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MISCELLANIES.

MISCELLANIES.

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 creeping man.
The solemn bell repeats another imur,

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.

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,

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Truths strike the mind with more impressive force.

A MIDNIGHT HYMN.

Almighty Power in his eternal counsels,
Design'd a world the Theatre of Love.
He spoke; all nature heard 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
Be over earth, and all that earth contains."

He

Then from the dust, see man to being rise, Firm and erect, with eye upturn'd to Heaven, spurns the earth beneath him with his feet, And sways the 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; "Where came the voice of God at early morn."

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