PRAISE AND PRAYER.
CAN words alone the first display?
Prove we the last by bended knee?
The right to praise, the power to pray,
Must both be given us, Lord, by thee.
Thy Spirit must the heart prepare,
And faith in thy dear Son be known,
Before the voice of praise or prayer,
Can rise like incense to thy throne.
Then give the power thy grace imparts,
The love by Jesus shown of yore;
That praiseless lives, and prayerless hearts,
May prove our guilt and shame no more.
TO THE SWALLOW.
AERIAL Voyager, who spread'st thy wing
O'er trackless waves to seek a sunnier clime! To man's immortal spirit thou should'st bring Thoughts of a lot more glorious and sublime. Thou, when stern winter comes to strip our bowers Prompted by instinct only, takest thy flight To distant lands, where fair and beauteous flowers, Still but of earth with splendour charm the sight.
But souls immortal, in the gathering gloom
Of death's dark winter, trust Faith's guiding ray, And soar where flowers of more than earthly bloom Shine forth to gladden an eternal day.
WHEN the moon's pale light is leaping
On the streamlet and the lake;
When the winds of Heaven are sleeping,
And the nightingale awake;-
And while mirror'd in the ocean
The bright orbs of Heaven appear,-
'Tis the hour of deep devotion-
Lift thy soul to Heaven in prayer.
When the autumn breeze is sighing
Through the leafless forest wide;
And the flowers are dead or dying,
Once the sunny garden's pride ;-
When the yellow leaves in motion,
Are seen scattered through the air,
'Tis an hour for deep devotion-
Lift thy soul to Heaven in prayer!
On his power and greatness ponder,
When the torrent and the gale,
And the cataract and thunder,
In one fearful chorus swell:
Amidst nature's wild emotion
Is thy soul oppressed with care?
'Tis the hour of deep devotion—
Lift thy soul to Him in prayer.
Both in sorrow and in sickness,
Both in poverty and pain;
And in vigour, or in weakness,
On the mountain, or the plain :
In the desert, or the ocean-
To the throne of grace repair;
All are hours for deep devotion-
Lift thy soul to heaven in prayer.
thine eyes, afflicted soul;
From earth lift up thine eyes;
Though dark the evening-shadows roll,
And daylight beauty dies:
One sun is set, a thousand more
Their rounds of glory run,
Where science leads thee to explore
In every star a sun.
Thus, when some long-loved comfort ends,
And nature would despair,
Faith to the heaven of heavens ascends,
And meets ten thousand there.
As stars that seem but points of light,
The rank of suns assume,
First faint and small, then clear and bright,
They gladden all the gloom.
AN EPITAPH ON A YOUNG CHRISTIAN.
As from the bud the flower expands to view,
From infancy to smiling youth she grew,
When He who ever liveth, strong to save,
Resumed in love the boon his mercy gave.
His mediation she had learned to trust,
Not that of creatures, like herself, of dust;
His spotless righteousness she sought alone,
And cast away, as worthless, all her own;
Quickened by Him, to Him she lived on earth,
Declaring thus her new and heavenly birth
Her soul has early found its promised rest,
Angels have borne her to her Saviour's breast:
Oh! glorious end to each expiring pain!
To live with Christ and find that "death is gain."
R. W. KYLE.
CHRISTIAN FRIENDSHIP.
'Tis grace, 'tis bounty, and it calls for praise,
If God gives health, that sunshine of our days;
And if he add a blessing shared by few,
Content of heart, more praises are his due.
But if he grant a friend, that gift possessed,
Indeed is treasure, and crowns all the rest:
And giving one whose heart is in the skies,
Born from above, and made divinely wise,
He gives what bankrupt nature never can,
Whose noblest coin is light and brittle man,
Gold purer far than Ophir ever knew,
A soul, an image of himself, and therefore true.
CowPER.
ON VISITING A SCENE OF CHILDHOOD.
LONG years had elapsed since I gazed on the scene, Which my fancy still robed in its freshness of green
The spot where, a school-boy, all thoughtless I strayed
By the side of the stream, in the gloom of the shade.
I thought of the friends who had roamed with me there,
When the sky was so blue, and the flowers so fair,All scattered!-all parted by mountain and wave, And some in the silent embrace of the grave!
I paused:-and the lesson came home to my heart:
Behold, how of earth all the pleasures depart;
Our visions are baseless,— —our hopes but a gleam,—
Our staff but a reed,—our life but a dream.
Then let us look on-let the prospect allure-
To scenes that can fade not, to realms that endure,
To glories, to blessings, that triumph sublime
O'er the blightings of Change, and the ruins of
Time.
|