O praise the Lord, ye ocean-waves!
Ye winds that drift the arrowy snow!
Ye hills o'er which the tempest raves!
Ye trees that in the valley blow!
Ye beasts that through the forest go!
Ye birds that oft to heaven have soared!
Ye insect tribes that creep below!
All, all conspire to praise the Lord!

O praise the Lord, ye kings of earth,

From whom the nations wait their doom!
Ye people all of humbler birth,

Whose steps may walk in transient gloom!
Ye youths of strength! ye maids of bloom!
Ye children, with your earliest word!

Ye old men tottering round the tomb!
All, all combine to praise the Lord!

THE CAPTIVES.

(PSALM CXXXVii.)

By the rivers of Babel we sat in our sorrow,
And wept when we thought of our Zion afar;
For no joy came to us with the beam of the morrow,
And no quiet arrived with the eve and her star.

And oft, when the winds through the willows were sighing,

We hung up our harps with a tear on their chord; For there they that carried us captive from Zion Required us to sing them a song of the Lord.

But how-while the rod of oppression waved o'er us, While we toiled for the hands that compelled us to

roam,

While a journey of bondage lay darkly before usCould we sing for the spoilers that wasted our home! O Salem! dear Salem! if I do forget thee,

May my right hand be shrunk as it sweeps o'er the chord !

O city of God! when I cease to regret thee,

May my tongue be struck dumb mid the song of the Lord!

UBIQUITY.

(PSALM CXXXIX. 7, 8, 9, 10.)

THERE is a Spirit in the wilderness,
Though all the winds be sleeping, and the brooks
Elapsing down their shores

As quietly as dreams

Though all the breathing creatures of the earth
Have stilled their voices, and the only sound
That strikes thy listening ear

Be from thy beating heart.

Who sends the sun of morn, the dew of eve,
And all those heavenly visitants that bring
Glad tidings to the scenes

Which man hath never trod?

Who bids the moss with living greenness clothe
The naked rocks, that happiness may flow
Down to the grashopper,

And creatures more minute?

Who-hadst thou wing of angel to approach
The limits of creation, to pursue

Thy journey through the vale

Of darkness and of death,

To visit heavens beyond the flight of thought-
Who, with an universal presence, still
Would never once be found

A moment from thy side?

Go ask thy heart these questions-when the moon
Shines on the breathless midnight, and the eyes
Of human things are closed

In temporary death—

Go ask thy heart-What Spirit thus abides
In every region? thus minutely works

In deserts? And thy heart

Shall answer

"It is God!"

THE DESPONDENCY OF JOB.

(JOB, xiv. 13; xxx. 1, 14, &c.)

On! I was like a stately tree
That by the quiet water grows,

To which for food the hungry flee,
The weary for repose.

But sorrow, like the flooded stream

That spreads destruction round and round,

Burst in upon my blissful dream,

And crushed me to the ground.

THE DESPONDENCY OF JOB.

Yet I, without a murmuring tongue,
Could see my worldly wealth depart :
But, oh! my children, they were wrung
Like blood-drops from my heart.

Ay, all the tender babes that crept
Around my guardian knees to pray—
In pride of beauty-all were swept,
Like summer flowers, away.

And here I sit, with garments torn,
With dust upon my wretched head,
A bloated corpse, a public scorn,
Loathed like the rotting dead.

O for the days that now are gone,
That hope and comfort could afford,
When on my happy footsteps shone
The candle of the Lord!

But He has wrapt me in the dark,
With fainting heart and fading eye;
And set me as a trembling mark
At which his arrows fly.

Oh, hide me in the house of death,
And let me there in secret be;
And when is past thine hour of wrath,
O Lord! remember me!

103

THE VOICE OF THE LORD.

(JOB, Xxxviii.)

FROM the whirlwind thus thundered the voice of the

Lord :

How vain is thy boasting-how weak is thy word!
In the presence of Him, that has formed thee of dust,
Dar'st thou think to be holy or hope to be just?

Where wast thou, O man of ephemeral birth! When on nothing I laid the foundations of earth? When the hymn of creation triumphantly flowed From the stars of the morn and the angels of God?

Where wast thou, O child of the wise and the proud!
When I covered the sea with its garment the cloud,
When I ordered its waters from valley and hill,
up its chambers, and bade it be still?

And shut

Say, hast thou commanded the day-spring on high
To know its due hour at the gates of the sky?
Or hast thou descended alone on thy path,

Το

open the doors of the shadow of death?

Say, hast thou discovered the dwelling of light,
And found out thy way to the home of the night?
Or entered the treasures of hail and of snow,
Which I keep for the season of battle and wo?

Canst thou tell who engendered the dew and the rain
That nourish the herbage of mountain and plain?
Or the frost that dismantles the flower and the tree,
And stretches a path o'er the depths of the sea?