Lift their eyes, and from afar
Hail the light of Jacob's Star,
Waiting till the promised ray
Turn their darkness into day.
See the beams intensely shed
Shine o'er Zion's favored head!
Never may they hence remove,
God of truth, and God of love!

THE

PROVIDENCE

OF GOD.

PLACED on the verge of youth, my mind
Life's opening scene surveyed;

I viewed its ills of various kind,
Afflicted and afraid.

But chief my fear the dangers moved,
That virtue's path enclose:
My heart the wise pursuit approved,
But, oh! what toils oppose.

For see! ah see! while yet her ways
With doubtful step I tread,

A hostile world its terrors raise,
Its snares delusive spread.

Oh! how shall I, with heart prepared,
Those terrors learn to meet?

How from the thousand snares to guard
My inexperienced feet?

As thus I mused, oppressive sleep
Soft o'er my temples drew
Oblivious veil.-The watery deep,

An object strange and new,

Before me rose on the wide shore
Observant as I stood,

The gathering storms around me roar,

And heave the boiling flood.

Near, and more near the billows rise,
E'en now my steps they lave;
And death to my affrighted eyes
Approached in every wave.

What hope, or whither to retreat,
Each nerve at once unstrung:
Chill fear had fettered fast my feet,
And chained my speechless tongue.

I feel my heart within me die;
When sudden to mine ear

A voice descending from on high
Reproved my erring fear.

"What though the swelling surge thou see Impatient to devour,

Rest, mortal, rest, on God's decree,
And thankful own his power.

"Know when He bade the deep appear, Thus far,' the Almighty said,

Thus far, nor farther, rage, and here
Let thy proud waves be stayed.'"

I heard, and lo! at once controlled,
The waves in wild retreat
Back on themselves reluctant rolled,
And murmuring left my feet.

Deeps to assembling deeps in vain
Once more the signal gave;

The shores the rushing weight sustain,
And check th' usurping wave.

Convinced in nature's volume wise,
The imaged truth I read,
And sudden from my waking eyes
The instructive vision fled.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul !
Say, why distrustful still,

Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill?

Let faith suppress each rising fear,
Each anxious doubt exclude;
Thy Maker's will has placed thee here,
A Maker wise and good.

He to thy every trial knows
Its just restraint to give,
Attentive to behold thy woes,

And faithful to relieve.

Then why thus heavy, O my soul!
Say, why distrustful still,

Thy thoughts with vain impatience roll
O'er scenes of future ill?

Though griefs unnumbered throng thee round,
Still in thy God confide,

Whose finger marks the seas their bound,
And curbs the headlong tide.
24*

CHRISTOPHER SMART.

CHRISTOPHER SMART was born at Shipbourne, in Kent, in 1722, and was educated at Cambridge. He was elected Fellow of Pembroke Hall in 1745, and took the degree of M. A. in 1747. Shortly after he removed to London, where he became acquainted with the most celebrated men of his day. He was subject to fits of insanity, which were at last attended with paroxysms so violent that he was obliged to be placed in a madhouse. He died, a prisoner for debt, in the King's Bench, on the 10th of May, 1770.

Smart seems to have had much respect and sympathy, notwithstanding his dissolute and unhappy life. "His piety," says Southey," was so fervent, that when composing his religious poems he was frequently so impressed as to write upon his knees." His works possess considerable merit. They are recommended, as Mr. Wilmot observes, by an air of sincerity and enthusiasm; but they are generally wanting in finish.

INVOCATION.

ARISE, divine Urania, with new strains

To hymn thy God! and thou, immortal Fame,
Arise, and blow thy everlasting trump!

All glory to the Omniscient, and praise,
And power, and domination in the height!
And thou, cherubic Gratitude, whose voice
To pious ears sounds silvery, so sweet,
Come with thy precious incense, bring thy gifts,
And with thy choicest stores the altar crown.
Thou, too, my heart, whom He, and He alone
Who all things knows, can know, with love replete,
Regenerate, and pure, pour all thyself

A living sacrifice before his throne!

And may the eternal high mysterious tree

That in the centre of the archéd heavens

Bears the rich fruit of knowledge, with some branch
Stoop to my humble reach, and bless my toil!

THE FINAL JUDGMENT.

A DAY shall come when all this earth shall perish, Nor leave behind e'en chaos; it shall come

When all the armies of the elements

Shall war against themselves, and mutual rage,
To make perdition triumph; it shall come
When the capacious atmosphere above
Shall in sulphureous thunders groan and die,
And vanish into void; the earth beneath
Shall sever to the centre, and devour

The enormous blaze of the destructive flames.
Ye rocks that mock the raving of the floods,
And proudly frown upon the impatient deep,
Where is your grandeur now? Ye foaming waves,
That all along the immense Atlantic roar,

In vain ye swell; will a few drops suffice

To quench the unextinguishable fire?

Ye mountains, on whose cloud-crowned tops the cedars
Are lessened into shrubs, magnific piles,

That prop the painted chambers of the heavens,
And fix the earth continual; Athos, where?
Where, Teneriffe, 's thy stateliness to-day?
What, Etna, are thy flames to these? no more
Than the poor glow-worm to the golden sun.

Nor shall the verdant valleys then remain
Safe in their meek submission; they the debt
Of nature and of justice too must pay.
Yet I must weep for you, ye rivals fair,
Arno and Andalusia; but for thee,

More largely, and, with filial tears must weep,
O Albion! O my country! thou must join,
In vain dissevered from the rest, must join
The terrors of the inevitable ruin.

Nor thou, illustrious monarch of the day;

Nor thou, fair queen of night; nor you, ye stars,
Though million leagues, and million still, remote,
Shall yet survive that day: ye must submit,