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What though our burden be not light,
We need not toil from morn to night;
The respite of the mid-day hour
Is in the thankful creature's power.

Blest are the moments, doubly blest,
That, drawn from this our hour of rest,
Are with a ready heart bestowed
Upon the service of our God!

Why should we crave a hallowed spot?
An altar is in each man's cot,

A church in every grove that spreads
Its living roof above our heads.

Look up to heaven! the industrious sun
Already half his race hath run:

He cannot halt nor go astray,
But our immortal spirits may.

Lord! since his rising in the east,
If we have faltered or transgressed,
Guide from thy love's abundant source

What yet remains of this day's course.

Help with thy grace through life's short day,
Our upward and our downward way;

And glorify for us the west,

When we shall sink to final rest.

THOUGHT ON THE SEASONS.

FLATTERED with promise of escape
From every hurtful blast,

Spring takes, O sprightly May! thy shape,
Her loveliest and her last.

Less fair is Summer riding high
In fierce solstitial power,

Less fair than when a lenient sky
Brings on a parting hour.

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When earth repays with golden sheaves
The labors of the plough,

And ripening fruits, and forest leaves,
All brighten on the bough,

What pensive beauty Autumn shows,
Before she hears the sound

Of Winter rushing in to close
The emblematic round!

Such be our Spring, our Summer such;
So may our Autumn blend

With hoary Winter, and life touch

With heaven-born hope her end!

APOSTROPHE TO THE DEITY.

THOU, dread source,

Prime, self-existing cause and end of all

That in the scale of being fill their place;
Above our human region, or below,

Set and sustained;-Thou, who didst wrap the cloud
Of infancy around us, that Thyself,
Therein with our simplicity awhile

Might'st hold, on earth, communion undisturbed;
Who from the anarchy of dreaming sleep,
Or from its deathlike void, with punctual care,
And touch as gentle as the morning light,
Restorest us, daily, to the powers of sense,
And reason's steadfast rule-Thou, Thou alone
Art everlasting, and the blessed spirits,
Which thou includest, as the sea her waves:
For adoration thou endurest; endure

For consciousness the motions of thy will;
For apprehension those transcendent truths
Of the pure intellect, that stand as laws
(Submission constituting strength and power)
Even to Thy Being's infinite majesty !
This universe shall pass away-a work

Glorious! because the shadow of thy might,
A step, or link, for intercourse with thee.
Ah! if the time must come, in which my feet
No more shall stray where meditation leads,
By flowing stream, through wood, or craggy wild,
Loved haunts like these; the unimprisoned mind
May yet have scope to range among her own,
Her thoughts, her images, her high desires.
If the dear faculty of sight should fail,
Still, it may be allowed me to remember
What visionary powers of eye and soul

In youth were mine; when, stationed on the top
Of some huge hill-expectant I beheld
The sun rise up, from distant climes returned
Darkness to chase, and sleep; and bring the day
His bounteous gift! or saw him towards the deep
Sink, with a retinue of flaming clouds
Attended; then, my spirit was entranced

With joy exalted to beatitude;

The measure of my soul was filled with bliss,
And holiest love; as earth, sea, air, with light,

With pomp, with glory, with magnificence!

THE

TO THE

prayers

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I make will then be sweet indeed,
If Thou the Spirit give by which I pray :

My unassisted heart is barren clay,

That of its native self can nothing feed;

Of good and pious works Thou art the seed,

That quickens only where Thou sayest it may:
Unless Thou show to us thy own true way,

No man can find it: Father! Thou must lead:

Do Thou then breathe these thoughts into my mind,

By which such virtue may in me be bred,

That in thy holy footsteps I may tread;

The fetters of my tongue do Thou unbind, That I may have the power to sing of Thee! And sound thy praises everlastingly.

JEHOVAH THE PROVIDER.

AUTHOR of being; life-sustaining King!

Lo! Want's dependant eye from Thee implores
The seasons, which provide nutritious stores;

Give to her prayers the renovating Spring,
And Summer-heats all perfecting that bring

The fruits which Autumn from a thousand stores
Selecteth provident! when earth adores

Her God, and all her vales exulting sing.
Without thy blessing, the submissive steer

Bends to the ploughman's galling yoke in vain;

Without thy blessing on the varied year,

Can the swarth reaper grasp the golden grain? Without thy blessing, all is black and drear; With it, the joys of Eden bloom again.

LATIMER AND RIDLEY.

How fast the Marian death-list is unrolled!
See Latimer and Ridley, in the might

Of faith, stand coupled for a common flight!
One (like those prophets whom God sent of old)
Transfigured, from this kindling hath foretold
A torch of unextinguishable light:
The other gains a confidence as bold:

And thus they foil their enemy's despite.
The penal instruments, the shows of crime

Are glorified, while this once mitred pair
Of saintly friends "the murtherer's chain partake,
Corded and burning at the social stake."
Earth never witnessed object more sublime
In constancy, in fellowship more fair.

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SCATTERING, like birds escaped the fowler's net,

Some seek with timely flight a foreign strand,
Most happy reassembled in a land

By dauntless Luther freed, could they forget

Their country's woes. But scarcely have they met,
Partners in faith, and brothers in distress,

Free to pour forth their common thankfulness,
Ere hope declines; their union is beset

With speculative notions rashly sown,

Whence thickly-sprouting growth of poisonous weeds; Their forms are broken staves; their passions, steeds That master them. How enviably blest

Is he who can, by help of grace, enthrone

The peace

of God within his single breast!

NEW CHURCHES.

BUT liberty and triumphs on the main,
And laurelled armies not to be withstood,
What serve they? if, on transitory good
Intent, and sedulous of abject gain,
The state (oh! surely not preserved in vain!)

Forbear to shape due channels which the flood
Of sacred truth may enter-till it brood
O'er the wide realm, as o'er th' Egyptian plain,
The all-sustaining Nile. No more—the time
Is conscious of her want; through England's bounds
In rival haste the wise for temples rise!

I hear their sabbath-bells' harmonious chime

Float on the breeze-the heavenliest of all sounds
That hill or vale prolongs or multiplies.

THE KIRK OF ULPHA.

THE KIRK OF ULPHA to the Pilgrim's eye
Is welcome as a star that doth present
Its shining forehead through the peaceful rent

Of a black cloud diffused o'er half the sky:

Or as a fruitful palm-tree towering high

O'er the parched waste, beside an Arab's tent;

Or the Indian tree, whose branches downward bent,

Take root again, a boundless canopy.

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