The Summer gives his radiant day,
And Jewish dames the dance are treading,
But Rachel, on her couch of clay,
Sleeps all unheeded and unheeding.
The Autumn's ripening sunbeam shines,
And reapers to the field is calling,
But Rachel's voice no longer joins
The choral song, at twilight's falling.
The Winter sends his drenching shower,
And sweeps his howling blast around her,
But earthly storms possess no power
To break the slumber that hath bound her.
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonish'd lands
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson'd sands
Return'd the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answer'd keen,
And Zion's daughters pour'd their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone,
Our fathers would not know THY ways,
And thou hast left them to their own.
But, present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of THEE a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be THOU, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, trump, and horn.
But THOU hast said, "the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, an humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice."
YE midnight shades, o'er nature spread!
Dumb silence of the dreary hour!
In honor of the approaching dead,
Around your awful terrors pour.
Yes, pour around
On this pale ground,
Through all this deep surrounding gloom,
The sober thought,
The tear untaught,
Those meetest mourners at a tomb.
Lo! as the surpliced train drew near
To this last mansion of mankind,
The slow sad bell, the sable bier,
In holy musing wrapt the mind!
And while their beam,
With trembling stream,
Attending tapers faintly dart;
Each mouldering bone,
Each sculptured stone,
Strikes mute instruction to the heart!
Now let the sacred organ blow,
With solemn pause, and sounding slow; Now let the voice due measure keep, In strains that sigh, and words that weep; Till all the vocal current blended roll,
Not to depress, but lift, the soaring soul:
To lift it in the Maker's praise,
Who first inform'd our frame with breath,
And, after some few stormy days,
Now, gracious, gives us o'er to death.
No King of Fears
In him appears
Who shuts the scene of human woes;
Beneath his shade
Securely laid,
The dead alone find true repose.
Then, while we mingle dust with dust,
To One, supremely good and wise,
Raise hallelujahs! God is just,
And man most happy when he dies!
His winter past,
Fair spring at last
Receives him on her flowery shore!
Where pleasure's rose
Immortal blows,
And sin and sorrow are no more!
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN BY ALEXANDER SELKIRK, DURING HIS SOLITARY ABODE IN THE ISLAND OF JUAN FERNANDEZ.
I AM monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute;
From the centre all round to the sea,
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.
I am out of humanity's reach,
I must finish my journey alone;
Never hear the sweet music of speech,
I start at the sound of my own.
The beasts that roam over the plain
My form with indifference see;
They are so unacquainted with man,
Their tameness is shocking to me.
Society, friendship, and love,
Divinely bestow'd upon man,
O had I the wings of a dove,
How soon would I taste you again.
My sorrows I then might assuage
In the ways of religion and truth, Might learn from the wisdom of age, And be cheer'd by the sallies of youth
Religion! what treasure untold
Resides in that heavenly word!
More precious than silver and gold,
Or all that this earth can afford:
But the sound of the church-going bell
These valleys and rocks never heard,
Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell,
Or smiled when a Sabbath appear'd.
Ye winds, that have made me your sport,
Convey to this desolate shore
Some cordial endearing report
Of a land I shall visit no more.
My friends, do they now and then send
A wish or a thought after me?
O tell me I yet have a friend,
Though a friend I am never to see.
How fleet is a glance of the mind!
Compared with the speed of its flight,
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