88 PSALM CXXXVII We sat us down and wept, Where Babel's waters slept, And we thought of home and Zion as a long-gone happy dream; We hung our harps in air, On the willow-boughs, which there, Gloomy as round a sepulchre, were drooping o'er the stream. The foes, whose chains we wore, Were with us on that shore, Exulting in our tears that told the bitterness of woe. "Sing us," they cried aloud, "Ye, once so high and proud, The songs ye sang in Zion ere we laid her glory low." And shall the harp of heaven To Judah's monarch given, Be touched by captive fingers, or grace a fettered hand? No! sooner be my tongue Mute, powerless, and unstrung, Than its words of holy music make glad a stranger land. May this right hand, whose skill Can wake the harp at will, And bid the listeners' joys or griefs in light or dark ness come, Forget its godlike power, If for one brief, dark hour, My heart forgets Jerusalem, fallen city of my home. Daughter of Babylon! Blessed be that chosen one, Whom God shall send to smite thee, when there is none to save; He from the mother's breast And lay it in the sleep of death beside its father's grave! 89 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK FROM PSALM CXXXIX Where from Thy presence shall I flee? Behold! in all Thy power and might Thou, Lord, shalt pierce the veil of night. If on the radiant wings of morn Darkness and night shall shroud my way, Thou knowest well each infant thought, Man's subtlest thoughts are known to Thee To the broad ocean waves which rise In heaving billows to the skies, Or great or small, each work of Thine, Each breeze which fans the twilight hour, MARGARET M. DAVIDSON 90 PSALM CXLV [Sir Robert Grant lived from 1779 to 1838. His parliamentary career was distinguished by his persistent efforts to obtain the removal of the civil disabilities of the Jews in England. In 1833, with the aid of Macaulay, Hume, and O'Connell, he succeeded in passing a resolution in favor of Jewish emancipation, and in the same session carried a bill through the House of Commons with the same object. It was, however, rejected by the House of Lords, as was a similar bill passed by the House of Commons the following year. It was not until 1858, twenty years after his death, that the object to which he had devoted so much time and thought was accomplished. ALFRED H. MILES.] O worship the King All glorious above; O gratefully sing His power and love; O tell of His might, O sing of His grace, Whose canopy space; Deep thunder-clouds form, And dark is His path On the wings of the storm. * The earth with its store By a changeless decree, And round it hath cast, Thy bountiful care What tongue can recite? In the dew and the rain. O measureless Might, To hymn Thee above, Shall lisp to Thy praise. SIR ROBERT GRANT |