What other comfort can I know?
Behold,
Wild dogs and wolves with hungry snarl contend
Over thy prostrate mighty ones; and rend
Their quivering limbs, ere life hath lost its hold.
I sicken at the dawn of morn-the noon
Brings horror with its brightness; for the day
Shows but the desolate plain,
Where, feasting on the slain
(Thy princes), flap and scream the birds of prey!
Chalice from Marah's bitterest spring distill'd!
Goblet of woe, to overflowing fill'd!
Who, quaffing thee, can live? Give me but breath-
A single breath-that I once more may see
The dreary vision. I will think of thee,
Colla, once more-of Cliba will I think-
Then fearlessly and freely drink
The cup-the fatal cup-whose dregs are death.
Awake thee, Queen of Cities, from thy slumber
Awake thee, Sion! Let the quenchless love
Of worshippers, a number beyond number,
A fountain of rejoicing prove.
Thy sorrows they bewail, thy wounds they see,
And feel them as their own, and mourn for thee!
Oh, what were life to them, did Hope not hold
Her mirror, to unfold
That glorious future to their raptured sight,
When a new morn shall chase away this night!
Even from the dungeon gloom,
Their yearning hearts, as from a tomb,
Are crying out-are crying out to thee;
And, as they bow the knee
Before the Eternal, every one awaits
The answer of his prayer, with face toward thy gates.
Earth's most celestial region! Babylon
The mighty, the magnificent, to thee,
With all the trappings of her bravery on,
Seems but a river to the engulfing sea.
What are its oracles but lies? 'Tis given
Thy prophets only to converse with Heaven-
The hidden to reveal, the dark to scan,
And be the interpreters of God to man.
The idols dumb that erring men invoke,
Themselves are vanities, their power is smoke:
But, while the heathen's pomp is insecure,
Is transient, thine, O Sion! shall endure;
For in thy temples, God, the only Lord,
Hath been, and still delights to be, adored.
Blessed are they, who, by their love,
Themselves thy veritable children prove!
Yea! blessed they who cleave
To thee, with faithful hearts, and scorn to leave!
Come shall the day—and come it may full soon-
When thou, more splendid than the moon,
Shalt rise; and triumphing o'er night,
Turn ebon darkness into silver light:
The glory of thy brightness shall be shed
Around each faithful head:
Rising from thy long trance, earth shall behold
Thee loftier yet, and lovelier than of old;
And portion'd with the saints in bliss shall be
All who, through weal and woe, were ever true to thee!
WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came--
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rang,
And this was the song the bright ones sang:
Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,
The fair blue fields that before us lie,—
Each sun with the worlds that round him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.
"For the source of glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink as we go the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides ;
Lo, yonder the living splendours play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!
"Look, look through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.
"And see where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!
"Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See Love is brooding, and Life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice, like us, in motion and light.
"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
'To the farthest wall of the firmament,-
The boundles visible smile of Him,
To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim."
THE Lord my pasture shall prepare,
And feed me with a shepherd's care;
His
presence shall my wants supply,
And guard me with a watchful eye;
My noon-day walks he shall attend,
And all my midnight hours defend.
When in the sultry glebe I faint,
Or on the thirsty mountain pant;
To fertile vales and dewy meads
My weary wandering steps he leads :
Where peaceful rivers, soft and slow,
Amid the verdant landscape flow.
Though in the paths of death I tread,
With gloomy horrors overspread,
My steadfast heart shall fear no ill,
For thou, O Lord, art with me still:
Thy friendly crook shall give me aid,
And guide me through the dreadful shade.
Though in a bare and rugged way,
Through devious lonely wilds I stray,
Thy bounty shall my pains beguile :
The barren wilderness shall smile,
With sudden greens and herbage crown'd,
And streams shall murmur all around.
THE BUTTERFLY.
By BERNARD BARTON.
BEAUTIFUL creature! I have been
Moments uncounted watching thee,
Now flitting round the foliage green
Of yonder dark, embowering tree;
And now again, in frolic glee,
Hov'ring around those opening flowers,
Happy as nature's child should be,
Born to enjoy her loveliest bowers.
And I have gazed upon thy flight,
Till feelings I can scarce define,
Awaken'd by so fair a sight,
With desultory thoughts combine
Not to induce me to repine,
Or envy thee thy happiness;
But from a lot so bright as thine
To borrow musings born to bless.
For unto him whose spirit reads
Creation with a Christian's eye,
Each happy living creature pleads
The cause of Him who reigns on nigh; Who spann'd the earth, and arch'd the sky, Gave life to everything that lives,
And still delighteth to supply
With happiness the life He gives.
This truth may boast but little worth, Enforced by rhetoric's trigid powers ;— But when it has its quiet birth
In contemplation's silent hours;
When Summer's brightly peopled bowers
Bring home its teachings to the heart,
Then birds and insects, shrubs and flowers,
Its touching eloquence impart.
Then thou delightful creature, who
Wert yesterday a sightless worm,
Becom❜st a symbol fair and true
Of hopes that own no mortal term;
In thy proud chain we see the germ
Of man's sublimer destiny,
While holiest oracles confirm
The type of immortality!
A change more glorious far than thine,
E'en I, thy fellow-worm, may know,
When this exhausted frame of mine
Down to its kindred dust shall go :
When the anxiety and woe
Of being's embryo state shall seem
Like phantoms flitting to and fro
In some confused and feverish dream.
For thee, who flittest gaily now,
With all thy nature asks-supplied, A few brief summer days, and thou No more amid these haunts shall glide, As hope's fair herald-in thy pride The sylph-like genius of the scene, But, sunk in dark oblivion's tide,
Shalt be-as thou hadst never been!
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