But high she shoots through air and light, Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.

So grant me, God, from every care,
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to thee!

No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
My soul, as home she springs;
Thy sunshine on her joyful way
Thy freedom on her wings!

JERUSALEM.

FALL'N is thy throne, O Israel!
Silence is o'er thy plains;
Thy dwellings all lie desolate,
Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham's barren shore?

That fire from heaven which led thee
Now lights thy path no more.

Lord! thou didst love Jerusalem-
Once she was all thine own:
Her love thy fairest heritage,
Her power thy glory's throne.
Till evil came, and blighted
Thy long-loved olive tree;
And Salem's shrines were lighted
For other gods than thee.

Then sank the star of Solyma,
Then pass'd her glory's day,

Like heath that, in the wilderness,
The wild wind whirls away.

HEAVEN.

Silent and waste her bowers,
Where once the mighty trod,
And sunk those guilty towers,
Where Baal reign'd as God.

'Go," said the Lord, "Ye Conquerors!
Steep in her blood your swords,
And raze to earth her battlements,
For they are not the Lord's.
Till Zion's mournful daughter
O'er kindred bones shall tread,
And Hinnom's vale of slaughter
Shall hide but half her dead."

But soon shall other pictur'd scenes
In brighter vision rise,

When Zion's sun shall sevenfold shine
On all her mourners' eyes:

And on her mountains beauteous stand
The messengers of peace;
"Salvation by the Lord's right hand,"
They shout and never cease.

HEAVEN.

THIS world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given:

The smiles of Joy, the tears of Woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow;

There's nothing true but Heaven!
And false the light on Glory's plume,
As fading hues of Even;

And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom,
Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb-

There's nothing bright but Heaven!

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we're driven;
And Fancy's flash, and Reason's ray,
Serve but to light the troubled way—

There's nothing calm but Heaven!

119

THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE.

THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord! that Arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.

My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murm'ring homeward to their caves,
Or, when the stillness of the sea,

Ev'n more than music, breathes of Thee.

I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like thy Throne;
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.

Thy Heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book,
Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

I'll read thy anger in the rack

That clouds awhile the day-beam's track;
Thy mercy in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness, breaking through!

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy Deity!

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy Love,
And meekly wait that moment, when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!

HYMN ON THE CREATION.

THE GLORY OF GOD IN CREATION.
PSALM 1xxiv. 16, 17.

THOU art, O God! the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,

Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.
When Day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the op'ning clouds of Even,
And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into Heaven-
Those hues, that make the Sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are thine.

When Night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes—
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are thine.

When youthful Spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;

And every flower the Summer wreathes,
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shinc,
And all things fair and bright are Thine.

HYMN ON THE CREATION.

OH! blest were the accents of early creation,

121

When the words of Jehovah came down from above, In the clods of the earth to infuse animation, And wake their cold atoms to life and to love

VOL. I.

And mighty the tones which the firmament rended, When on the wheels of the thunder, and wings of the wind,

By lightning and hail, and thick darkness attended,
He uttered on Sinai his laws to mankind.

And sweet was the voice of the first-born of Heaven,
Though poor his apparel, though earthly his form;
Who said to the mourner, "thy sins are forgiven,"
"Be whole" to the sick, and "be still" to the storm.
O Judge of the world! when arrayed in thy glory,
Thy summons again shall be heard from on high,
When Nature stands trembling and naked before thee,
And waits on thy sentence to live or to die.

When the heavens shall fly fast at the sound of thy thunder,
And the Sun in thy lightnings grow languid and pale,
And the Sea yield her dead, and the tomb cleave asunder,
In the hour of thy terrors let mercy prevail.

HYMN TO THE SEASONS.

WHEN Spring unlocks the flowers, to paint the laughing soil;

When Summer's balmy showers refresh the mower's toil; When Winter binds in frosty chains the fallow and the flood,

In God the earth rejoiceth still, and owns its Maker good. The birds that wake the morning, and those that love the shade;

The winds that sweep the mountain, or lull the drowsy glade;

The sun that from his amber bower rejoiceth on his way, The moon, and stars, their Maker's name in silent pomp display.

Shall man, the lord of Nature, expectant of the sky,—
Shall man alone unthankful, his little praise deny?
No,-let the year forsake his course, the seasons cease
to be,

Thee, Master, must we always love; and, Saviour, honour
Thee.