O holy Night! from thee I learn to bear Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care, Peace! Peace! Orestes-like I breathe this prayer! The welcome, the thrice-prayed for, the most fair, The best-beloved Night! H. W. LONGfellow. Heaven Calls and I Must Go. Enslaved by sense, be thus confined, Why, thus amused with empty toys, The mind was formed to mount sublime, But earthly vapours cloud her sight, The world employs its various snares, When shall be free, And upward learn to fly? Bright scenes of bliss, unclouded skies, Heaven calls, and can I yet delay? Come, Lord, with strength, and life, and light, And bid the world depart. STEELE. Hail, Holy Love ! HAIL, holy love! thou word that sums all bliss, Gives and receives all bliss, fullest when most Thou givest! spring-head of all felicity, Entirely blest, because thou seek'st no more, Mysterious, infinite, exhaustless love! He Yearns to Forgive. DIDST thou not hear how soft the day-wind sighed, How from afar that sweeping breath it drew, Waved the light rustling branches far and wide, Then died away, then rose and moaned anew? Sure if aright our morning prayers were said, We in those tones the Almighty's unseen walk Shall hear, nor vainly shun the Presence dread, Which comes in mercy with our souls to talk. "Where art thou, child of earth ?" He seems to say, "Why hide so deep from Love's all-seeing eye ?"— "I heard and feared, for I have sinned to-day.". "What? know'st thou not the Almighty One was by? "Think'st thou to lurk in yonder wavering boughs, Where even these earthly sunbeams glide and steal? Nay, speed thee forth while yet high grace allows, Lay bare thy wounds to Him who waits to heal. They only rankle in th' unwholesome shade; But sun and air have soothing power, and He Yearns to forgive, when hearts are lowly laid, Even now behold His robe prepared for thee. "These fluttering leaves the more unveil thy shame; Fall humbly down, and hide thine eyes in dust: He will upraise thee, for His own great Name; His penance garb will make and show thee just." ANON. Hymn of the City. Nor in the solitude Alone, may man commune with Heaven, or see Only in savage wood And sunny vale, the present Deity; Or only hear his voice Where the winds whisper and the waves rejoice. Even here do I behold Thy steps, Almighty-here, amidst the crowd With everlasting murmur, deep and loud- 'Mongst the proud piles, the work of human kind. Thy golden sunshine comes From the round heaven, and on their dwellings lies, And lights their inner homes For them thou fill'st with air the unbounded skies, And givest them the stores Of ocean, and the harvests of its shores. Thy Spirit is around, Quickening the restless mass that sweeps along; And this eternal sound Voices and footfalls of the numberless throngLike the resounding sea, Or like the rainy tempest, speaks of thee. And when the hours of rest The quiet of that moment, too, is thine; The vast and helpless city while it sleeps. W. C. BRYANT. IN Hope in God. N thee, dear Lord, my pensive soul respires, Thou art the fulness of my choice desires; Thou art that sacred spring, whose waters burst In streams to him that seeks with holy thirst. Thrice happy man, thrice happy thirst, to bring Thy fainting soul to so, so sweet a spring; Thrice happy he, whose well-resolved breast Expects no other aid, no other rest; Thrice happy he, whose downy age has been FRANCIS QUARLES. |