Diffusive dread thro' love and wedded bliss, Then Memory disclosed her face divine, That like the calm nocturnal lights doth shine GEORGE ELIOT, The Legend of Tubal. April 9. EASTER DAY. THE foe behind, the deep before, Our hosts have dared and past the sea : Lift up, lift up, your voices now! Happy morrow, turning sorrow Bondage ending, love descending Seals assuring, guards securing, Watch His earthly prison : Seals are shattered, guards are scattered, No longer must the mourners weep, Now once more Eden's door For Christ hath risen, and man shall rise. Hope and joy and peace begin: It is not exile, rest on high; It is not sadness, peace from strife: To fall asleep is not to die : To dwell with Christ is better life. Where our banner leads us, we may safely go : He shall soon deliver from every woe, If His paths ye tread : Pleasures as a river, shall round you flow, Where ye see your Head. With loins upgirt, and staff in hand, So shall He collect us, direct us, protect us, So shall He precede us, and feed us, and lead us Toils and foes assailing, friends quailing, hearts failing, Shall threat in vain : If He be providing, presiding, and guiding Christ our Leader, Monarch, Pleader, Interceder, Exultation, veneration, gratulation, Once despised, and once rejected, To a corner-stone perfected, As a glorious trophy stands erected. Amen. J. M. NEALE. April 10. THE LAMB. LITTLE lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, who made thee? Little lamb, I'll tell thee; Little lamb, God bless thee! April 11. WILLIAM BLAKE. THE BOY AND THE ANGEL. MORNING, evening, noon, and night, "Praise God," sang Theocrite. Then to his poor trade he turned, Hard he laboured, long and well; But ever, at each period, He stopped, and sang, "Praise God!" Then back again his curls he threw, Said Blaise, the listening monk, “Well done; "As well as if thy voice to-day Were praising God, the Pope's great way. "This Easter Day, the Pope at Rome Praises God from Peter's dome." Said Theocrite, "Would God that I Night passed, day shone, And Theocrite was gone. With God a day endures alway, A thousand years are but a day. God said in heaven, "Nor day nor night Then Gabriel, like a rainbow's birth, Lived there, and played the craftsman well; And morning, evening, noon, and night, And from a boy, to youth he grew: The man matured and fell away And ever over the trade he bent, (He did God's will; to him, all one God said, "A praise is in thine ear; "So sing old worlds, and so New worlds that from my footstool go. "Clearer loves sound other ways: I miss my little human praise.' H |