A MIDNIGHT HYMN,

TO DEITY.

How grand and awful is this midnight hour!

The world is still....and not a sound disturbs The breeze that bathes its pinions in the dew. The moon looks dimly down; the lowering clouds Obscure her beams. The fleeting foot of Time Moves swiftly on, and steals from sleeping man. The solemn bell repeats another hour, And gives it to the numbers that have pass'd. I sit alone: But there's an eye beholds me, To which the darkness is the noon of day. 10 To thee my God, I give these solemn thoughts, And seek thy spirit in the depths of night. While rest the follies of a giddy world, While all its scenes and all its noise are fled, Truths strike the mind with more impressive force.

Almighty Power in his eternal counsels,
Design'd a world the Theatre of Love.
He spoke; all nature hear'd his awful voice.

The sun roll'd burning from the hand of God.
The vales and mountains spread beneath his beams;
And in their channels flowed the wandering waters.
The moonlight trembled thro' the shades of Eve, 22
And led the train of Night. Then joy arose.
The voice of Music lull'd the peaceful scene :
And thro' the thickets sang the hollow breeze.
The fragrant herb wav'd to the breath of morn.
The fowls of Heaven uprose upon the wing;
And the deep forest shelter'd in its arms
The Brutes that roam'd its haunts.

" Let us make man"....spoke then Almighty power, In image like his God; " and let his rule 31 Be over earth, and all that earth contains."

Then from the dust, see man to being rise, Firm and erect, with eye upturn'd to Heaven, He spurns the earth beneath him with his feet, And sways his sceptre o'er the prostrate world. Array'd in glory like his father God,

Man thus abode not....but from honour fell.

The gates of Paradise were closed against him,
Its shades no more would shelter his repose; 40
" Where came the voice of God at early morn."
Its cooling stream would no more meet his lip,
Or babble to his ear. A dreary world,
Spread wide before his view, where toil and pain
Stood arm'd, to bear him on the road of life;
While o'er him howl'd the dark and angry sky.
O son of morn.... how art thou fall'n from Heaven
And all thy former splendour dim'd and lost!
Man ruin'd in his first and high estate
Affords a subject gloomy to the soul.
The fall of angels was the fall of man.
" Shorn of his beams" the Sun, in dim eclipse,
Lends but a feeble lustre to the earth:
Or when he sinks beneath the western wave,
Pale Evening treads upon his burning footsteps
And brings grim Night to throw his mantle o'er
A sunken world, lock'd in a mimic death.

Thus on the morning of man's towering hopes,
Came the dark night of woe. His happiness
Is now a little bark thrown on the floods,
And toss'd and dash'd by wild tempestuous winds,

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By Adam's disobedence earth was curs'd. In Nature's garden thorns and thistles grew: Chill o'er the vallies swept the howling blast, The thunders roar'd....the earthquake shook the

globe;

The mountains pour'd their streams of liquid fire, And, like a Giant, fell Disease arose

And blew o'er earth his pestilential breath.

A train of evils followed on his steps;

There came Misfortune with his iron scythe 70
Dropping with human blood; there Envy stalk'd
And fan'd the flames of hell....fell Fury there
Yell'd to the winds and stamp'd the hollow ground;
Telling her sorrows to the listening Night,
There came wan Melancholy slowly on;
Folded her arms upon her heaving bosom,

Her face directed to the dewy moon.

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There came Remorse absorb'd in gloomy thought:
There rush'd Despair....his dark eye roll'd in blood;
He tore the mantle from his raging breast,
And plung'd his dagger in his heart.... There came
Poor Lunacy in tatter'd robes, and wav'd

A straw, and told the kingdoms which he rul'd.