Yea, Carnage is thy daughter! Thou cloth'st the wicked in their dazzling mail,
And by thy just permission they prevail ; Thine arm from peril guards the
Of them who in thy laws delight: Thy presence turns the scale of doubtful fight, Tremendous God of battles Lord of Hosts! TO THEE-TO THEE
On this appointed day shall thanks ascend, That Thou hast brought our warfare to an end,
And that we need no second victory!
Ha! what a ghastly ight for man to see;
And to the heavenly saints in peace who
dwell,
For a brief moment, terrible;
But to thy sovereign penetration, fair,
Before whom all things are, that were,
All judgments that have been, or e'er
shall be ;
Links in the chain of thy tranquillity!
Along the bosom of this favoured nation,
Breathe thou, this day, a vital undulation!
Let all who do this land inherit
Be conscious of thy moving spirit!
Oh, 'tis a goodly ordinance, -the sight,
Though sprung from bleeding war,
Bless thou the hour, or ere the hour arrive, When a whole people hall kneel down in
And, at one moment, in one rapture, strive
With lip and heart to tell their gratitude
For thy protecting care,
(Lord
Their solemn joy--praising the Eternal
For tyranny subdued,
And for the sway of equity renewed,
For liberty confirmed, and peace restored!
But hark-the summons !-down the placid lake
The tender insects sleeping in their cells Bright shines the sun-and not a breeze to shake
The drops that tip the melting icicles. Oh, enter now His temple gate! Inviting words-perchance already flung. (As the crowd press devoutly down the aisle
Of some old minster's venerable pile) From voices into zealous passion stung, While the tubed engine feels the inspiring blast, [cast
And has begun-its clouds of sound to Towards the empyreal heaven,
As if the fretted roof were riven.
Us, humbler ceremonies now await;
But in the bosom, with devout respect,
The banner of our joy we will erect,
And strength of love our souls shall
elevate:
For to a few collected in his name,
Their heavenly Father will incline an ear
Gracious to service hallowed by its aim ;-
Awake! the majesty of God revere !
Go-and with foreheads meekly bowed Present your prayers-go-and rejoice aloud
The Holy One will hear! And what 'mid silence deep, with faith sincere,
Ye, in your low and undisturbed estate,
Shall simply feel and purely meditate
Of warnings-from the unprecedented
might,
[closed;
Which, in our time, the impious have dis-
And of more arduous duties thence im-
posed
Upon the future advocates of right;
Of mysteries revealed,
And judgments unrepealed,-
Of earthly revolution,
And final retribution,
To his omniscience will appear
Floats the soft cadence of the church-tower | An offering not unworthy to find place,
[wake On this high DAY of THANKS, before the Throne of Grace!
Bright shines the sun, as if his beams might
Against the injuries of time, the spite
Of fortune, and the desolating storms
Of future war. Advance not-spare to hide,
O gentle power of darkness!-these mild
hues;
Obscure not yet these silent avenues
Of stateliest architecture, where the forms Of nun-like females, with soft motion glide!
of it in lines which I cannot deny myself the pleasure of connecting with my own:
'Time hath not wronged her, nor hath ruin sought
Rudely her splendid structures to destroy,
Save in those recent days, with evil fraught,
Triumphant, and from all restraint released,
When mutability, in drunken joy
Let loose her fierce and many-headed beast.
"But for the scars in that unhappy rage
Inflicted, firm she stands and undecayed:
Like our first sires, a beautiful old age
Is hers in venerable years arrayed;
And yet, to her, benignant stars may bring,
What fate denies to man, a second spring
"When I may read of tilts in days of old,
And tourneys graced by chieftains of renown, Fair dames, grave citizens, and warriors bold, Which for such pomp fit theatre should be, If fancy would portray some stately town, Fair Bruges, I shall then remember thee."
In this city are many vestiges of the splendour of the Burgundian dukedom; and the long black mantle universally worn by the females is probably a remnant of the old Spanish connexion, which, if I do not much deceive myself, is trace
With its gray rocks clustering in pensive
That, shaped like old monastic turrets, rise
From the smooth meadow ground, serene
and still!
able in the grave deportment of its inhabitants.
Bruges is comparatively little disturbed by that
curious contest, or rather conflict, of Flemish
with French propensities in matters of taste, so
conspicuous through other parts of Flanders.
The hotel to which we drove at Ghent furnished
an odd instance. In the passages were paint-
ings and statues, after the antique, of Hebe and
Apollo; and in the garden a little pond, about
a yard and a half in diameter, with a weeping
willow bending over it, and under the shade of
that tree, in the centre of the pond, a wooden
painted statue of a Dutch or Flemish boor, look-
ing ineffably tender upon his mistress, and em-
bracing her. A living duck, tethered at the feet
of the statues, alternately tormented a miserable
eel and itself with endeavours to escape from its
bonds and prison. Had we chanced to espy the Objects of false pretence, or meanly true!
hostess of the hotel in this quaint rural retreat,
If from a traveller's fortune I might claim
the exhibition would have been complete. She A palpable memorial of that day,
was a true Flemish figure, in the dress of the Then would I seek the Pyrenean breach
days of Holbein,-her symbol of office a weighty Which Roland clove with huge two-handed
bunch of keys, pendent from her portly waist.
In Brussels, the modern taste in costume, archi-
tecture, etc., has got the mastery; in Ghent
there is a struggle; but in Brugès old images
are still paramount, and an air of monastic life
among the quiet goings-on of a thinly-peopled
city is inexpressibly soothing a pensive grace
seems to be cast over all, even the very children.
-Extract from Journal.
WAS it to disenchant, and to undo,
That we approached the seat of Charle-
To sweep from many an old romantic
(strain
That faith which no devotion may renew!
Why does this puny church present to view
Its feeble columns? and that scanty chair!
This sword that one of our weak times
And to the enormous labour left his name, Where unremitting frosts the rocky crescent bleach.
* Let a wall of rocks be imagined from three to six hundred feet in height, and rising be
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