MORNING HYMN.
AST thou a charm to stay the Morning Star
In his fteep courfe? fo long he seems to
paufe
On thy bald, awful head, O Sovran Blanc ?
The Arvè and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceafeleffly; but thou, moft mighty form!
Rifeft from forth thy filent fea of pines,
How filently! Around thee and above,
Deep is the air, and dark, fubftantial black;
An ebon mafs; methinks thou pierceft it
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from Eternity.
O dread and filent mount! I gazed upon thee
Till thou, ftill present to the bodily sense,
Didft vanish from my thought; entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invifible alone.
Yet like fome sweet beguiling melody,
So fweet we know not we are liftening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, waft blending with my thought,
Yea with my life, and life's own fecret joy,
Till the dilating foul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vifion paffing there,
As in her natural form, swelled vast to heaven!
Awake, my foul! not only paffive praise
Thou oweft! not alone these fwelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake!
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my hymn.
Thou first and chief, fole fovereign of the vale!
O, ftruggling with the darkness all night long,
And all night vifited by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky, or when they fink;
Companion of the Morning Star at dawn,
Thyfelf earth's rofy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald; wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who fank thy funless pillars deep in earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rofy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents, fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down these precipitous, black, jagged rocks
For ever shattered, and the fame for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your ftrength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceafing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the filence came)
Here let the billows ftiffen and have rest?
Ye ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow,
Adown enormous ravines flope amain,
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amidst their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents.! filent cataracts!
Who made you glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full Moon? Who bade the Sun Clothe you with rainbows? Who with living flowers Of lovelieft blue, fpread garlands at your feet?
God! let the torrents, like a fhout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! fing ye meadow streams, with gladsome voice!
Ye pine groves with your foft and foul-like founds!
And they, too, have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall fhall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers, that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's neft!
Ye eagles, playmates of the mountain storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye figns and wonders of the elements!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou, too, hoar Mount, with thy fky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whofe feet the Avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure ferene
Into the depths of clouds that veil thy breast.
Thou, too, again ftupendous Mountain! thou,
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes fuffufed with tears,
Solemnly feemeft, like a vapoury cloud,
Rife, like a cloud of incenfe from the earth!
Thou kingly spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambaffador from earth to heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the filent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rifing fun,
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises GOD.
UES of the rich unfolding morn,
That ere the glorious fun be born,
By fome foft touch invifible,
Around his path are taught to fwell;
Thou rustling breeze fo fresh and gay,
That danceft forth at opening day,
And brushing by with joyous wing,
Wakeft each little leaf to fing.-
Oh! timely happy, timely wife,
Hearts that with rifing morn arise !
Eyes that the beam celeftial view,
Which evermore makes all things new!
New every morning is the love,
Our wakening and uprifing prove;
Through sleep and darkness fafely brought,
Reftored to life, and power, and thought.
New mercies, each returning day,
Hover around us while we pray;
New perils past, new fins forgiven,
New thoughts of God, new hopes of Heaven.
Old friends, old scenes, will lovelier be,
As more of Heaven in each we fee:
Some foftening gleam of love and prayer
Shall dawn on every cross and care.
As for fome dear familiar ftrain,
Untired we ask, and ask again,
Ever, in its melodious store,
Finding a spell unheard before;
Such is the blifs of fouls ferene,
When they have sworn, and steadfast mean,
Counting the cost, in all to espy
Their God, in all themselves deny.
We need not bid, for cloister'd cell,
Our neighbour and our work farewell;
Nor ftrive to wind ourselves too high
For finful man beneath the sky:
The trivial round, the common task,
Would furnish all we ought to ask ;
Room to deny ourselves; a road
To bring us, daily, nearer God.
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