HYMN OF THE WALDENSES. HEAR, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock; While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold; And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs. Yet better were this mountain wilderness, And meetings in the depths of earth to pray, Better, far better, than to kneel with them, And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn. Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand; Or, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons- Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth Thou shalt raise up the trampled and oppressed, And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest. MONUMENT MOUNTAIN. THOU who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face, Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st, The haunts of men below thee, and around The mountain summits, thy expanding heart Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world And down into the secrets of the glens, And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once, Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds, a path Conducts you up the narrow battlement. With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint, Have tumbled down vast blocks, and at the base Mining the soil for ages. On each side |