N

Or if, at times, a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.

II.

I chose not her, my soul's elect,

From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly decked,

As if themselves were things divine!
No-Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broidered veil ;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty still is frail.*

III.

Not so the faded form I prize

And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes

Is all the grace her brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away!

THE BIRD LET LOOSE.

AIR- Beethoven.

I.

THE bird, let loose in Eastern skies,+
When hastening fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam.

But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,

Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.

II.

So grant me, God, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud-no lure to stay
My soul, as home she springs;-
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom in her wings!

* Οὐ γαρ χρυσοφορειν την δακρυουσαν δει.–Chrysost. Homil. 8, in Epist. ad Tim.

† The carrier pigeon, it is well known, flies at an elevated pitch, in order to surmount every obstacle between her and the place to which she is destined.

O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR!

AIR-Haydn.

"He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."
Psalm cxlvii. 3.

I.

O THOU who dry'st the mourner's tear!
How dark this world would be,

If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to Thee.

The friends, who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown:
And he who has but tears to give

Must weep those tears alone.
But Thou wilt heal that broken heart
Which, like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.

II.

When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And e'en the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears

Is dimmed and vanished too!

Oh! who would bear life's stormy doom,

Did not thy wing of love

Come, brightly wafting through the gloom

Our peace-branch from above?

Then sorrow, touched by Thee, grows bright

With more than rapture's ray;

As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day!

WEEP NOT FOR THOSE.

AIR-Avison.

I.

WEEP not for those whom the veil of the tomb
In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes,
Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom,
Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.
Death chilled the fair fountain, ere sorrow had stained it,
'Twas frozen in all the pure light of its course,

And but sleeps, till the sunshine of heaven has unchained it,
To water that Eden where first was its source !
Weep not for those whom the veil of the tomb

In life's happy morning hath hid from our eyes,
Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom,

Or earth had profaned what was born for the skies.

NA

II.

Mourn not for her, the young bride of the vale,*
Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now;
Ere life's early lustre had time to grow pale

And the garland of love was yet fresh on her brow;
Oh! then was her moment, dear spirit, for flying

From this gloomy world, while its gloom was unknown ;—
And the wild hymns she warbled so sweetly, in dying,
Were echoed in heaven by lips like her own!
Weep not for her,—in her spring-time she flew

To that land where the wings of the soul are unfurled,
And now, like a star beyond evening's cold dew,
Looks radiantly down on the tears of this world.

THE TURF SHALL BE MY FRAGRANT SHRINE,
AIR--Stevenson.

I.

THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord! that arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.+

II.

My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murmuring homeward to their caves,
Or when the stillness of the sea,

E'en more than music, breathes of Thee!

III.

I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like thy Throne !
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.

IV.

Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look,
Shall be my pure and shining book,
Where I shall read, in words of flame,
The glories of thy wondrous name.

* This second verse, which I wrote long after the first, alludes to the fate of a very lovely and amiable girl, the daughter of the late Colonel Bainbrigge, who was married in Ashbourne Church, October 31, 1815, and died of a fever in a few weeks after. The sound of her marriage-bells seemed scarcely out of our ears, when we heard of her death. During her last delirium, she sang several hymns in a voice even clearer and sweeter than usual, and among them were some from the present collection (particularly "There's nothing bright but Heaven"), which this very interesting girl had often heard during the

summer.

† Pii orant tacitè

V.

I'll read thy anger in the rack
That clouds awhile the day-beam's track ;
Thy mercy in the azure hue

Of sunny brightness, breaking through!

VI.

There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some feature of thy deity!

VII.

There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace thy love,
And meekly wait that moment when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!

SOUND THE LOUD TIMBREL.
MIRIAM'S SONG.

AIR-Avison.*

"And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances."-Exod

XV. 20.

I.

SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed-his people are free.
Sing-for the pride of the tyrant is broken,

His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave,
How vain was their boasting!-the Lord hath but spoken,
And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed—his people are free.

II.

Praise to the Conqueror, praise to the Lord,

His word was our arrow, his breath was our sword !—
Who shall return to tell Egypt the story

Of those she sent forth in the hour of her pride?
For the Lord hath looked out from his pillar of glory,+
And all her brave thousands are dashed in the tide.
Sound the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed—his people are free.

I have so altered the character of this air, which is from the beginning of one of Avison's old-fashioned concertos, that, without this acknowledgment, it could hardly, I think, be recognised.

+ "And it came to pass, that in the morning watch, the Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians "-Exod. xiv. 24.

GO, LET ME WEEP.

AIR-Stevenson.

I.

Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears,
When he who sheds them inly feels
Some lingering stain of early years
Effaced by every drop that steals.
The fruitless showers of worldly woe
Fall dark to earth, and never rise;
While tears that from repentance flow
In bright exhalement reach the skies.
Go, let me weep! there's bliss in tears,
When he who sheds them inly feels
Some lingering stain of early years
Effaced by every drop that steals.

II.

Leave me to sigh o'er hours that flew
More idly than the summer's wind,
And, while they passed, a fragrance threw
But left no trace of sweets behind.-
The warmest sigh that pleasure heaves
Is cold, is faint, to those that swell
The heart, where pure repentance grieves
O'er hours of pleasure, loved too well!
Leave me to sigh o'er days that flew
More idly than the summer's wind,
And, while they passed, a fragrance threw,
But left no trace of sweets behind.

COME NOT, O LORD!
AIR-Haydn.

I.

COME not, O Lord! in the dread robe of splendour
Thou wor'st on the Mount, in the day of thine ire;
Come veiled in those shadows, deep, awful, but tender,
Which Mercy flings over thy features of fire!

II.

Lord! Thou rememberest the night when thy nation"
Stood fronting her foe by the red-rolling stream;
On Egypt + thy pillar frowned dark desolation,

While Israel basked all the night in its beam.

"And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these."--Exod. xiv. 20. My application of this passage is borrowed from some late prose writer, whose name I am ungrateful enough to forget.

+ Instead of "On Egypt" here, it will suit the music better to sing "On these;" and in the third line of the next verse, "While shrouded the same view, be altered to "While wrapped."

may, with