India, Egypt, Araby, Asia, Greece, and Tartary, Carmel-tracts and Lebanon, With the Mountains of the Moon, From whence muddy Nile doth run; Rise at once- - let's sacrifice! HENRY MORE. The Elder Scripture. THERE is a book, who runs may read, Which heavenly truth imparts, And all the lore its scholars need Pure eyes and loving hearts. The works of God, above, below, How God himself is found. The glorious sky, embracing all, The dew of heaven is like His grace: Two worlds are ours: 'tis only sin The mystic heaven and earth within, FATHER, Thy wonders do not singly stand, Nor far removed where feet have seldom strayed; Around us ever lies the enchanted land, In marvels rich to Thine own sons displayed; In finding Thee are all things round us found; In losing Thee are all things lost beside; Ears have we, but in vain strange voices sound; And to our eyes the vision is denied ; We wander in the country far remote, Mid tombs and ruined piles in death to dwell; Or on the records of past greatness dote, And for a buried soul the living sell; While on our path bewildered falls the night That ne'er returns us to the fields of light. JONES VERY. For New-Year's Way. ETERNAL Source of every joy! Well may Thy praise our lips employ, While in Thy temple we appear Whose goodness crowns the circling year. While as the wheels of nature roll, Thy hand supports the steady pole; The sun is taught by Thee to rise, And darkness when to veil the skies. The flowery spring at Thy command Thy hand in autumn richly pours ON THE MORNING OF CHRIST'S NATIVITY. She, crowned with olive green, came softly sliding Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And waving wide her myrtle wand, Full little thought they then That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, 795 She strikes a universal peace through sea and Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy land. keep. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet As never was by mortal finger strook- Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blissful rapture took; The air, such pleasure loath to lose, As if they surely knew their sovereign Lord was by. With thousand echoes still prolongs each heavenly Than his bright throne or burning axle-tree could And bid the weltering waves their oozy channel bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or e'er the point of dawn, keep. Ring out, ye crystal spheres! Once bless our human ears, And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic day. Yea, truth and justice then Will down return to men, Orbed in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing, Mercy will sit between, Throned in celestial sheen, cell. The lonely mountains o'er, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edged with poplar pale, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering; The parting genius is with sighing sent; And heaven, as at some festival, Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall. But wisest fate says No This must not yet be so; The babe yet lies in smiling infancy That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss, So both Himself and us to glorify. Yet first to those ye chained in sleep In urns and altars round A drear and dying sound Affrights the flamens at their service quaint; And the chill marble seems to sweat, The wakeful trump of doom must thunder through While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted the deep, With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang, seat. Peor and Baälim Forsake their temples dim, While the red fire and smouldering clouds outbrake; With that twice-battered god of Palestine; The aged earth, aghast With terror of that blast, Shall from the surface to the centre shake When, at the world's last session, And mooned Ashtaroth, Heaven's queen and mother both, Now sits not girt with tapers' holy shine; The Lybic Hammon shrinks his horn The dreadful judge in middle air shall spread his In vain the Tyrian maids their wounded Thammuz throne. And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is mourn. And sullen Moloch fled, Hath left in shadows dread |