Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

Oh thou, that dwellest on many waters,
Thy day of pride is ended now;
And the dark curse of Israel's daughters
Breaks, like a thunder-cloud, over thy brow!
War, war, war against Babylon!

Make bright the arrows, and gather the shields,
Set the standard of God on high;

Swarm we, like locusts, o'er all her fields,

"Zion" our watchward, and "Vengeance" our cry! Wo! wo!-the time of thy visitation

Is come, proud Land, thy doom is castAnd the black surge of desolation

Sweeps o'er thy guilty head, at last!

[ocr errors]

War, war, war against Babylon!

[blocks in formation]

....

"Make bright the arrows; gather the shields, . . . . set up the standard upon the walls of Babylon."-Jer. li. 11, 12.

Wo unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation!"-Jer. 1. 27.

"And that they should publish and proclaim in all their cities, and in Jerusalem, saying, Go forth unto the mount, and fetch olivebranches," &c., &c.-Neh. viii. 15.

[blocks in formation]

That's worthy to wave o'er the tents of the Free.t
From that day, when the footsteps of Israel shone,

With a light not their own, through the Jordan's deep
tide,

Whose waters shrunk back as the Ark glided on-
Oh, never had Judah an hour of such pride!
Go forth to the Mount-bring the olive-branch home,
And rejoice, for the day of our Freedom is come!

"For since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day, had not the children of Israel done so: and there was very great gladness."-Neh. viii. 17.

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon."-Josh. x. 12.

Fetch olive-branches, and pine-branches, and myrtle-branches, and palm-branches, and branches of thick trees, to make booths." -Neh. viii. 15.

"And the priests that bare the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of Jordan, and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground.”—Josh. iii. 17.

NOTES.

Ir the two following criticisms on Moore be not colossal, It is from no lack in the straddle-one having been written on the other side of the Atlantic, and one on this. Together they make a free-and-easy commentary, which will let the reader down softly from the high flight of the poetry foregone :

Moore's Muse is another Ariel-as light, as tricksy, as indefatigable, and as humane a spirit. His fancy is for ever on the wing, flutters in the gale, glitters in the sun. Everything lives, moves, and sparkles in his poetry, while over all Love waves his purple light. His thoughts are as restless, as many, and as bright, as the insects that people the sun's beam. "So work the honeybees," extracting Liquid sweets from opening buds; so the butterfly expands ts wings to the idle air; so the thistle's silver down is wafted over summer seas. An airy voyager on life's stream, his mind inhales the fragrance of a thousand shores, and drinks of endless pleasures under halcyon skies. Wherever his footsteps tend over the enamelled ground of fairy fiction

"Around him the bees in play flutter and cluster,
And gaudy butterflies frolic around."

The fault of Mr. Moore is an exuberance of involuntary power. His facility of production lessens the effect of, and hangs as a dead weight upon, what he produces. His lev. ity at last oppresses. The infinite delight he takes in such an infinite number of things, produces indifference in minds less susceptible of pleasure than his own. He exhausts attention by being inexhaustible. His variety cloys; his rapidity dazzles and distracts the sight. The graceful ease with which he lends himself to every subject, the genial spirit with which he indulges in every sentiment, prevents him from giving their full force to the masses of things, from connecting them into a whole. He wants intensity, strength, and grandeur. His mind does not brood over the great and permanent; it glances over the surfaces, the first ins sions of things, instead of grappling with the deep-rooted prejudices of the mind, its inveterate habits, and that "perlous stuff that weighs upon the heart." His pen, as it is rapid and fanciful, wants momentum and passion. It requires the same principle to make us thoroughly like poetry, that makes us like ourselves so well, the feeling of continued identity. The impressions of Mr. Moore's poetry are detached, desultory, and physical. Its gorgeous colors brighten and fade like the rainbow's. Its sweetness evaporates like the effluvia exhaled from beds of flowers! His gay laughing style, which relates to the immediate leasures of love or wine, is better than his sentimental and romantic vein. His "Irish Melodies" are not free from affectation and a certain sickliness of pretension. His serious descriptions are apt to run into flowery tenderness. His pathos sometimes melts into a mawkish sensibility, or crystallizes into all the prettiness of allegorical language, and glittering hardness of external imagery. But he has wit at will, and of the first quality. His Twopenny Post

Bag" is a perfect "nest of spicery;" where the Cayenne is not spared. The politician there sharpens the poet's pen. In this too, our bard resembles the bee-he has its honey and its sting.

"Lalla Rookh" is not what people wanted to see whether Mr. Moore could do; namely, whether he could write a long epic poem. It is four short tales. The interest, however, is often high-wrought and tragic, but the execution still turns to the effeminate and voluptuous side. Fortitude of mind is the first requisite of a tragic or epic writer. Happiness of nature and felicity of genius are the pre-eminent characteristics of the bard of Erin. If he is not perfectly contented with what he is, all the world beside is. He had no temptation to risk anything in adding to the love and admiration of his age, and more than one country "Therefore to be possessed with double potap

To guard a title that was rich before,
To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper light

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess."

The same might be said of Mr. Moore's seeking to bind an epic crown, or the shadow of one, round his other laurels.

Thomas Moore has become moral and almost chaste. Let us follow him through the history of his various wri tings; we shall find him more superficial than profound, more tender than pathetic, more graceful than energetic; addressing the heart rather than the mind; but still on all occasions an amiable poet, sometimes a great poet, and almost always imbued with imagination, wit, and taste. Diderot affirms, that in order to write well on the subject of females, it would be requisite to dip the pen in the dies of the rainbow, and dry the paper with powder borrowed from the wings of the butterfly. It might be imagined, that Thomas Moore had employed this recipe, in order to compose his oriental imagery, and depict his Peris, or not less brilliant mortal fairies; there is so prodigious a luxury of metaphors and ornaments lavished on his verses, that they may be styled a selection of poetical arabesques.

The Grand Nazir of the Mogul Princess might have added to the above-noticed critique, that the elements of Thomas Moore's poetry consist in the ingenious distribution of divers butterfly wings, angel plumes, beams of light, pearls, precious stones, perfumes, etc. All these fictitious appendages do not always adorn perfect beauties; but, as paste and false diamonds produce enchanting metamorpho ses at the opera, with the aid of singing and music, the poet operates an illusion by the magic of his pictures and the melody of his verses. He has carried this melody far ther than any English poet since Chaucer: Thomas Moore's poetry is almost Italian. This melody was already con spicuous in his first pieces, addressed to Julia, Rose, Jessy Bessy. Mary, and to thirty others, whom the discreet Mr Little designates by three asterisks.

With his charming social verses, and his amiable manners, Mr. Moore succeeded, not only in winning the ear of the ladies, but also of some influential noblemen. He was ppointed to a situation in the Vice-Admiralty Court at Bermudas, and he embarked for that island, which Shakspere makes the birth-place of his sy ph Ariel. During his leisure moments Mr. Moore did not neglect the muses, and the beauties of the Azores; and on his return to England published a collection of odes, epistles, and fugitive poems, in which he celebrates the enchantments of a climate wellcalculated to seduce, by its various features, the poet's imagination. Of these pieces, some are rich with brilliant descriptions, while others reproduce the tender emotions with which Mr. Moore delights to inspire himself. He had, however, found the ladies of the Bermudas more fond than beautiful; he treats their husbands still less favorably, telling us that the ancient philosopher, who held that after this life, the men are changed into mules, and the women into turtles, might have seen this metamorphosis nearly accomplished at Bermudas.

There can be little doubt that the primitive songs, or lyrical compositions of the rhapsodists, were the spontaneous production of a poetical musician, who struck off the words and the air in the same heat. Subsequently, songs have generally preceded the music. But such is the triumph of music, which is the true universal language, over poetry, which only appertains to one language, that the tune still survives, when the words are lost. The Virgilian Shepherd was thence induced to exclaim, "I remember the air, but I have forgotten the words."

"Numeros memini, si verba tenerem."

Ireland possessed an original and popular music, which supplied numerous allusions to its manners, customs, and history, and which, still more than the Scotch music, deserved that a Burns should render it popular, and consecrate it, as it were, by an alliance with the national poetry. Miss Owenson had already adapted words to some of these airs of old Erin: but to Thomas Moore belongs the merit of assembling almost all of them in one historical record.

The luxury of the costumes, and of the periphrasis in Lalla Rookh, tend to persuade us that we are reading an oriental poem; it might be almost called, according to a well-known expression, more Arabic than Arabia. But in the Irish Melodies, if Mr. Moore is almost always a remarkable lyrical poet, he is seldom an Irishman, while Burns always remains a Scotchman in his Caledonian melodies. We have said enough to explain the reason; Mr. Moore has composed exclusively for the pianos of pretty women. Burns has preserved his somewhat savage independence in his songs; Moore resembles a caged nightin. gale, who devotes his dulcet voice to an imitation of the airs of the bird-organ. There are, however, some honorable exceptions to the general tone of the melodies of the Irish Anacreon: "Rich and Rare," is a fragment rendered exquisite by its affecting simplicity; it describes the voyage of a young virgin, clothed in rich vestures, who, on the faith of the virtue of Brien and his people, travels through the entire kingdon, without fear of outrage. "O the sight-entrancing," is the almost sublime expression of a warrior's enthusiasm at the sight of arms. Divested of their rhythm and their music, these melodies would perhaps justify what Moore himself has modestly said of them in the style of Fadladeen-they resemble insects in amber, which are es teemed on account of the precious substance which embalm them.

[And now let us add an admiring sketch of the poet and his ways, written in that country which he himself describes

as

"A world so bright, but born to grace

Its own half-organized, half-minded race,"

but which is destined, notwithstanding, to be the second home of his immortality:]-

Well-how does Moore write a song?

In the twilight of a September evening he strolls through the park to dine with the marquis. As he draws on his white gloves, he sees the evening star looking at him steadily through the long vista of the avenue, and he construes its punctual dispensation of light into a reproach for having, himself a star, passed a day of poetic idleness. "Damme," soliloquizes the little fat planet, "this will never do! Here have I hammered the whole morning at a worthless idea, that, with the mere prospect of dinner, hows as trumpery as a penny fairing Labor wasted! -and at my time of life too! Faith!-it's a dining at home these two days with nobody to drink with me! It's eye-water I want! Don't trouble yourself to sit up for me, brother Hesper! I shall see clearer when I come back!

[ocr errors]

'Bu are the rhymes That scorn old wine,'

as my friend Barry sings. Poetry? hum!-Claret? Prithee, cl it claret!"

poet

And Moore is mistaken! He draws his inspiration, it is true, with the stem of a glass between his thumb and anger. but the wine is the least stimulus to his brain. He talks, and is listened to admiringly, and that is his Castaly. He sits next to Lady Fanny at dinner, who thinks him "an adorable little Love," and he employs the first two courses in making her in love with herself-that is, blowing everything she says up to the red heat of poetry. Moore can do this; for the most stupid things on earth are, after all, the beginnings of ideas, and every fool is susceptible of the flattery of seeing the words go straight from his lips to the "highest heaven of invention." And Lady Fanny is not a fool, but a quick and appreciative woman, and to almost everything she says, the poet's trump is a germe of poetry. Ah! says Lady Fanny with a sigh, "this will be a meinorable dinner-not to you, but to me; for you see pretty women every day, but I seldom see Tom Moore!" The looks into Lady Fanny's eyes, and makes no immediate answer. Presently she asks with a delicious look of simplicity," Are you as agreeable to everybody, Mr. Moore ?" "There is but one Lady Fanny," replies the poet; " or, t use your oun beautiful simile, "The moon sees many brooks, but the brook sees but one moon !" (Mem. jot that down.) And so is treasured up one idea for the morrow, and when the marchioness rises and the ladies follow her to the drawing-room, Moore finds himself sandwiched between a cop ple of whig lords, and opposite a past or future premieran audience of cultivation, talent, scholarship, and appre ciation; and as the fresh pitcher of claret is passed round, all regards radiate to the Anacreon of the world, and with that suction of expectation-let alone Tom Moore-even our "Secretary of the Navy and National Songster" would "turn out his lining"-such as it is. And Moore is de lightful, and with his "As you say, my lord!" he gives birth to a constellation of bright things, no one of which is dismissed with the claret. Every one at the table, except Moore, is subject to the hour-to its enthusiasm, its enjoyment-but the hour is to Moore a precious slave. So is the wine. It works for hic! It brings him money from Longman! It plays his trumpet in the reviews! It is his filter among the ladies! Well may he sing its praises! Of all the poets, Moore is probably the only one who is thus master of his wine. The glorious abandon with which we fancy him, a brimming glass in his hand, singing “Fly not yet exists only in the fancy. He keeps a cool head and coins his conviviality; and to revert to my former figure, they who wish to know what Moore's electricity amounts to without the convivial friction, may read his "History of Ireland." Not a sparkle in it, from the landing of the Phenicians to the battle of Vinegar Hill! He wrote that as other people write-with nothing left from the day be fore but the habit of labor; and the travel of a collapsed balloon on a man's back, is not more unlike the same thing, inflated and soaring, than Tom Moore, historian, and Tom Moore, bard!

Somewhere in the small hours the poet walks home, and sitting down soberly in his little library, he puts on paper the half score of scintillations that collision, in one shape or another, has struck into the tinder of his fancy. if read from this paper, the world would probably think little of their prospect of ever becoming poetry. But the mys terious part is done-the life is breathed into the chrysalis -and the clothing of these naked fancies with winged words, Mr. Moore knows very well can be done in very uninspired moods by patient industry. Most people have very little idea of what that industry is-how deeply lan guage is ransacked, how often turned over, how untiringly rejected and recalled with some new combination, how res olutely sacrificed when only tolerable enough to pass, how left untouched day after day in the hope of a fresh impulse after repose. The vexation of a Chinese puzzle is slight, probably, to that which Moore has expended on some of his most natural and flowing single verses. The exquisite nicety of his ear, though it eventually gives his poetry its honeyed fluidity, gives him no quicker choice of words, nor does more, in any way, than pass inexorable judgment on what his industry brings forward. Those who think a song dashed off like an invitation to dinner, would be edified by the progressive phases of a "Moore's Melody." Taken with all its re-writings, emendations, &c., I doubt whether, in his most industrious seclusion, Moore averages a couplet a day. Yet this persevering, resolute, urconquerable pa tience of labor, is the secret of his fame. Take the best thing he ever wrote, and translate its sen.iment and simil tudes into plain prose, and do the same thing by a song of any second-rate imitator of Moore, one abstract would read as well as the other. Yet Moore's song is immortal, and the other ephemeral as a paragraph in a newspaper, and the difference consists in the patient elaboration of lar guage and harmony, and in that only. And even thus short, seems the space between the ephemeron and the immor tal. But it is wider than they think, oh glorious Tem

Moore !

THE SACRED POEMS

OF

MRS. HEMANS..

THE SUN.

THE Sun comes forth ;-each mountain height Glows with a tinge of rosy light,

And flowers that slumbered through the night,
Their dewy leaves unfold;

A flood of splendor bursts on high,
And ocean's breast reflects a sky
Of crimson and of gold.

Oh! thou art glorious, orb of day!
Exulting nations hail thy ray,

Creation swells a choral lay,

To welcome thy return;

From thee all Nature draws her hues,
Thy beams the insect's wings suffuse,

And in the diamond burn.

Yet must thou fade;-when earth and heaven
By fire and tempest shall be riven,

Thou, from thy sphere of radiance driven,
Oh Sun! must fall at last;
Another heaven, another earth,
Far other glory shall have birth,
When all we see is past.

But He, who gave the word of might,
"Let there be light"-and there was light,
Who bade thee chase the gloom of night,

And beain, the world to bless ;

For ever bright, for ever pure,
Alone unchanging shall endure,

The Sun of righteousness!

CHRIST STILLING THE TEMPEST

"But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves; the wind was contrary."-Matthew, xiv. 24.

FEAR was within the tossing bark,
When stormy winds grew loud;

And waves came rolling high and dark,
And the tall mast was bowed.

And men stood breathless in their dread,
And baffled in their skill-

But One was there, who rose and said

To the wild sea, "Be still!"

And the wind ceased-it ceased!-that word

Passed through the gloomy sky;

The troubled billows knew their Lord,

And sank beneath his eye.

And slumber settled on the deep,

And silence on the blast,
As when the righteous falls asleep,
When death's fierce throes are past.

Thou that didst rule the angry hour,
And tame the tempest's mood-
Oh! send thy spirit forth in power,
O'er our dark souls to brood!

Thou that didst bow the billow's pride,
Thy mandates to fulfil-

Speak, speak, to passion's raging tide,
Speak and say-"Peace, be still!"

THE ISRAELITE'S LAMENT
Em Babylonia sobre os rios, quardo.

BESIDE the streams of Babylon, in tears

Of vain desire, we sat; remembering thee,

O hallowed Sion! and the vanished years,

When Israel's chosen sons were blest and free:

Our harps, neglected and untuned, we hung

Mute on the willows of the stranger's land; When songs, like those that in thy fanes we sung, Our foes demanded from their captive band.

How shall our voices, on a foreign shore,
(We answered those whose chains the exile wore,)
The songs of God, our sacred songs, renew?
If I forget, midst grief and wasting toil,
Thee, O Jerusalem! my native soil!

May my right hand forget its cunning too!

ON ASCENDING A HILL LEADING TO
CONVENT.

No baxes temeroso, o peregrino.

PAUSE not with lingering foot, O pilgrim, here;
Pierce the deep shadows of the mountain-side;
Firm be thy step, thy heart unknown to fear,

To brighter worlds this thorny path will guide
Soon shall thy feet approach the calm abode,
So near the mansions of supreme delight;
Pause not-but tread this consecrated road,
'Tis the dark basis of the heavenly height.
Behold, to cheer thee on the toilsome way,

How many a fountain glitters down the hill!
Pure gales, inviting, softly round thee play,

Bright sunshine guides-and wilt thou linger still? Oh! enter there, where, freed from human strife, Hope is reality, and time is life.

[blocks in formation]

PARAPHRASE OF PSALM CXLVIII.

Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the Lord from the heavens, praise hin in the heights.

PRAISE ye the Lord! on every height
Songs to his glory raise!

Ye angel-hosts, ye stars of light,
Join in immortal praise!

Oh! heaven of heavens! let praise far-swelling
From all your orbs be sent!

Join in the strain, ye waters, dwelling

Above the firmament!

For his the word which gave you birth,

And majesty and might;

Praise to the Highest from the earth,
And let the deeps unite!

Oh! fire and vapor, hail and snow,
Ye servants of his will;

Oh! stormy winds, that only blow
His mandates to fulfil;

Mountains and rocks, to heaven that rise

Fair cedars of the wood;

Creatures of life, that wing the skies,
Or track the plains for food;
Judges of nations; kings, whose hand
Waves the proud sceptre high;
Oh! youths and virgins of the land,
Oh! age and infancy;

Praise ye His name, to whom alone

All homage should be given; Whose glory from the eternal throne Spreads wide o'er earth and heaven!

THE HOUR OF PRAYER.
CHILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Called thy harvest-work to leave;
Prayere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Traveller, in the stranger's land
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea-
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun!
Woman o'er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial plain:
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,
Heaven's first star alike ye see-
Lift the heart and bend the knee!

[blocks in formation]

Youth and the opening rose

May look like things too glorious for decay,

And smile at thee-but thou art not of those That wait the ripened bloom to seize their prey.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.

We know when moons shall wane,
When summer-birds from far shall cross the sea,

When autumn's hue shall tinge the golden grainBut who shall teach us when to look for thee?

Is it when spring's first gale

Comes forth to whisper where the violets lie?
Is it when roses in our paths grow pale ?—
They have one season-all are ours to die!

Thou art where billows foam,

Thou art where music melts upon the air,

Thou art around us in our peaceful home,
And the world calls us forth-and thou art there.
Thou art where friend meets friend,
Beneath the shadow of the elm to rest-

Thou art where foe meets foe, and trumpets rend The skies, and swords beat down the princely crest.

Leaves have their time to fall,

And flowers to wither at the north wind's breath,
And stars to set-but all,

Thou hast all seasons for thine own, oh! Death.

HYMN FOR CHRISTMAS.

OH! lovely voices of the sky
Which hymned the Savior's birth,
Are ye not singing still on high,
Ye that sang, "Peace on earth?"
To us yet speak the strains
Wherewith, in time gone by,
Ye blessed the Syrian swains,
Oh! voices of the sky!

Oh! clear and shining light, whose beams
That hour Heaven's glory shed,
Around the palms, and o'er the streams,
And on the shepherd's head.

Be near, through life and death,
As in that holiest night
Of hope, and joy, and faith-

Oh! clear and shining light!

Oh! star which led to Him, whose love
Brought down man's ransom free-
Where art thou ?-'midst the host above,
May we still gaze on thee?

In Heaven thou art not set,
Thy rays earth may not dim,
Send them to guide us yet,
Oh! star which led to Him!

NIGHT HYMN AT SEA.

THE WORDS WRITTEN FOR A MELODY BY FELTON.
NIGHT sinks on the wave,
Hollow gusts are sighing,
Sea-birds to their cave

Through the gloom are flying.
Oh! should storms come sweeping
Thou, in heaven unsleeping,
O'er thy children vigil keeping,
Hear, hear, and save!

Stars look o'er the sea,

Few, and sad, and shrouded! Faith our light must be,

When all else is clouded.

Thou, whose voice came thrilling,
Wind and billow stilling,

Speak once more! our prayer fulfilling -
Power dwells with thee!

CHRIST'S AGONY IN THE GARDEN.

HYMN OF THE MOUNTAIN CHRISTIAN.

He knelt-the Savior knelt and prayed,

When but his Father's eye
Looked through the lonely garden's shade,
On that dread agony !

The Lord of all, above, beneath,
Was bowed with sorrow unto death.

The sun set in a fearful hour,

The skies might well grow dim, When this mortality had power

So to o'ershadow him.

That He who gave man's breath might know
The very depths of human wo.

He knew them all-the doubt, the strife,
The faint, perplexing dread,
The mists that hang o'er parting life,
All darkened round his head!
And the Deliverer knelt to pray—
Yet passed it not, that cup, away.

It passed not-though the stormy wave
Had sunk beneath his tread;

It passed not-though to him the grave
Had yielded up its deal.

But there was sent him from on high
A gift of strength, for man to die.

And was his mortal hour beset
With anguish and dismay?

-How may we meet our conflict yet,
In the dark, narrow way?

How, but through Him, that path who trod?
Save, or we perish, Son of God!

THE MINSTER.

A fit abode, wherein appear enshrined
Our hopes of immortality.-Byron.
SPEAK low!--the place is holy to the breath
Of awful harmonies, of whispered prayer;
Tread lightly!-for the sanctity of death
Broods with a voiceless influence on the air:
Stern, yet serene!-a reconciling spell,
Each troubled billow of the soul to quell.

Leave me to linger silently awhile!

-Not for the light that pours its fervid streams Of rainbow glory down through arch and aisle, Kindling old banners into haughty gleams, Flushing proud shrines, or by some warrior's tomb Dying away in clouds of gorgeous gloom :

Not for rich music, though in triumph pealing,

Mighty as forest sounds when winds are high; Nor yet for torch, and cross, and stole, revealing Through incense-mists their sainted pageantry :Though o'er the spirit each hath charm and power Yet not for these I ask one lingering hour.

But by strong sympathies, whose silver cord

Links me to mortal weal, my soul is bound;
Thoughts of the human hearts, that here have poured
Their anguish forth, are with me and around ;-
I look back on the pangs, the burning tears,
Known to these altars of a thousand years.

Send up a murmur from the dust, Remorse!

That here hast bowed with ashes on thy head;
And thou still battling with the tempest's force-
Thou, whose bright spirit through all time hath bled-
Speak, wounded Love! if penance here, or prayer,
Hath laid one haunting shadow of despair?

Nc voice, no breath!-of conflicts past, no trace?
-Does not this hush give answer to my quest?

Surely the dread religion of the place

By every grief hath made its might confest!
-Oh! that within my heart I could but keep
Holy te caven, a spot thus pure, and still, and deep!

And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengtherung him."-Luke, xxii. 13.

"Thanks be to God for the mountains."

Howitt's Book of the Seasons

FOR the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!
Thou hast made thy children mighty,

By the touch of the mountain sod.
Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge
Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

We are watchers of a beacon
Whose lights must never die;
We are guardians of an altar
Midst the silence of the sky;
The rocks yield founts of courage
Struck forth as by thy rod-

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
O God, our fathers' God!

For the dark, resounding heavens,
Where thy still small voice is heard,
For the strong pines of the forests,
That by thy breath are stirred;

For the storms on whose free pinions
Thy spirit walks abroad-

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
O God, our fathers' God!

The royal eagle darteth

On his quarry from the heights, And the stag that knows no master, Seeks there his wild delights;

But we for thy communion

Have sought the mountain sod-
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

The banner of the chieftain
Far, far below us waves;
The war-horse of the spearman
Can not reach our lofty caves;
Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold
Of freedom's last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our father's God!

For the shadow of thy presence

Round our camp of rock outspread;
For the stern defiles of battle,

Bearing record of our dead;
For the snows, and for the torrents,
For the free heart's burial sod,
For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

MOTHER'S LITANY BY THE SICK-BED OF A
CHILD.

SAVIOR that of woman born,
Mother-sorrow didst not scorn,

Thou with whose last anguish strove
One dear thought of earthly love;
Hear and aid!

Low he lies, my precious child,
With his spirit wandering wild
From its gladsome tasks and play,
And its bright thoughts far away :-
Savior, aid!

Pain sits heavy on his brow,
E'en though slumber seal it now;
Round his lip is quivering strifi,
In his hand unquiet life;

Aid, oh! aid!

Savior! loose the burning chain From his fevered heart and brain, Give, oh! give his young soul back Into its own cloudless track!

Hear and aid

« FöregåendeFortsätt »