SONG OF HANNAH.

O plead for thy brother, now smitten by God,
And chased from the presence of men,

Like creatures that come not in day-light abroad,
To couch in his desolate den!

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O plead that his prayer of repentance and wo
May be heard where the fountains of mercy o'erflow !

And if the Almighty permit thee to leave

The regions of glory and rest,

O come to our dreams through the shadows of eve,
Like the star that appears in the west;

And speak to our souls, if permission be given,
Of the pardon of sin and the promise of heaven!

SONG OF HANNAH.

(1 SAMUEL, ii. 1–10.)

My heart rejoiceth in the Lord,
On high exalted is my horn;
For he hath heard my fervent word,
And unto me a son is born :
Even I, the lonely and forlorn,
That long a childless journey trod,
Can now a Nazarite unshorn

Devote to holiness and God.

Ye favour'd mothers boast no more
Of all your numerous offspring now;
For he, the God whom I adore,

Regards the humble suppliant's vow:

He breaks the mighty warrior's bow,
He makes the feeble like a rock;

And throws-as Carmel's cedars throw—

A shelter round his faithful flock.

He makes the barren to rejoice

In children that around them bloom;
And those that heard an offspring's voice,
To mourn around their early tomb:
He lifts the beggar from the gloom
Of sorrows that around him reign;
And sinks the monarch to a doom
Of friendless poverty and pain.

He lights the footsteps of the just
Through paths that dazzle and betray;
And leaves the wicked in the dust,
Bereft of each conducting ray:
By him the living turn to clay,
By him the dead are all restor'd;
He giveth life-he takes away-
How great and mighty is the Lord!

VISION OF ELIPHAZ.

(JOB, iv.)

Ar midnight, when refreshing slumbers fall
Upon the weary, like a gentler death,
Fear overcame me in my visions—all

My members shook like willows in the wrath

THE RAINBOW.

Of winter winds-upon its noiseless path, I saw a Spirit pass serenely by

An image indistinct. My pausing breath Within me died-my hair stood up, and I

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Thus, in my terrors, heard its message from on high:"Shall frail and mortal creatures be more just,

More holy than their great Creator-God? Even in his saints he will not place his trust, Even in his angels, that have never trod Earth's sinful climes-much less in men-a clod Of breathing dust, whose hopes are in the clay; Who die before the moth-who, from the abode Of momentary being, glide away

Into forgetfulness, for ever and for aye."

Bethink thee, Job! for thou hast often given
Strength to the feeble hand, the feeble knee;
But now that comfort from thy heart is riven,
Lo! thou are faithless in thy misery :-
Bethink thee, Job, that blest alone is he
Whom God corrects-'tis he who maketh sore,
Who bindeth up-the man of piety,

In good old age, shall, like a sail that bore

Her course thro'ocean-storms, pass to the eternal shore.

THE RAINBOW.

(GENESIS, viii, ix.)

WHEN the floods of the deluge to ocean had roll'd,
And the green-mantled hills re-appeared;
When the valleys unfolded their blossoms of gold,
And Noah, the patriarch, came forth from his hold,
The voice of Jehovah was heard-

The voice of Jehovah brought tidings of bliss
To the world late entomb'd in the fearful abyss:

"The smoke of thine offering hath come up on high, Thou father of nations to be!

And now I my rainbow shall set in the sky,

When tempests are dark to thy terrified

That shall bring consolation to thee—

eye,

To thousands of thousands that after thee tread
The regions of life to the realms of the dead.

"It is for a sign that I never again

With waters shall cover the earth;

And the birds in the arbours shall warble their strain, And the cattle shall browse on the nourishing plain, And give to their progeny birth:

And die as they died by the curse that I spoke, When my cov'nant of old by thy father was broke.

"And thou, Noah, thou art preserv'd for thy worth, To repeople the desolate world;

To the climes of the south, to the isles of the north, To the east and the west, shall thy children go forth, With the white flags of ocean unfurled—

To publish my praises throughout every land, And the judgments of vengeance that come from my hand.

"And seed-time and harvest shall duly be given To the hopes and the hands of mankind; And summer and winter, and morning and even, And the dew-drops of earth, and the light-rays of heaven,

And the cloud, and the rain, and the wind—

SELF-IMPORTANCE.

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While earth on her orbit is destined to run,
And give her green breast to the beams of the sun."

SELF-IMPORTANCE.

(ISAIAH, Xxiii, 9.)

WHEN vain man begins to tell
The wonders of his story,

How long his heart delights to dwell
Upon his love and glory;

Upon his youthful strength of limb,
Upon the deeds achieved by him—
Though now his faded eyes be dim,
And now his locks be hoary!

He talks as if his human prime
Had been the prime of nature;
He talks of men, in former time,
Of more than mortal stature ;
He talks as if the sun of day
With his decaying would decay,
As earth herself would pass away
With such a fragile creature.

Vain man! the insect in the beam
Of summer's radiant morning,
May have the same delightful dream
Its transient hopes adorning ;
The worm upon the public path,
May think it shall retain its breath
For ever-when 'tis trod to death
By brother mortal's scorning.