Then all assembled round their homely board, The Evening's temperate meal together share; The Sabbath supper haply may afford
Some greater dainty than their common fare;
But, ever when 'tis o'er, they all prepare
To bend their knees in seemly order round
Their thankful sire, who ends the day in prayer
To Him whose goodness through that day they've
found,
[abound.
And begs this night, and aye, his grace may so
Hail! tranquil eve of undisturbed day;
How pure the joys that, floating on thy beams,
Bid their mild radiance on the bosom play,
Rousing the soul from earth's delusive dreams,—
To seek the fruitful banks of Zion's streams;
There drink instruction, and imbibe the word
Of Wisdom, such as best the mind beseems.
O! may the swains for ever thus accord
In worship to enshrine the Sabbath of the 'Lord!
Now wishing each to each a night of rest,
They to their humble bed attonce retire,
With peace of mind, and health of body bless'd;
More worth than all that pomp which some desire;
More worth than fame, which wreathes the poet's
More worth than that the warrior toils to gain,
'Mid strifeful scenes of blood and wrathful fire;
More worth than is with victor kings to reign;
Is this advauncement high which crowns the sim-
ple swain.
All who possess a diamond so rare
Are truly rich, nor other riches need;
The guerdon this which Virtue has to wear,
To mark her dignity and lofty stead,
E'en when discover'd clad in peasant's weed:
But not confined to humble life, I ween,
Is this, of all her sons the happy meed;
Some few of lordly tire with her are seen,
Albe, 'mong these, full sorely misemprized she
Now grant attendance on my lay awhile,
Ye who the shepherds of the sheepfold stand;
Right fain I would that Heaven upon you smile,
And cause you right to lead the simple band;
Nor, when the salvage spoilers be at hand,
Forsake your tender charge, like hireling base;
But stoutly 'gainst each bear and lion stand,
As did that shepherd lad of Jesse's race
Who Salem's royal courts with kingly praise did grace.
So mote ye teach the swains to love the Lord,
By showing Wisdom in her pleasant ways,
And how her paths do truest peace afford,
Far other than the world's deceitful maze,
Gilt with false splendour of vain Fancy's rays.
So mote that heavenly light to you descend,
Which brightens, with its soul-refreshing blaze,
All willing minds, to you its fulness lend,
Till your long toil in Heaven's eternal Sabbath end.
REFLECTION ON SUNDAY MORNING.
It is the Sabbath morn: The landscape smiles
Calm in the sun; and silent are the hills
And valleys and the blue serene of air.
The sea scarce trembles to the rippling gale,
Bright in tranquillity. The vanish'd lark
Breaks faint the silence, and disturbs it not.
Oh, native isle beloved! by rounding waves
Bosom'd remote, and hallow'd from the world!
What needs the dimly purpled light that glows
Through imaged glass, or what the measured chant
Of monkish strains to the deep organ's peal,
To rouse devotion? when thy clifts resound
The wave's mild murmur, and thy thickets green
Ring with the song of birds? when flowers in dew
Exhale their fragrance, and the sense is cheer'd
By air and sunshine? While fanatic groans,
Breathed from a gloomy spirit, rise to Him
Who spread this verdure o'er the fields, who bade
These violets spring, and lighted up the sun,
Be mine with silence of the heart to praise
His mercies, and adore his name of love.
Hail, scene of beauty! scene of Sabbath calm! Thou greenest earth! thou blue and boundless Thou sea, reposing like a stilly lake! [heaven! Hail, ye that blend your silence with the soul! Around, the unimaginable God
Moves visible to faith: but unconfused
With these the works and wonders of his hand:
These intercept his presence; not reveal;
He sojourns not in clouds, nor is the light
His essence; mingled with the common mass
Of elements, as ancient sages dreamed;
God and his creatures one.
Of sense the incommunicable mind
Dwelleth; and they, who with corporeal eye
Adoring nature's beauteous forms, discern
Intelligence in colours and in shades;
In sunlight and the glimmer of the moon;
Who deem their worship holy, when they hear
A God in empty winds, and in the sounds
Of waters-they have bow'd the' idolatrous knee
Before material atoms! these are his
But not himself: suspended by his breath
They are, and at his voice may cease to be.
Away from us these mystic vanities,
This heathen's wisdom, and this poet's creed :
Away from us the morbid sympathy
That blends itself with rocks and trees; that stoops
To fellowship with brutes; that finds a soul
In every bird that flits along the sky,
A life in every leaf and every flower.
Be thine the adoration; thine the praise
And love and wonder, Thou, whose name is One! And be thy Sabbath holy to thyself.
A SUNDAY MORNING'S WALK.
ON that bless'd day, when weekly labour ends, When Trade unchains her slaves, her whip susI left the stifled city's smoky bounds, [pends, Where Pity bleeds from never closing wounds;
Where Beauty, doom'd by Poverty to die,
Bends o'er the hated task her languid eye;
Where Childhood, early victim to despair,
In sad maturity of thoughtful care,
All the long day immured in dusky cells,
Breathing disease, with pain and sorrow dwells.
On such dark thoughts, with downward looks
intent,
Forth to the fields my wandering steps I bent;
Pensive and slow I walk'd; but now the gale,
Brushing the hawthorn blossoms from the vale,
Breathed sweet around and on my temples stray'd;
The landscape smiled, in purest green array'd;
Each insect, bird, and beast in gambols play'd.
The general pleasure seized me as I stood,
My thoughts, on evil fix'd, return'd to good.
I bless'd the' unseen hand that soothed my care,
And shed a healing balsam in the air;
That made each sympathetic joy we prove
. A spring of kindness, and a bond of love.
Yet shall we say, that with impartial skill
Nature has poised the scales of good and ill?
Behold the man, whom hourly tumults leave
No space for joy, and hardly time to grieve,
In love with solitude, yet forced all day
To elbow through the crowd his breathless way;
Still harass'd with new cares from sun to sun,
Fancy's fair dreams cut short ere well begun;
Despising lucre, yet for lucre's sake
Condemn'd to labour till his fingers ache;
With slavish pen to drudge in ceaseless toil,
And waste on sordid thoughts the midnight oil.
Unhappier yet, in secret doom'd to feel
The glow of shame, or blushing to reveal;
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