Page images
PDF
EPUB

In softer harmony the people join,

While liquid whispers from yon orphan band,

Recal the soul from adoration's trance,

And fill the eye with pity's gentle tears.
Again the organ-peal, loud rolling, meets
The halleluiahs of the choir: Sublime
A thousand notes symphoniously ascend,
As if the whole were one, suspended high
In air, soaring heav'nward: afar they float,
Wafting glad tidings to the sick man's couch:
Rais'd on his arm, he lists the cadence close,
Yet thinks he hears it still: his heart is cheer'd;
He smiles on death; but, ah! a wish will rise,-
"Would I were now beneath that echoing roof!
No lukewarm accents from my lips should flow;
My heart would sing; and many a Sabbath-day
My steps should thither turn; or, wand'ring far

In solitary paths, where wild flow'rs blow,

There would I bless His name who led me forth From death's dark vale, to walk amid those sweets, Who gives the bloom of health once more to glow Upon this cheek, and lights this languid eye.”

It is not only in the sacred fane

That homage should be paid to the Most High;
There is a temple, one not made with hands,
The vaulted firmament: Far in the woods,
Almost beyond the sound of city-chime,
At intervals heard thro' the breezeless air;
When not the limberest leaf is seen to move,
Save where the linnet lights upon the spray;
Where not a flow'ret bends its little stalk,
Save when the bee alights upon the bloom;-
There, rapt in gratitude, in joy, and love,

B

The man of God will pass the Sabbath-noon;
Silence his praise: his disembodied thoughts,
Loos'd from the load of words, will high ascend
Beyond the empyreal.—

Nor yet less pleasing at the heav'nly throne,
The Sabbath-service of the shepherd-boy! (5)
In some lone glen, where ev'ry sound is lull'd
To slumber, save the tinkling of the rill,
Or bleat of lamb, or hov'ring falcon's cry,
Stretch'd on the sward, he reads of Jesse's Son;
Or sheds a tear o'er him to Egypt sold,

And wonders why he weeps: the volume clos❜d,
With thyme-sprig laid between the leaves, he sings
The sacred lays, his weekly lesson, conn'd

With meikle care beneath the lowly roof,

Where humble lore is learnt, where humble worth

Pines unrewarded by a thankless state.

Thus reading, hymning, all alone, unseen,
The shepherd-boy the Sabbath holy keeps,
Till on the heights he marks the straggling bands
Returning homeward from the house of pray'r.
In peace they home resort. O blissful days!
When all men worship God as conscience wills.
Far other times our fathers' grandsires knew,
A virtuous race, to godliness devote.

What tho' the sceptic's scorn hath dar'd to soil
The record of their fame! What tho' the men
Of worldly minds have dar'd to stigmatize
The sister-cause, Religion and the Law,
With Superstition's name! yet, yet their deeds,
Their constancy in torture, and in death,- (6)
These on tradition's tongue still live, these shall
On hist❜ry's honest page be pictur'd bright

To latest times. Perhaps some bard, whose muse

Disdains the servile strain of Fashion's quire,
May celebrate their unambitious names.
With them each day was holy, ev'ry hour

They stood prepar'd to die, a people (7) doom'd To death;-old men, and youths, and simple maids. (8)

With them each day was holy; but that morn (9) On which the angel said, " See where the Lord Was laid," joyous arose; to die that day

Was bliss. Long ere the dawn, by devious ways, O'er hills, thro' woods, o'er dreary wastes, they sought

The upland moors, where rivers, there but brooks,
Dispart to diff'rent seas: Fast by such brooks,
A little glen is sometimes scoop'd, a plat

With green

seem

sward gay, and flowers that strangers

Amid the heathery wild, that all around

« PreviousContinue »