
Together sang, and all the sons of God

Shouted for joy! Loud was the peal; so loud,
As would have quite o'erwhelmed the human sense;
But to the Earth it came a gentle strain,

Like softest fall breathed from Æolian lute,
When 'mid the chords the evening gale expires.
Day of the Lord! creation's hallowed close!
Day of the Lord! (prophetical they sang)
Benignant mitigation of that doom,

Which must, ere long, consign the fallen race,
Dwellers in yonder star, to toil and woe!

THE

FINDING OF MOSES.

SLOW glides the Nile: amid the margin flags,
Closed in a bulrush ark, the babe is left,
Left by a mother's hand. His sister waits
Far off; and pale, 'tween hope and fear, beholds
The royal maid, surrounded by her train,
Approach the river bank; approach the spot
Where sleeps the innocent: She sees them stoop
With meeting plumes; the rushy lid is oped,
And wakes the infant, smiling in his tears,-

As when along a little mountain lake,

The summer south-wind breathes with gentle sigh,
And parts the reeds, unveiling, as they bend,
A water-lily floating on the wave.

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