Come, then, and, added to Thy many crowns,
Receive yet one, as radiant as the rest,

Due to Thy last and most effectual work,

Thy word fulfilled, the conquest of a world!

William Cowper.

AH! what time wilt Thou come? when shall that cry,

The "Bridegroom's coming!" fill the sky?

Shall it in the evening run

When our words and works are done?

Or will Thy all-surprising light

Break at midnight,

When either sleep, or some dark pleasure
Possesseth mad man without measure?

Or shall these early, fragrant hours
Unlock Thy bowers?

And with their blush of light descry

Thy locks crowned with eternity?

Indeed, it is the only time

That with Thy glory doth best chime;

All now are stirring, every field

Full hymns doth yield;

The whole creation shakes off night,
And for thy shadow looks the light;
Stars now vanish without number,
Sleepy planets set and slumber,

The pursy clouds disband and scatter,
All expect some sudden matter;
Not one beam triumphs, but from far
That Morning-Star.

Oh at what time soever Thou,
Unknown to us, the heavens wilt bow,
And, with Thy angels in the van,
Descend to judge poor careless man,

Grant, I may not like puddle lie
In a corrupt security,

Where, if a traveller water crave,
He finds it dead, and in a grave;
But as this restless, vocal spring
All day and night doth run, and sing,
And though here born, yet is acquainted
Elsewhere, and flowing keeps untainted;
So let me all my busy age

In Thy free services engage;

And though (while here) of force I must
Have commerce sometimes with poor dust,
And in my flesh, though vile and fɔw,
As this doth in her channel, flow,
Yet let my course, my aim, my love,
And chief acquaintance be above;
So when that day and hour shall come,
In which Thyself will be the Sun,
Thou'lt find me drest and on my way,
Watching the break of Thy great day.

Henry Vaughan.

EVEN thus amid thy pride and luxury,
Oh Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the Son of Man.
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,
Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pcmp away:
Still to the noontide of that nightless day,

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,

And marriage-feasts begin their jccund strain:
Still to the pouring out the Cup of Woe:
Till earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,

And mountains molten by His burning feet,

And heaven His presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated cities then,

The towers and temples, named of men
Eternal, and the thrones of kings:

The gilded summer palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,
Where still the bird of pleasure sings;
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go gaze cn fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll,

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled,

The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll,

And the vast common docm ensepulchres the world.

Oh! who shall then survive?

Oh! who shall stand and live?

When all that hath been, is no more:

When for the round earth hung in air,

With all its constellations fair

In the sky's azure canopy;

When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea,

Is but a fiery deluge without shore, Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, A fiery deluge, and without an ark.

Lord of all power, when Thou art there alone
On Thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne,
That in its high meridian noon

Needs not the perished sun nor mɔʊn :
When Thou art there in Thy presiding state,
Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom:
When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb,

The dead of all the ages round Thee wait:

And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn

Like forest leaves in the autumn of thine ire:

Faithful and True! Thou still wilt save 'Thine own!
The saints shall dwell within the unharming fire,
Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm.
Even safe as we, by this still fountain's side,

So shall the Church, Thy bright and mystic Bride,
Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm.

Yes, mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of Thy mercy shines, We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem!

H. H. Milman.