SACRED SONGS.

THOU ART, OH GOD!

"The day is thine; the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light and the sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth ; thou hast made summer and winter."-PSA. lxxiv. 16, 17.

THOU art, O God! the life and light

Of all this wondrous world we see.
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!

When Day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the opening clouds of Even,
And we can almost think we gaze

Through golden vistas into heaven-
Those hues, that make the sun's decline
So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine.

When Night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumbered eyes-
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.

When youthful Spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh ;
And every flower the Summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!

of

FALLEN IS THY THRONE.

FALLEN is thy throne, O Israel!
Silence is o'er thy plains;

Thy dwellings all lie desolate,

Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
On Etham's barren shore ?

That fire from heaven which led thee,
Now lights thy path no more.

Lord! thou didst love Jerusalem
Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,*
Her power thy glory's throne ;†
Till evil came, and blighted
Thy long-loved olive-tree ;‡
And Salem's shrines were lighted

For other gods than Thee!

* "I have left mine heritage; I have given the dearly-beloved

my soul into the hands of her enemies."-JER. xii. 7.

+ "Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory."-JER. xiv. 21.

"The Lord called thy name a green olive-tree; fair and of

goodly fruit."-JER. xi. 16.

Then sunk the star of Solyma

Then pass'd her glory's day,
Like heath that, in the wilderness,§
The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
Where once the mighty trod,
And sunk those guilty towers,
While Baal reign'd as God!

“Go,”—said the Lord-" Ye conquerors
Steep in her blood your swords,
And rase to earth her battlements,*
For they are not the Lord's!
Till Zion's mournful daughter
O'er kindred bones shall tread,
And Hinnom's vale of slaughter t
Shall hide but half her dead."

THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW.

THIS world is all a fleeting show,

For man's illusion given ;

The smiles of Joy, the tears of Woe,

§ "For he shall be like the heath in the desert."—JEr. xvii. 6. * Take away her battlements; for they are not the Lord's."—— JER. V. 10.

"Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter; for they shall bury in To phet, till there be no place."-JER. vii. 32.

Deceitful shine, deceitful flow-
There's nothing true but heaven '

And false the light on Glory's plume,
As fading hues of Even;

And Love, and Hope, and Beauty's bloom
Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb,-
There's nothing bright but heaven.

Poor wanderers of a stormy day,

From wave to wave we're driven, And Fancy's flash, and Reason's ray, Serve but to light the troubled way There's nothing calm but heaven!

WHO IS THE MAID ?

ST. JEROME's Love.

WHO is the maid my spirit seeks,

Through cold reproof and slander's blight?

Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?

Is her's an eye of this world's light?

No,

wan and sunk with midnight prayer Are the pale looks of her I love ;

*These lines were suggested by a passage in St. Jerome's reply to some calumnious remarks that had been circulated upon his intimacy with the matron Paula :-" Numquid me vestes sericæ, nitentes gemma, picta facies, aut auri rapuit ambitio? Nulla fuit alia Romæ matronarum, quæ meam possit edomare mentem, nisi lugens atque jejunans, fletu pene cæcata."-Epist. 'Si tibi putem.'