The hundred-gated cities then,
The towers and temples, named of men Eternal, and the thrones of kings; The gilded summer-palaces,
The courtly bowers of love and ease, Where still the bird of pleasure sings; Ask ye the destiny of them?
Go, gaze on fall'n Jerusalem!
Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled,
The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world.
Oh! who shall then survive?
Oh! who shall stand and live? When all that hath been is no more: When for the round earth hung in air, With all its constellations fair
In the sky's azure canopy;
When for the breathing earth, and sparkling sea, Is but a fiery deluge without shore, Heaving along the abyss profound and dark, A fiery deluge, and without an ark.
Lord of all power, when Thou art there alone, On Thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne, That in its high meridian noon
Needs not the perished sun nor moon: When Thou art there in Thy presiding state, Wide-sceptred monarch o'er the realm of doom: When from the sea-depth, from earth's darkest
The dead of all the ages round Thee wait;
And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn,
Like forest-leaves, in the autumn of Thine ire: Faithful and true! Thou still wilt save Thine own! The Saints shall dwell within th' unharming fire, Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm, Even safe as we, by this still fountain side, So shall the Church, Thy bright and mystic bride, Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm. Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs, O'er us the rainbow of Thy mercy shines, We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam, Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem !
ABASH'D be all the boast of Age! Be hoary Learning dumb! Expounder of the mystic page, Behold an Infant come!
Oh Wisdom, whose unfading power Beside th' Eternal stood,
To frame, in nature's earliest hour, The land, the sky, the flood;-
Yet didst not Thou disdain awhile An infant form to wear; To bless thy mother with a smile, And lisp thy falter'd prayer.
But, in thy father's own abode, With Israel's elders round, Conversing high with Israel's God, Thy chiefest joy was found.
So may our youth adore Thy name! And, Saviour, deign to bless
With fostering grace the timid flame Of early holiness!
THERE is an eye that never sleeps, Beneath the wing of night; There is an ear that never shuts, When sink the beams of light.
There is an arm that never tires,
When human strength gives way;
There is a love that never fails When earthly loves decay.
That eye is fix'd on seraph throngs; That ear is fill'd with angels' songs; That arm upholds the world on high; That love is throned beyond the sky.
But there's a power which man can wield When mortal aid is vain ;-
That eye, that arm, that love to reach, That listening ear to gain.
That power is Prayer, which soars on high, And feeds on bliss beyond the sky!
INVIDIOUS Grave! how dost thou rend in sunder Whom love has knit and sympathy made one! A tie more stubborn far than nature's band. Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul; Sweet'ner of life, and solder of society,
I owe thee much. Thou hast deserved from me Far, far beyond what I can ever pay.
Oft have I proved the labours of thy love, And the warm efforts of the gentle heart, Anxious to please. O! when my friend and I In some thick wood have wander'd heedless on, Hid from the vulgar eye, and sat us down Upon the sloping cowslip-cover'd bank, Where the pure limpid stream has slid along, In grateful errors through the underwood Sweet murmuring; methought the shrill-tongued
Mended his song of love; the sooty blackbird Mellow'd his pipe, and soften'd every note; The eglantine smell'd sweeter, and the rose Assumed a dye more deep; whilst every flower Vied with its fellow-plant in luxury
Of dress. Oh! then the longest summer's day Seem'd too, too much in haste: still the full heart Had not imparted half: 'twas happiness Too exquisite to last. Of joys departed, Not to return,-how painful the remembrance!
Dull grave,-thou spoil'st the dance of youthful blood,
Strikest out the dimple from the cheek of mirth, And ev'ry smirking feature from the face; Branding our laughter with the name of madness. Where are the jesters now? the man of health Complexionally pleasant? Where the droll, Whose ev'ry look and gesture was a joke To clapping theatres and shouting crowds, And made e'en thick-lipp'd musing Melancholy To gather up her face into a smile Before she was aware?
And dumb as the green turf that covers them. Where are the mighty thunderbolts of war? The Roman Cæsars, and the Grecian chiefs, The boast of story? Where the hot-brain'd youth, Who the tiara, at his pleasure, tore
From kings of all the then discover'd globe; And cried, forsooth, because his arm was hamper'd, And had not room enough to do its work? Alas! too well he sped: the good he scorn'd Stalk'd off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost, Not to return; or if it did, its visits,
Like those of angels, short and far between; Whilst the black demon, with hell-'scaped train, Admitted once into its better room,
Grew loud and mutinous, nor would be gone; Lording it o'er the man, who now too late Saw the rash error, which he could not mend: An error fatal not to him alone,
But to his future sons, his fortune's heirs. Inglorious bondage! Human nature groans Beneath a vassalage so vile and cruel,
And its vast body bleeds through ev'ry vein.
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